Fiskeutstyr koster endel penger og når man klarer å ødelegge noe av det så gjør det vondt langt inn i sjela. Spesielt når det er på grunn av egen dumhet/uforsiktighet. Jeg hadde en slik hendelse tidligere i år. Dette er muligens ikke verdens mest spennende blogginnlegg, men jeg deler med dere allikevel...
Det var på sensommeren mener jeg og jeg var på brygga for å stelle litt med båten. Jeg tar alltid med meg ei fiskestang når jeg skal ned på brygga - naturligvis! Jeg hadde med meg min Savage Gear Big Pike-stang og på den satt en Ambassadeur 5601C JB-snelle. Jeg gjorde noen kast med en Pig Shad Jr og brått fikk jeg bånnfast... noe så inni hel*etes bånnfast og! Med sterk knute og kraftig multisene så er det ikke bare å røske kroken løs når den sitter fast. Jeg prøvde å alle mulige vinkler og endte med å sette meg i båten og kjøre ut for å prøve enda flere vinkler. Det strømmer ganske bra hvor den satt fast så det var vanskelig å holde styr på båten samtidig som jeg prøvde å få løs kroken. Jeg prøvde og jeg prøvde, men ingenting fungerte. Jeg begynte å bli småirritert... ok, jeg ble fly forbanna. Egentlig så var det kanskje ikke noen stor greie å bli forbanna over, men jeg ble det. Dette gikk da utover utstyret. Jeg begynte å røske altfor hardt rett og slett - fakstisk så hardt at stanga knakk! Er det mulig? Jeg er usikker på om det er grunn til å sette spørsmålstegn ved kvaliteten på stanga, men sannsynligvis ikke. Jeg må ha røska virkelig hardt i all frustrasjonen, fordi etter stanga knakk og jeg kom meg på land igjen for å gå hjem i skam, oppdaget jeg at snella også hadde fått seg en trøkk. Sveiva satt fast - gikk ikke rundt.
Jeg tok med snella til M&M Fiske og de fant ut at en eller annen del inni snella hadde røket. Dette var jo selvfølgelig på grunn av den altfor harde behandlingen. Snella måtte sendes inn til reparasjon og dette endte med å koste meg 500 kroner. Surt!
Jeg tok turen innom Bazar på Nordby i Sverige noen dager etterpå for å finne meg ei ny stang (Big Pike-stanga var den eneste spinnstanga mi) og hadde litt flaks der tror jeg. Fant en Savage Gear MPP Predator Trigger 9'>180g på tilbud (699,-). Skal man se positivt på hele greia så fant jeg faktisk ut at MPP-stanga faktisk er mye bedre enn Big Pike. Mye bedre aksjon i stangtuppen og generelt en mye bedre følelse å fiske med den.
Så kids, lær av mine feil - behold roen når dere setter dere skikkelig fast. Om du sitter fast så hardt at ingenting nytter så er den beste løsningen å kutte sena. Heller det enn å ødelegge stang og snelle :).
Gjeddefiskets merklige psykologi
Jeg bruker å tenke (og si høyt noen ganger) at gjeddefiske som oftest er litt som å spille golf. En dag så går det hur bra som helst - neste dag funker ingenting og man vet ikke hvorfor. Jeg tipper at de fleste som har prøvd begge kjenner seg igjen på dette.
Selv om det er veldig frustrerende de dagene ting ikke fungerer så er det ingenting annet å si enn at dette er mye av sjarmen med å fiske. Om det gikk like bra hver gang man fisket så hadde det blitt kjedelig... eller?
Det er mange elementer som påvirker fisket. Men, jeg er ganske overbevist om at det ikke finnes noen fasit. Man fisker to dager: begge dagene har akkurat samme forhold (samme vind, samme lysforhold, samme temperatur osv.) - allikevel så er fisket helt fantastisk bra den ene dagen men ikke den neste. Hvordan forklarer man det? Og det er vel det som er poenget - man kan ikke forklare det. Men kan gjerne ha noen teorier, men man vet ikke sikkert. No way!
Og det er her psykologien kommer inn. Om man opplever et slikt scenario som beskrevet over - hva gjør det med hodet til fiskeren? Er det i tillegg en konkurransesituasjon så kan det potensielt resultere i innleggelse på psykiatrisk avdeling på det lokale sykehuset!
