Pike season is on.Wiggletail rocks

Sunday April 5:th will be written in history as my season opener.
Heard on Friday that there was some open water to fish but had some other plans for Saturday so were no able get out on same day but I can tell you it was a long day just waiting for Sunday.
Didn't sleep too much that night and was up early on Sunday morning and after a quick breakfast I met my friends at the shore as we started to gearing up for the day.
It was windy,cold and cloudy day which felt even colder then what it actually was due to the three and a half month long pause I have had since my last trip in late December

After we had made a game plan we went out on water,hard to describe that feeling when my yak slide into the water,oh man I was happy.
There were still some ice on many of my ordinary spots and also a heavy wind so we had to think a bit outside the box and we found some "allright" places to fish from.
In our first bay there were no ice at all but a pretty tough wind to fight against.
Had all my new flies with me and decided to start with a "Wiggletail",hottest of the hot new stuff.
Fished for a while and no long before I felt some light bite on my fly and yes,first fish of the year landed,Nice.

Wiggletail done the job.

Fished here for a while but nothing more than a dropped fish for me so we decided to take a short break,we were all hungry already.

Kayak parking.

Some warm soup and juice taste so good out here and keep the focus on.

Tried some other flies too but with no result.

We decided to paddle a bit further out but kept in mind that we had to paddle against the wind on our way back so we didn't go as far as we had planned.

Dropped two more fishes which one felt like a better one and it was time for another break.

Technology.

After a break we decided to slowly start to paddle back fishing some spots on our way and it was nice to get to a calm bay and also the sun showed up among the clouds for a while.
Amazing how different conditions can be due to places.Water temps was almost three degrees warmer here than on the other spots.
Dropped two fishes here,one felt like a better one,but not sure.Anyway as soon as I had change back to a wiggletail I had some action.

Not much more to tell you about,it was very nice to be able to get out after so long pause.

A remarkable thing  was that wiggletail flies or in this case fly (pink/white) was simply outstanding for me,outstanding even if I gave a fair chance to other type of flies too,had not a single hit on any other fly.

My friends collected their fishes with a "ordinary" flies,Spin fisher blanked....of course =D

                                                         Mon.April 6:th

Woke up pretty early and noticed that every muscle in my body ached A LOT !!!!
Barely get up from the bed and while drinking coffee I decided,believe me or not to not go fishing today.
After some hours I found myself staring out  of the window,sunshine,no wind.....
15 minutes later I found myself sitting in my car on my way to the shore.
Was down at the shore so late I decided to not paddle far out and took only one box,one rod with me.

As I thought,no action,three small tiny hits on the fly on this nice warm calm day,fished for only three hours today.

Next weekend will probably be dedicated to fly fishing fair at Ylöjärvi on Saturday and on Sunday forecast promised hard wind so not sure if I be able to fish at all but at least season is on.

D-Day getting closer.

Tomorrow April 5:th will finally be D-Day for my 2015 pike season.I can say that it's a day I have waited for big time.
Not that I got any high hopes of any super catches but it will be nice to finally come out for some fishing.Also very often blanked my first trip of the season so.....
Got my pimped yak loaded on the roof of my car,new tied flies packed etc,etc...

 
Feel so good to everything sorted out in good time.
Have tied up some new flies which I will write more about in some other post but feeling extra excited about Wiggletails and Pike Skinz baitfish patterns.

Forecast for tomorrow.....+5 degrees,wind from east 4-7 m/s,cloudy.not bad...not at all,biggest concern is that I have heard the water is very murky in most of the places so I need to find some clear water and just hope I will be able to break the "first trip blanking" curse.
Think I will spend a sleepless night,way too excited now,but need to try,hopefully I can add some nice crackin pics tomorrow

UV.Neon.Glitter.Glow and Bling bling.

Now then,it's Wednesday and these last days has been real pain in the ass,must be something wrong with clocks.
Everything should be ready for the big kickoff next Saturday so everything I do is just for fun.
Have been tying some flies just to keep all new tricks I learned on the fair fresh in mind.
Flies with UV materials have been in headlines for a time but to be honest I have not give them too much attention until I saw the difference live showed by Mr Bauer.
Had to dig my UV lamp from storage and check if had any UV materials home,and yes,found some.
To be honest I have not immersed in the UV,Neon or any "glow in the dark" materials to know all the attributes they have but it was cool to turn of the lights and turn on the UV lamp.

Got one fly tied (it took me fuckin two days ) and have to say I'm happy,will get a go next Saturday.

As i wrote I don't got any knowledge about this material so think I need to check my other flies with a UV lamp,might be some surprises found among them.Really need to sit down and study differences among this materials to get some more knowledge about it.
Anyway,see the difference.

As I  however was playing around with materials I made a slightly different head on this fly by adding some glitter on it's head.

Borrowed this idea from a Swedish female angler Sussi Stridh who I once saw using nail polish ending her flies.

You can check out her blog here  http://www.fisheco.se/blogg/sussissymfoni/ 

I had run out of nail polish so I used this glitter instead......

