Summary of 2012
It has been a great year for fishing pike. Here is some of the highlights from the year 2012.
Spring to summer
Spring season was a bit short because in late March my spouse gave birth to my second son. But I managed to make some trips with a float tube, few in a boat and one four days trip to Särkisalo.
Särkisalo trip was about one month after pike spawning season which is my absolute favorite season in pike fishing: Powerful fish eager to bite flies, electric takes and warm weather. Tinsel flies worked nicely through the trip.
Float tube trips were also good. The ugly fly was again a hit when fishing in colored water. I will introduce this fly to you in later posts. It´s a sort of a tinsel deceiver with ugly colours.
First spring trip with float tube offered me a lesson
I carry two rods with me. One holds floating line and second intermediate or sinking. First I fished with intermediate line a shallow bay area and had no contacts with fish, but I knew that the fish were there and the fly supposed to be just right in those conditions. So I put the same fly in the floating line and after that the day was a success. Floating line allowed me to pause the retrieve little longer which was crucial on that day.
Mid summer is my time to fly fish brown trout in mid Finland but I
made some pike trips to nearby lake with light equipment and poppers. Lot´s of fun but average size of the fish is quite small.
Autumn to winter
In September I trained a lot of casting so I had no time to fish. World championships of casting were held in Fagernes Norway. Trip was very educational in many ways and not only for casting. Judges of championships used pontoon boats and even in windy conditions they managed to hold their place in the water and they could move lot faster than a float tube. I must have one of those!
Once I got in Finland I bought a used pontoon boat and I have been very satisfied with it. Compared to a float tube it´s much quicker in the water. This allows me to move longer distances in the water. For example if water color of the inner bay is poor I can move quite fast 1-2 km closer to open sea where water color usually is better.
Autumn included great fishing, I had no weak trips, even in poor conditions for pike fishing I was fortunate to land good pikes. Most of the time I fished with slinky baitfish, intermediate line an 8-weight rod. Best colors were Germany flag, pink-white and red-white.
Djuza introduced me a new destination and I had many unforgettable moments there fishing with Matti. Thanks!
Lesson #2
I have thought that in pike fishing there is more important parts than fly colors that makes the pike strike. Retrieve, swim of the fly and depth for example but after fishing in the "aquarium" I have to change my point of view:
The "aquarium" is very small bay nearby my spouses family summer cottage. It´s sheltered from winds by rocks and firs. Water color is very clear because it´s close to open sea and it´s about 1-3 m deep.
I landed few fishes with a red-white slinky baitfish fly before I arrived with my pontoon boat to the aquarium. I was casting about 15 m away and saw how pike was stalking about 1 m away from the fly. The pike tracked close to the boat and vanished. I changed the retrieve fast to slow and slow to fast but had only few shy takes from other pikes.
The best and the most memorable moment was when I saw that there were two good pikes stalking the fly only about 1 m from each other but neither one did not take. It was very nerve wrecking. I tried different colors with same results until I changed the fly to a purple slinky fly. Fly color that I have had no confidence at all was now the only color that seemed to work.
I landed 5 pikes from the aquarium and some pikes on the way home. Fly color do matter (sometimes ;).
