Fishing 2007

Fishing 2007


On February 13 David and I got on the ice. It was finally thick enough. The pike seemed to have waited for us and we had numerous bites from early morning and a couple of hours on. The fish above, 89 cm, was the largest of seven pike, that we got onto the ice. It took a white bream, even though we used roach on most of our lines. We also had one zander.	On one out of ten rods we used perch five days later and before the actual feeding time for pike this 95 cm, 7 kilo, fighter attacked it and was safely brought into the coming daylight. I tested my new Kinetic ice rods for the first time. They are great and you can really feel the fish down in the dark water with it in your hands. It seemed to be a real feeding day, because we had 13 pikes altogether.

On February 28 I fished alone and for the first time in the afternoon in order to check if perhaps the zander were going to be active at dusk. Sure enough! From 1.30 to 4.20 nothing happened. Then I had three runs in 90 minutes, the last 30 minutes after sunset. This 4,3 kilo, 76 cm, zander in perfect winter condition hit the roach exactly at sunset. I lost the two others, probably zander as well.	William and I tested my new Linder 440 Fishing, perfect for guiding on any water, on April 4. We had chosen a very windy day and fishing was not very easy. William did all the fishing as I was very busy keeping the boat where I wanted it to be. He did very well even though the large pikes of the lake were unwilling to feed. We had some smaller ones and that made William very happy. The boat is GREAT and it will produce lots of fish the coming season.

I have been out talking fishing in numerous fishing areas lately, so there has not been too much time for practical fishing. But I have had time for some fishing on live and deadbait along the shores. I have had quite a lot of bites. The biggest zander measured 70 centimeter and took a 15 cm roach. One trolling attempt one very cold and windy evening with Christer gave us two small zander and one pike and three more bites. The bigger ones seem to be in spawning thoughts. But soon fishing will be great again.	On May 26 William was very eager to try the lake which produced his new PB last year. His friend Fredrik came along. We started real early and were on the waves before 5 o'clock. Fredrik quickly learned how to use the wobblers, the side planers and the rod holders. A smile, please?

That's more like it, boys! They had in all eight pike, none of them like Williiam's record. You can't garantuee pike like that every time. A bunch of perch also made the day a total success.	The fishing trip with the Outdoor group at my school Teleborg Centrum started quite normally and Felix, Johannes and Johan were ever so pleased as they caught two pike after having trolled for a while. Around 6 o'clock in the afternoon the pike in this lake normally feed but on May 30 nothing seemed normal and there was no rush on the usual spot.

Here's the reason perhaps. When a submarine like this is in the vicinity other pike probably prefer feeding some other day. Johannes, the only one with no bite so far, put on a Nils Master 15 cm (white/yellow/red No 70) and right away his rod bent heavily and he had great difficulty reeling in. He gave his rod to his mates now and then to get some rest and there was a hard fight and a little panic in the boat. The other boat also come along to watch the drama. Losing this fish would have been too much for us! Why I am holding the fish? Well, it was too heavy for Johannes! I didn't mind either...	The first sign of the pike was an enourmous whirl of water created by the pike. We understood it was a record fish that had grabbed the wobbler. The boys were by then relatively calm and Johannes finally got her along the boat. I put the lip grip in her mouth and lifted her. We screamed as I had to lift the grip above my head and then stand up to get her in. 14 kilo and 127 centimeter is Johanne's personal best. As it is his first pike he is the proud holder of the Pike Average World Record! After holding her for a while to get her calm after the fight the granny swam away with a fierce splash of water. WHAT AN ADVENTURE!
On June 24 I re-visited the lake where Johannes caught his PIKE. I tried trolling with some really big plastic jigs that I hadn't used before. This turned out very well as I had lots of fierce bites including one where I lost all soft parts of the jig. I thought the pike had swallowed it, so I took it home. There was no trace of the lure in its stomach but four newly eaten crayfish. In some lakes where crayfish are common not only perch love them but also some pike that have learned how to catch them. I had six good pikes in all. It was a rainy day and my attempts to make some perch attack my jigs and spinners were futile. On June 27 fellow-teacher Jens came along to my favourite zander lake. He had caught only one zander before in his life, so time had come to do something about that. Despite heavy rain for an hour we managed to hook six zander, three of them pretty good ones. I steered the boat using the eletric motor when the weather was reasonable and the petrol motor when the wind was hard. Jens did most of the fishing and for a while totally forgot that he really likes hunting more than fishing.
	In the afternoon of June 29 Lars, with whom I normally fish for big pike, wanted to catch zander. He had, just like Jens, had very little success in the quest for that fish before. He already knows that Walleye Runner is the No 1 lure so we started off with four different colour WR on our rods. We got a perfect start and had three in the boat almost at once. Between 5 and 9 ten more were fooled by this great wobbler. The Tiger striped and the blue each took four and were by far the most efficient. The remaining three were fooled by my re-painted ones. They were in the water for the first time so I was very content that they worked. Painting lures with permanent ink is fun and I intend to test and find the PERFECT pattern. Lars was ever so happy with the fishing. We also made a stop where I know there are lots of perch. We had three good ones and also two pikes that were there to get some perch just like us.
Björn and I met at six o'clock the next morning. I was tired after having hit the sheets only some hours before. We were going to slow-troll with live bait - some 15 cm bleak that I had caught the night before with my cast net. We used two rods each and not long after the start Björn's bobber disappeared and he set the hooks in the first fish. This lake holds both pike and zander and we saw quite soon that the fish behaved pike-like. The line moved sideways pretty fast and there were pretty hard pulls from underneath. Yes it was a pike and we landed five more, all between 62 and 82 cm, this morning. They fought hard and were all in excellent condition also when we released them of course. Desite using the zander favourite bleach not a single zander hit the air. Why! Well don't ask me. I'll catch them next time instead.

