Preparing for the season highlight.

Not many days left before the long awaited trip will become true and my preparing going on with high intensity now,don't want anything to go wrong.
Biggest thing has been study maps and forecasts and trying to figure out some good color combos for the area,not going to take any pressure on small things,even if I wan't to be prepared for different situations.

Sorting out flies is important =D

The fishable area is shallow so I got me a custom slow sink line which I think will be most used.
Airflo Sniper fast inter will also be on a reel.These lines with some coneheads will propably cover most situations.
A Big Daddy line sink 3 will also be on a spool,just in case.

Thought about four rods,
-Vision Big Daddy
-Vision GT4
-Vision Big Mama
-Guideline LpXe Rs V2

Three reels will be used.
-Vision Tank
-Vison Koma Cassette with three spools
-Hardy Demon Cassette also with three spools (just in case,otherwise I don't use ANYTHING made by Hardy)
A big amount of flies,but need to be carefully sorted out in materials and colors so they will be easy to find when needed.

Got me some hook-rigs ready but will make some new too,both with stingers and without them,
Got me a spool of 0.80 mm fluorocarbon so need to make some leaders too
I have some hook rigs with stinger hooks too and even if I barely not use them at all but think they can travel with me anyway.

So,only clothes and other personal stuff to be packed and I will be ready to lay back and enjoy my fishing highlight of the year.
Funny how all preparing has been much more carefully with this trip only because I'm going abroad,need to think it's only two days fishing and for pike as usual so only venues will be new thing here.
Not much more I can do or say so I'm gonna end this post by saying:

BLEKINGE;HERE I COME....

Blanking before Blekinge.

while writing this there's a heavy wind blowing outside but at least not so freezy like last weekend I was out fishing/blanking.
Felt very strange I had to stop fishing in middle of the day when my fishing area slowly got an ice blanket on itself.

Really hope that this is temporary,not wanna end my season in Finland yet.It was cold right from the morning and went not much warmer during the day.Water level was low,no wind and sunshine played a part in blanking I think.

Well....as my friend said years ago,a trip is as good as the food you bring with you and this time I had some goulash soup which really tasted heavenly in this cold weather.

Would have taste good to land some mommas before next weekends fishing event in southern Sweden.
This weekend was dedicated to some other things than fishing but hoping to get at least one go before the trip but anyway,still gearing up for this event.

You can read more about the event from  https://www.facebook.com/jacksonkayakfishingopen?fref=ts

Or from   http://www.pikestrikesweden.com/kayak.php?category=kayak

I'm really looking forward to this,will be fun to meet other kayak anglers and test different kayaks.
Most of all I'm waiting to get a ride with Jackson new yak "Kraken"
This week will be much preparing for the event,will try to release an update before the trip so stay tuned.

Fly tying.

Just noticed here the other day that I haven't post much of any fly tying recently.

Even if I haven't There has been some tying,not as much as usually but think my latest flies are tied with more conception then earlier ones.

Now when I tie less flies than before I thought that I could tell you more about the flies I tie,materials why I use them etc,etc and also add some photos from middle of tying.

But those are plans of future.For this post I can only add photos of ready tied flies.

Some of these ties  are so old I don't even remember all materials been used

Pink'n'purple.

Actually I tied this fly just because I wanted to try my new "Raspberry" colored Angelina fiber on a fly.
It's tied on a blue pneumatic tube 3/5 mm.
Tied in three parts,Tail,body and head.

Tailpart is tied of light purple bucktail,Added some Predator flash in holo sunset color and red grizzly feathers.

Body is a mix of Hedron flash in purple,teal blue,pink and pearl,tied in a loop.

Head is simply tied of Angelina fiber in raspberry color and trimmed afterward.

Funny thing is that raspberry seem more pink than raspberry in my eyes.

Orange'n'pearl

Once again a fly that turned out from my vise totally different that what it was meant to.
Believe it or not but it was meant to be a bream pattern when I took a seat behind the vise but it went wrong right from the start.
This one is tied in two parts,tail and head.

