Preparing for springtime,plans for summer.

Winter season continues in Finland and don't seem to take off for a while either so not much else I can do then to getting ready for springtime.
Last post it was about fly tying and this post will be some update about pimp my yak.

Got some plans to discover new waters next summer and think it's much easier if I got a sonar installed and have every now and then on lunchtime and after work mounted part after part and now it's only to charge the battery and then it's only couple of small things to do like getting a waterproof box behind the seat and mount a anchor trolley on the other side too.

Got a Garmin echo,a Lowrance transducer set to be mount in scupper hole.and a universal rack from Ram mount for the display so it needed some customizing before Mounting.

Started from the transducer,Garmin transducer mounted to a Lowrance rack didn't need anything else then a bit of naylon mounted into the fastening and voíla...problem No.1 solved.

As you can see on the photo I had a ready kit for mounting the transducer so it was just to mount it.

Not too difficult but still a fiddly thing was to mount the display on that universal rack.
But with some modifying and a piece of PVC plastic I ended up to a result I'm happy with.

So,after these operations it was easy to mount the rack onto the yak,gotta love Ram mounts parts.

A thing I thought would be easy found out to be the toughest task....Electricity.
Wrestled with different solutions and ended up with the easiest one,not because I'm lazy but because I didn't want to drill extra holes in my ship.Not extremely happy with this but it will do,At least easy to remove if there's need to.

As you can see this installation is far from professional but wanna try to keep things simple but functional.
If this not work then I have think again.
Biggest issue with adding anything on a kayak in my opinion is as a fly fisher to found solutions where your fly line doesn't tangle up on your mountings,it will be pain in the ass sooner or later,that's also a reason why it's nice to be able to remove everything if needed.

Tying updates.

Cold,snow and ice seems to be the name of the game at the moment.
We had a warmer period here when my thoughts run into some fishing just to noticed that we are facing a freezy period for the next week with temps -5 to -15 degrees so actually there's not much I can do at the moment.
Of course there have been some tying,not that I'm in need of flies,tied just for fun,working on a new model but don't wanna tie too many of it before some tests,and I don't mean bath tube tests.

One interesting thing that I have done is building of couple of new fly lines of running lines and shooting heads.
A friend of mine has usually built them for me but now I have built some of my own too so got more options to try out now,Nice to do some experiments on his era too.
Have also done some small things on my kayak so pretty much ready for season 2015,it really hurts to see photos from some friends from Sweden and GB where they got open waters,loosing my patience here.

My latest ties have been on tube again,just because of change,still gonna tie some small (10 cm) flies on hook.

Winter tying

Well,last year I open my season 1. Jan but this year it was a bit difficult so when I can't go fishing I have to do something else instead.
Had tied some flies on hook and home made shank and now when my boxes are full of them it was time to go back on tubes again but I will surely use hook flies too in forthcoming season,didn't remember they were that nice to cast,and this model was pretty effective too.

As you can see some of their heads are tied with different model and shape just to test a bit the movement.

Those who goes that nice sic-sac move looks just awesome in the water with that shank banging from side to side,not a surprise they also caught most fish.

Had my boxes filled so I decided to send some flies to Sweden to a nice lady who also love to fly fish for pike,hopefully Swedish pikes also accept the offer.

Well,here's room for both tubes and hook flies in my fishing,also from small tiny 10 cm flies to gigantic +35 cm flies.

Most of my flies tied on hook fit in right between those two examples,20-22 cm long.

Not that I would need anymore flies before spring but still ordered more material from http://www.fishline.se so both pike rigs and flies will be done before spring....and a new pike line too....and also wanna work on my kayak that probably will be my next project.