My road to becoming a vertical jigging champion is bad and curvy and I see no end of it. My FT-jigs have produced lots of pike and some zander but not by VJ. Slow trolling and even spinning have been more efficient so I assume I am still to bad at it. On July 1 Christer and I first caught some good pike on plugs and then three zander on 12 to 15 cm jigs. The well built beauty above measured 59 cm and 3,5 kilo and hit a 15 cm Fish Trap jig.	On July 24, one of the few non-rainy days, Andreas from Switzerland and 10 year old fooball-playing daughter Lara wanted to catch their first walleyes ever. We started at the right time for the walleyes to feed (5 a m!) After ten minutes trolling Lara had a hard bite on one of her rods, one with a side planer. The planer went backwards and almost sank, so I knew we had met a bigger fish. The rod bent quite much but Lara is a good fishergirl so she reeled the fish in after it had made some runs.

73 centimetres is a very good size for a first walleye. It was thick and in great condition. After this bite Lara had an even bigger fish on the hook but not far from the boat it got free and we never saw it.	We also fished for perch during an hour and had a very nice time. On one certain spot we had perch every time we passed it. Lara had a big fish on for some time. She struggled to get some line in and then her spinner came in with just a 12 cm perch on it. We were amazed but I discovered a couple of deep wounds in the head of the perch. It had been in the mouth of a much bigger perch or perhaps even a walleye. We had three walleye and about eight bigger perch that we could keep. Father and daughter also learned a lot about trolling and walleye fishing this lovely morning.

Alex and his daddy Dieter from Austria went fishing with me on August 9. The goal was catching pike and perch in one of my lakes. In many of the Kronoberg lakes the perch feed on crayfish. On a crayfish jig Alex had a perch right away. It was red from all the crayfish it had eaten. This fellow wasn't followed by many more as the perch is still pretty reluctant to bite.	Instead we concentrated on pike and had quite a few both trolling and while we, in vain, fished for perch. Alex had one on my UltraLight rods and had a pretty long fight where he adjusted the brake well all the time until we could get the pike into the boat.

Proud father & son with one of the pikes we had during trolling. The pike fishing has been very good lately especially during the rare sunny days. You don't need rain to catch pike really. As we troll for suspended fish where the depth is 4-6 meter, fishing is just as good or even better in warm weather.	On August 11 Carina and Mark came all the way from Stockholm, so of course I did everything I could (and counted on some help from above). Weatherwise and also in the fishing my prayers were answered positively. Warm and nice, no rain and fantastic fishing. Just after I had showed them how we were going to fish Carina's side planer went backwards - a bite right away. Despite having a stiff rod and a stable reel Carina had great difficulty getting line in. The pike just stood down there as the boat drifted in the light breeze. After 15 minutes I asked her to press the pike up to make us see it. Then somehow the line broke and the wobbler came to the surface! What happened? We were all a bit shocked after the long fight: "It was like having a shark on the line", Carina said.

They soon got over the lost pike and caught more, including this on a 15 cm jig. Some days pike prefer jigs but this day most of them hit our wobblers.	We were going to call it a day as Mark and Carina were going to drive back to the capital. Then we first had one pike and while we reeled that one in the lines were messed up somehow. Carina fixed it and as she grabbed another rod she said: "I've got one more". She got this 7 kilo and 104 centimeter beauty into the boat rather quickly and as it was on the same rod as the first bite, we understood that we had lost something really big. 104 cm on the first pike fishing trip is sensational anyway. Mark had done some fishing in the US so he wasn't a beginner really. This day Carina had all the luck, though. I hope she bought a lottery ticket on her way home.