It started with some silver grey bucktail but instead of adding olive bucktail I added some Hedron magnum flash in mirage color so my idea of a breampattern was gone alreay.
couple of lateral scale strands in opal and tail part was ready-

After a cup of coffee I thought some orange Ostrich would look good,well found only these barred herls so thought they will do.Some black on top too,still don't know the idea why.....

As the head I had already tied same raspberry colored angelina fiber but before I added super glue I looked at it and thought no,no,no,no not good so it turned to be a white head of angelina fiber in blue pearl color,afterward I think black would have been best but....not this time
This fly has already some pikes landed so it haven't gone totally wrong anyhow.

Tånglaken.

This pattern or any variant of it has been my absolutely all time favorite nowadays,many really nice fishes landed with it,
Of some reason I use to tie these flies BIG,usually +30 cm:s.
Even if it's big I use to tie them in three parts,tail,body and head.

Use to start with a mix of rootbear brown and bright yellow, followed by a mix of Magnum flash in copper,orange and pearl colors.to gte some contrast I added lateral scale in gold color.Often add some dryfly hackle feathers but on this I noticed that I had some awesome +35 cm ostrich herls in yellow color so I decided to use them instead.

Body part is simply built of a mix of bucktail in rootbear and dark olive colors,then added some copper and pearl flash and topped with ostrich herls in ginger and olive colors.

Trying to keep it simple with a head of Optic fibre in forrest blaze color.
Have to mention about these eyes here.They are 16 mm eyes from flydressing and suit fine imo on big flies like this.

Ice cold

Don't know about you but I feel it very difficult to a fly using only one color,still I think that a clear white fly with just some small adds is one of the most best looking patterns.
This one is tied in medium size because it's meant for ice cold conditions and in my opinion a bit smaller flies works better then.

Two parts here tail and head parts,simple to tie.

Started with some White bucktail topped with Magnum flash in mirage color and white ostrich herls.
Head part is just angelina fiber in blue pearl color,Eyes 16 mm flydressing,just love them.

Simple as that,just waiting for right conditions now

Black'n'Red 

Hard to think there's a single angler who don't have a fly ore lure with this combo in their box.
For many years I lived up to my Dad's "truth", You cant catch a fish with a black'n'red in sunny weather....
I think that's the reason I started so lately to use this combo which has often saved my day from blanking,both rainy AND sunny days :)

Anyway,I have tied these colors in hundred different versions but this is my latest,nothing tricky here even if it's tied in three parts.
Before tail part I added something new here,Started with some Polar chenille in red before I got the tail part bucktail in black.

Then a mix of Hedron holo black and opal
As body I tied both black and red bucktail,black on top and red at the underside of the tube.
Black ostrich herls on top and red on the underside.
Find it hard to tie without flash so I added couple of mirage colored strands of crystal flash on both side of the fly.
Gave it a long thinking should the head be tied of optic fiber or something else and as you can see something else won this time.
I tied the head of Artic fox 3XL in a loop and just to get some contrast I added some red fox on both sides under the eyes.
This is a fly which have already a lot of landed fishes even if it's not an old tie.

So,here was some of my latest ties,will add more stories and photos as soon as I get more flies tied.

Fishing Oct.11

Was earlier this week out on Thursday in perfect weather conditions but only for a couple hours fishing after work,windy,foggy,cloudy,rising waterlevel and already some twilight but only fishcontact was an eyecontact of  a +100 cm nice pike swimming in a narrow channel on my way to planned fishing area.

So....Today,standing at the shore staring at a calm surface of a sea which level was at least -30 cm didn't raise my hope too much but,nothing you can do about weather conditions and I had also my friend who I wrote about in my last post with me so if there's no fishes willing to co-operate I at least have some good company so...once again I have to say:Fishing from a yak,good company and good food,it just can't go wrong.
My friend has limited time to be out fishing so without much of a trickery we decided our daily plan and went out not far from the shore and started to fish.

