Nighttime --> piketime ?

Because we have had so warm here lately pikes hasn't co-operate in a way I would have wanted. I haven't been out as much as I use to be,not that I have been away from teasing them totally,not at all,just not much to tell you about,some photos from latest..

Anyway not as much action that I wanted.At sometimeI decided to try a thing many people have spoke about lately and that's night or late evening fishing,had planned it for some time when I found a friend who was willing to go with me to try it out.
Said and done,watched forecasts and we decided a day suitable for both of us.

Felt pretty excited when we glide away from the dock with my boat 7 pm in a warm sunny weather.
Our plan was to fish different spots while we still had some sunlight with us,and in twilight time move in to a area which is pretty big with lot of baitfish waiting for mama's to come for a late dinner.
I decided to start with my brand new ties,and already with my second cast I managed to land my first fish,hey,this might be a good evening was my thoughts even if it was a small one.

So,the game was on and with the bow motor we slowly cruised behind the shoreline and as soon as I changed my fly to a green/gold I managed to land the second one,dropped one before this.

Expectations went higher and higher now and I felt pretty happy when I noticed that our plan about arriving to our main spot just in twilight realized.

The bow motor had been a bit wonky from the beginning and typically it went totally out of order now when we mostly needed it.
So now we had to move on with the head engine only which I knew would make our fishing much more challenging.
Fished for couple of hours with very little action,I managed to land just one jack while my friend was pretty close to blank which you can see on him =D

"Big or small,love them all" motto was put to the test when we had sky high expectations so even if I feel a bit ashamed of my look I still will add a photo of the last fish caught of the day.

Sorry about that....
After this landed  fish we fished for one and a half hour more without any more action and our focus was more on the very aggressive mozzi's then fishing so at 00,30 we decided to give up but while driving  back to shore we decided to do this kind of trip again but better prepared with some things we really could have used if we just had figure out we would need them like some kind of torch or flashlight and insecticide.
Most of all I need to secure that the bow motor work,or maybe a kayak trip could be the name of the game,who knows.
Ending this post with some random landscape photos.Cheers.

Big Mama(s) on board

Ended a fishing marathon yesterday,fished for three days from sunrise to sunset in a weather that could almost be called tropical,temps up to 30 degrees,no clouds and very little wind,don't know,am I getting old but I enjoyed my time even if the weather wasn't optimal for pike fishing.
I had some other aims than just fishing too.i wanted to test my Vision Big Mama rod with different lines and secondly also test my Minn kota bow motor too.

About the motor,it worked just fine now but it's not that handy as I thought,at least for fly fishing,the boat moves and rotating way too much with the Ipilot anchor and in even light winds it's very difficult to get it move forward slow enough while casting so I think I prefer old honest reliable anchor system when fly fishing.

The rod....You might remember I had some serious problems with my Big Mama earlier this season but as things look now they seem to be over now.
It's not a secret I don't like sink lines,really don't like them.In these three days testing I have to say that I was wrong.
It's not I don't like them,I fuckin hate them !!!
Had me three sink lines with me.All tested lines were  #9 weighted.
-Rio Outbound short F/S1
-Rio Scandinavian Pike F/S2
-Big Daddy S3

If I had to choose just one line which need to be sink I would quit fly fishing.....Just kidding,I would take Rio OB,heavily overweighted 30,2 ft head,pretty nice to cast,at least it suit my style of casting but what I don't like is the floating running line,also got a feeling it sink slower than many intermediate lines ?????

I wanted to fish too so no floating lines was tested in these warm conditions.
Told you I hate sink lines so maybe surprisingly my favorite came from Intermediate lines which I had four with me.
-Big Daddy SloMo
-Big Daddy Intermediate
-Rio Outbound short Intermediate
-Airflo 40+ Sniper Intermediate

At this point I need to remind you this was NOT a democratic test where all lines got the same chances.
If I found a line I liked I fished more with it,also winds and wind directions played a role too,not to mention some lines were brand new,some were thee years old,so DON'T TAKE THIS AS ANY KIND OF TEST,it's only about what line I prefer for MY use !!!

BD SloMo was fished very little with,just because I think it's more for colder water in shallow areas,still not a bad line,not at all.
The other three were pretty close to each other but I think I choose Airflo as a winner,30ft long head also heavily overweighted ????? did not scale it but it definitely felt so,like the sink speed of it too,I could easily use this one line for early spring to warmest summer weather,just add some coneheads on the leader if needed.A cheap price is also a credit ,44€ against BD 70€...

Rio came pretty close but the problem is that I don't trust that line anymore,posted earlier about the durability problems but still a wonderful line to cast.

Rio OB:s 24,3 gram weight compared to BD:s 21gram doesn't feel that much I thought it would have done,maybe the lenght of the head have something to do with it (BD:s 27,9ft to OB:s 30,2 ft)?????

 Summa summarum it seem that I like lines like me,heavily overweighted  =D
Funny that Airflo turned to be my favorite because I didn't like it in the beginning in very cold conditions.

An finally,my rod is still in four pieces,very powerful action,nice to handle with a fish on,really like this one and even if it seem to had some problems first I still trust Vision as a brand and my latest issue with my Hardy rod push me further to be a vision user.