August 19 Markku from Finland often has too much work to have time for fishing. Being on vacation in Småland it was time for him to try his luck in my boat. We were going to go for zander and perhaps some pike but we had no bites at all to start with. After an hour we had two after one another and the second proved to be this 400 gram perch. It took the wobbler at zander speed i e very slowly. During the years I have perhaps had five perch while zander trolling - very unusual.	It got a bit colder towards evening and we decided not to go on fishing until dusk when I had promised zander. Luckily one zander wanted a snack a bit earlier and Markuu's rod bent slowly at about five o´clock. He got this 64 cm, very thick zander into the boat. Markku was ever so happy after having caught the biggest zander in his life. I was pleased as well.

Mathias from Germany stayed here for two weeks and fished with me three times. September 9 it was zander time. Mathias is a good expert on different kinds of fishing equipment and also collect reels and lures. He is the owner of a fantqastic collection! As I have tested a lot of baits in my waters I was very pleased that he, despite having numerous lures, preferred mine. Mathias was eager to learn trolling and that is the correct method here. We started in pretty rough weather with hard wind and had very litte action. The zander in this lake is not willing to eat in full daylight.	When it got closer to dusk I started trolling along some reefs where I during the years have had lots of bites. At sunset we noticed that a group of walleye were feeding as we caught a number of them one after the other. Mathias was pleased and had quite a lot to do. His reels and rods worked perfectly as did the wobblers we used.

20 minutes after sunset I said: "Today we have had all the bites on the planer board rods. Not unusual". Right then there was a loud screech from a reel on one of the "free" rods and it bent heavlily. Mathias grabbed it quickly, adjusted the brake to let the fish dive if necessary. It didn't take long until a huge zander was resting calmly beside the boat. I set the lip grip at once and lifted her in. We screamed and laughed. There are lots of zander in this water but the big ones are not often easy to contact. This was probably one of the biggest in recent years.	On September 1 Mats and some of his friends had a re-union meeting. The daytime activity was pike fishing. They were seven and some had very little fishing experience. I instructed them on land first and showed them how to handle boat, motor and fishing gear. They learned quickly even if they lost perhaps as many fish as they landed. Everyone except one had fish and they were very happy and felt that they had chosen a great activity. The weather was fantastic, better than any summer day of 2007, and that didn't make the experience less memorable. I had brought some great food that we grilled on shore.

Anna had a bright idea and as boy friend Joakim is a keen fisherman she gave him a gift check for a fishing day with me. Joakim enjoyed the gift and as he had read my books he was eager to fish with me LIVE. October 27 is of course late autumn but they were both well dressed, so we had no probem with the weather. We started off with slow trolling with live bait but there was no sign of interest from the pike. I quickly realised this and we changed to trolling with my usual wobblers. The pike had been waiting for them so we had some right away.	Anna didn't like being photographed too much. Wonder why? Both she and Joakim look great! We waited for the huge ones to attack the wobblers but they probably didn't know it was Joakim's birthday. There was no real rush either and we caught the pikes now and then all day. Making a fire on shore was great as we had a break for food. We warmed our feet, that despite warm boots had become a bit cold.

I had invited Jörgen Larsson, editor of the fishing magazine fiske-feber, to come fishing with me in my boat and on my home lake. I intended to spy on him and see how he goes about vertical jigging. I pointed out some spots that I thought suitable and then Jorgen took over. He looked for hard bottoms and fish echoes and watched the fish finder closely. He soon found zander more than willing to bite! Can you see the rainbow?	His rod bent, he lifted it and hooked the first zander. Then he went back and caught another. I watched in amazement and tried to do exactly the same as he did. I had no luck at all and it took me about an hour before I felt something touching my jig down there.

There it was! Hooray! I had caught some fish on vertical jigging before but this was the first caught the way it should be done - letting the jig touch bottom, lift it and let it hang above the bottom for some time. I was as happy as a kid when school is over! Jörgen used Fin-S jigs all day and so did I. They are the best when the water is pretty cold. The zander then prefer slow-moving baits like this. I also had one one a big Fish Trap jig.	Jorgen also boated three well built perch among with a great number of zander - more than I had ever caught trolling in one day. He put the boat on the zander spots and sometimes we had 3-4 bites exactly where he had thrown his marker buoy. I was stunned. I never thought zander rested in groups.

Here's the biggest I caught. Not too bad,eh? Jorgen proved that vertical jigging is great fun and extremely thrilling. After having concentrated all day I was dead tired and slept all night dreaming of huge echoes and rods bent like never before. Just wait, Jörgen. Småland will beat Skåne in due time even if it certainly was the opposite this overcast day September 26.