First cast and my friend landed a fish.

Not a bad start.We fished this spot for about 35-40 minutes and even if the fishing was good with my friends three and my one landed fish we decided to try those more known spots.

While we were paddling the sun decided to show up among the clouds and I was able to get a nice photo shoot of my friend.

Also our friend wind decided to wake up,not much but enough to break the all too calm surface which was a welcome thing  to happen.

My friend decided to stop on a place which I decided to skip cause of the wind blowing from a tricky direction,I stopped about two hundred meter further on in a slightly more shelter place.
Had a feeling of a big pike when I anchored here,fished here until my friend arrived,landed a small jack before we decided to take a lunch break.

 
So,still nothing else than jacks landed but I was still enjoying fishing and being out.
We found a place on a beach with a table and a bench but most of all with a stunning view !!!

This is why I love kayaking,have fishing for years same places and every time I find something new in some way that makes me love kayak fishing more and more.
Not everyday I managed to enjoy sandwiches with these kind of views.

I could have sit here much longer but because we had pretty good fishing we both wanted out to continue fishing and with a schedule with limited time we had planned our trip with short intervals.
stayed on next spot pretty long because we both dropped some fishes couple of times and wanted to get revenge on that.
Anyway we both got our dropped fishes landed but size still far from the potential this place has proofed to have.

We had a good time but clock was ticking and we had time for one stop were my friend landed one and I continued with a pretty annoying thing,dropping fishes,at least six or seven dropped fishes was not a thing I expected to happen,have not had kinda problems before.
Got a idea why I was dropping fishes,I might have to downsize used flies but wanted to go for big guns but might still be a bit too early for that,but the hunt continues.

Fishing October 4:th

These days fishing is pretty much to study the forecasts which also has to fit in in my other schedule.
Unfortunately I'm a part of that people who has to work five days a week to get my bills paid so
even if there was no wind and water level was on around -20 cm I was pretty happy to be able to early on Saturday morning launch my yak and before 9 am I laid out my first cast trying to fool some pikes to make a hit.

First 30 minutes was very boring with a totally calm surface and as cherry on top I got some heavy and cold rain showers on me.

Tried both big and small flies but it took me almost an hour before I felt something on the other end of the line,a small jack who followed my fly,nibbling on the end of it but no way he would never managed to reach the hook,not bigger than the fly I used...
After this I downsized my flies and landed some jacks,on my way to my planned final location.
I was pleased that there was not much left of the rain I was able to even eat something without getting soaked.
Funny how after eating everything feel much better and even the focus is on right track and when fishing I managed to land fishes better,no dropped fishes now.
Even if I use to go with a motto "big or small,love them all" I wanted to go for bigger ones,small jacks had already raped a bunch of flies to this condition.

Changed my fly to a +30 cm model "chicken" and continued with that but with very thin results.
Also started to get a bit cold,had fished for almost eight hours already and the twilight was on it's way too so decided to slowly paddle back fishing some spots on my way,
Not far from my last planned stop I managed to get a cast in a small pocket among the reeds and almost immediately I felt a very heavy hit on the fly,
Had a fight for couple of minutes without any eyecontact with the fish and I was sure this was a big one,had a +30 cm fly on and couldn't get her up to surface to show her and decided to try to get my GoPro with headstrap  on with one hand while I fought the fish with the other,might have been a funny wiew.

After some minutes I managed go get an eyecontact with the fish and felt slightly disappointed of the size of  the fish,biggest of the day but far from a monster.
Took a photo using my new built camera rig.

As you can see,the fish ain't big but next day when I emptied the memory card from my cam I finally understood what I had been a part of,My motto is really captured on film now and also I can say that size doesn't matter.
Here's a link to my fight with this madam,hope we meet again after couple of years/kilos
Hope you enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWipvWMnA2M