Finally some photos of both landscapes and some landed fishes including some very nice and strong fishes,over one hundred fishes landed in these three days,today I'm gonna have a day of and planning some fishing for tomorrow.CHEERS.

Roses and branches.

Told you about a year ago how lucky I've been to deal with nice good companies with common sense and have dealt with lot more of them since that.
Have broke two Vision Big Mama rods this season. First replacement offered to brought down to the shore same day,I wasn't that hurry but tells me about that they really care about their customers,second rod broke was more of my own fault but still excellent service in this case too,a big credit to Spey Clave Helsinki too ---> absolute worth roses.

Before we hand out any branches I wanna hand out some more roses too.One to Daniel Holm from denmark,the owner of http://www.bluedotmediashop.dk/?lang=uk because of his awesome materials for pikeflies,even if we pike anglers are a minority among flyfishing he always got the right stuff and listening to us what we need.
Many of us would love to use those nice grizzly feathers on our flies but also many of not using them because they are expensive,Daniel have solved that problem this way  http://www.bluedotmediashop.dk/group.asp?group=548  AWESOME !!!! and thank's.

And also some art to all of us,I would love to have one of these too but unfortunately I can't decide of that of my own and because I live with some people who not share my passion for pike and I would probably not get permission for this pic..even if I would love to have it.

If you get permission you can get it from Daniels shop  http://www.bluedotmediashop.dk/product.asp?product=2875 among other prints too.

My final rose in this post goes to Steven Osborne from http://www.foxy-tails.co.uk/category-66.html Who is except a awesome fly tier a nice guy in any way.Not much pike materials but high quality of what he got and so many tips and hints from him I can´t remember,especially the tip of  http://www.foxy-tails.co.uk/category-96/OPFIB100.html  and  http://www.foxy-tails.co.uk/category-96/PQMC100.html has give me so much options in my tying.
Both web shops well worth a visit.

So,my bag is empty of roses,only branches left but thank god only one company deserve it in my opinion.
First of all I need to say that I'm a guy with some patience,would never judge anything or anybody for one mistake,it can happen to anyone/body.Even several mistakes happen sometimes but indifferent attitude is something I dislike when I want/need service I pay for !!!

I own a Hardy Zane rod which I broke by my own mistake earlier this year,so I contacted my dealer Spey Clave Helsinki who took this case to be solved.The contacted Hardys new importer Purefishing Finland Oy
First answer  was that THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN ANY BROKEN RODS,which meant I had to solve this by my own.
Some phone calls and mails later I understood that Hardy  dealing only with importers,not individual costumers...see the difficulty here to do something ???
After a week Spey Clave finally managed Purefishing to take some action of my rod but have waited for some weeks for a ANSWER on a fuckin E-Mail,not live in big hopes to get my rod repaired ever.
My friend sent his rod to them and it has been on a warranty repair for over SIX !!!!! MONTHS now,nobody answers on phone,no answers on E-Mails either.
here the other day on a Finnish fly fishing site there was a guy wondering why nobody answer to his mails,enough coincidences for me to decide this is shit customer service.
Purefishing Finland,change your name to Purecheating.Just PURE CHEATING !!! leave Finland out of this so people not think we are all same dickheads here.Thank god for Visions warranty.

That's all for now,hopefully some tight lines and bended  but not broken rods,especially if you own a Hardy and live in Finland...

28.6 2014 A day to remember.

Kept on watching at forecasts several times a day the whole week before the D-day last Sat.
The reason for that was I had my friend,Pietro with me fishing and I always want my friends have a good fishing when thy out with me.As usually the forecasts changed all through the week and finally on Saturday almost everything except some sunshine was good for pikefishing.
Wind from south,raising air pressure,and raising water level made me forget the sunshine,to be honest,don't know if I'm getting old or what but I actually enjoined the sunshine,
Had many spots in my mind even before we went out,and when we arrived to the first place I saw a well known boat close to it,two friends was also out fishing and we had a quick talk with them,they had not  landed a single fish yet,oh no,not one of these days again I hoped.
We anchored a way from them and started to fish and not long before Pietro had a hit on his fly,and minutes later he landed his own PB on fly,a nice 102 cm ma'm

Game on then and in style.We kept fishing the same shoreline landing some fishes now and then but the big guns were missed.
When fishing this shoreline you come in to a bay which include a big area to fish and we spent some hours fishing here but except a drop of a slightly better fish the size was small.

At one stage after maybe 15-20 landed pikes we had a moment of an hour without any action so we decided to totally change our tactics and soon we were arrived in to a sheltered bay with barely no wind at all and started to comb this area which looked like anything could happen now.
but except for some more jacks it was not until the very last stop before it start to happen....
had my boat slowly gliding into position for fishing and not too many casts before I felt a small pike at the other end of the line...wait....this ain't a pike,it's a big pearch
soon I landed propably my biggest pearch ever,about 40 cm long,this really made my day.

There was more to come,minutes after mine nice fish Pietro said "fish on" ,said fish on because he knew it wasn't a pike and not long before he landed a in my eyes a incredible 46 cm !!!

Not every day you making two new PB:s in a couple of hours.Now it was good time to put a end to this day which we will remember for a long time.
Also decided to try more seriously for pearch some day and my gearing up for it has already started,
Here you got some random photos from our nice day at the office :)