And don't forget tomorrow to check in at:

https://www.youtube.com/user/kanalgratisdotse  for Fly VS Jerk 6 episode 5

C'mon you fly guys :)

Go Expo 2015 + new ties

So,the official spring mark has been left behind,talking about Go Expo fair in Helsinki and even if this was a cheap task financially for me it was a cool nice fair again.
Spend some time at http://www.erakettu.com/wp/ booth acquainting fishing kayaks to people.
What I liked was that people were very interested in fishing from kayaks.
Hopefully more people will find this wonderful type of fishing.
Many manufacturer had different models showed up so people had a great opportunity to compare them here.
Also Jackson kayaks new Kraken model was showed up.

And as a cherry on the cake,theme for the fishing section at the fair was "Pike" and it seemed we had a Swedish invasion in Helsinki with some well known names from several videos.
Saw my namesake Johan Ruhe from https://www.youtube.com/user/kanalgratisdotse producer of Fly VS Jerk films,a real survivor kit for me in winter times waiting for open water.
A competitor from those films,a luremaker Claes "Svartzonker" Claesson,really funny guy.
A casting instructor who's videos I watched late nights when I tried to learn casting with DH rods,Mattias Drugge,his casting show was nice,even if I don´t do too much DH fishing I had to watch it.

Last but not least a guy who is pretty much to blame that I fly fish for pike nowadays.
Niklaus Bauer from http://www.flydressing.se/  was tying on both  http://www.visionflyfishing.com/ and http://shop.helsinkispeyclave.com/ booths.His fly tying videos has been a huge inspiration for my tying and at least 90 % of my flies is based on his patterns and also a huge inspiration source overall.
A gentleman with with a big G who kindly gave  me some awesome advice how to improve and make my own tying easier.

His videos are cool but seeing him tying live was something special,saw many small things you can't see on videos which I will for sure try to bring into my own tying also.

Shame I missed our own Finnish tyer Jari Koski show,have seen his flies on many sites and they look awesome,would have been nice to see his flies live too,maybe next year.

Of course I have to add my latest ties,fresh from vice,Tried to tie with all tips and hints I got and I'm happy with the result,not maybe their time yet but still excited with them.

I have woken up

Don't know why but somehow I feel like I have been in sleep for a long time and slowly waking up from some kind of hibernation.
Have even tied flies lately which I don't have had energy for a long time.

One big energy boost has come from Chris Chandler at  http://jerkbaitmania.co.uk/  and Pike Skinz material.
Not just the material,it has also been some kind of awakening for me and now I got almost everyday new visions in everything that has to do with tying or fishing generally,feels good....

Don't know if there's anything new in this pattern but I haven't tied these kind of flies before,named them to brooms,just because of their messy look before their first swim.
You saw some ties couple posts ago but now I have also made a video of them

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

Brooms,Wiggle tails,Pike Skinz..... Oh come on spring.....

BTW.It's Thursday and its showtime again,check in at https://www.youtube.com/user/kanalgratisdotse  today because it's time for fourth episode of
Fly VS Jerk 6

Current scores are:

Let it roll fly guys

Wiggle tails

My first touch with these Wigglers are from 2010 or 2011 When I saw Simon Graham tying flies using them,thought they were cool but I was a real rookie in fly tying that time.Could not even dream about using them at that time,very little knowledge about different materials etc,etc...

Not mastering tying nowadays either but have learned at least something about materials in five years.
Was happy to be able get my hands on some of these.

Have tied only one "test-fly" so far and made a short test in my bath tube and have to say that I really believe they can make the difference.
The idea is pretty similar to Storm wildeye seeker shad imo

Have caught many nice fishes with those lures and I have no doubts they will work on flies as well.
These tails have one advantage on their side comparing to lures.
On lures only tail doing the job but on flies even the rest of materials can do some seducing work to some mam's which seem to be hard flirted.Tail starts to wiggle in very slow line retrieving which should be good in cold water.

Here's a fly tied with a tail.Gonna also tie on a hook rig for tubeflies which I of some reason think will be even better option

Some good news to us who lives in Scandinavia is that we are getting a distributor for these tails
http://www.flydressing.se/  and they will soon be out for sale here too.

Season opener in city surroundings..

Even though title says season opener I haven't felt this city fishing as an opener,it has always been more like therapy after a long cold winter,nice to be able to lay out some line in open water.
This year it felt even less like an opener for me,felt kinda strange to wake up and don't feel any kind of excitement.
Wonder why it was so and figured out why couple of days later,not my species and not with my kayak.
Anyway, was at shore later than I meant to be and noticed a hard wind and low water level and also murky.
Saw big passenger ship farther out and some other anglers too,had a tough wind blowing right at my face,I knew I would not enjoy staying long here.

Have not been fishing here that often that I would know any hot spots so I just tried to find a place were I could get the line out.
Couple of minutes on this place and what I had to work to get the fly out,anyway,good practice for forthcoming season.
Decided to try to find some place with less wind but all nice looking spots were occupied with other anglers so I took some photos instead.

Walked a bit further and finally I had came to that point I had to choose to walk back to the car or just fish in a place that looked like a well.

Decided to stay for some casts,not to fish,just to improve my casting skills.
Fished/practiced for about thirty minutes before I decided that I had enough practicing.
So...not much to tell you about this trip.
Go Expo outdoor fair next weekend and hopefully I will be able to kick my season on fire March 14:th