For min egen del så har jeg en svakhet som jeg må prøve å kvitte meg med. Jeg har nevnt det i et tidligere innlegg - og det er at jeg har altfor dårlig tålmodighet med baits. Jeg skifter rett og slett for ofte. Det ligger jo psykologi i dette også. Jeg vet jo at selv om gjedda ikke biter på de første kastene så kan den godt bite på de neste kastene. Men, jeg skifter altså gjerne bait i slike situasjoner. Jeg må rett og slett slutte med dette.
Og så har man situasjoner hvor man i utgangspunktet tror det er helt håpløst og man ikke har kontakt med noen fisk på mange timer, man begynner å bli lei og litt desperat, setter kanskje på et bait man i utgangspunktet ikke har helt trua på (om som kjent, man må ha trua på baitet man fisker med!) - og BAM! Fish on! Hva gjør dette med psyken? Jo, man glemmer de foregående timene totalt og får ny giv og tro på fisket. Dette er utrolig fascinerende.
Et par ting jeg har lært meg, som hjelper mot frustrasjonen når fisket er tregt og/eller man opplever de tingene som beskrevet over, er som følger:
Selv om det er veldig frustrerende de dagene ting ikke fungerer så er det ingenting annet å si enn at dette er mye av sjarmen med å fiske. Om det gikk like bra hver gang man fisket så hadde det blitt kjedelig... eller?
Det er mange elementer som påvirker fisket. Men, jeg er ganske overbevist om at det ikke finnes noen fasit. Man fisker to dager: begge dagene har akkurat samme forhold (samme vind, samme lysforhold, samme temperatur osv.) - allikevel så er fisket helt fantastisk bra den ene dagen men ikke den neste. Hvordan forklarer man det? Og det er vel det som er poenget - man kan ikke forklare det. Men kan gjerne ha noen teorier, men man vet ikke sikkert. No way!
Og det er her psykologien kommer inn. Om man opplever et slikt scenario som beskrevet over - hva gjør det med hodet til fiskeren? Er det i tillegg en konkurransesituasjon så kan det potensielt resultere i innleggelse på psykiatrisk avdeling på det lokale sykehuset!
For min egen del så har jeg en svakhet som jeg må prøve å kvitte meg med. Jeg har nevnt det i et tidligere innlegg - og det er at jeg har altfor dårlig tålmodighet med baits. Jeg skifter rett og slett for ofte. Det ligger jo psykologi i dette også. Jeg vet jo at selv om gjedda ikke biter på de første kastene så kan den godt bite på de neste kastene. Men, jeg skifter altså gjerne bait i slike situasjoner. Jeg må rett og slett slutte med dette.
Og så har man situasjoner hvor man i utgangspunktet tror det er helt håpløst og man ikke har kontakt med noen fisk på mange timer, man begynner å bli lei og litt desperat, setter kanskje på et bait man i utgangspunktet ikke har helt trua på (om som kjent, man må ha trua på baitet man fisker med!) - og BAM! Fish on! Hva gjør dette med psyken? Jo, man glemmer de foregående timene totalt og får ny giv og tro på fisket. Dette er utrolig fascinerende.
Et par ting jeg har lært meg, som hjelper mot frustrasjonen når fisket er tregt og/eller man opplever de tingene som beskrevet over, er som følger:
- Nyt at du er ute i naturen. For meg så føler jeg total frihet og sjelefred når jeg er ute å fisker. Spesielt når jeg er ute i båt. Klarer man å nyte dette uansett så spiller det ikke alltid så stor rolle om man ikke får noe fisk.
- Drit i å hele tiden fokusere på å få så stor fisk som mulig! Det er faktisk veldig artig å få de mindre fiskene også. Det var Joel Abrahamsson som engang sa dette i en video og jeg er helt enig. Man vil totalt sett ha en bedre fiskeopplevelse om man klarer dette. Jeg sier ikke at det er like morsomt å drille en liten snipe vs. en 10+ fisk, men faktum er jo at det er mye enklere å få små fisk enn de store - og klarer man å nyte de små like mye som de store så får man en mye bedre opplevelse totalt sett.
Team Riverpigs vs Evja Pikers?
Team Riverpigs og Evja Pikers fisker i Nedre Glomma (Evja over større områder) og Lars-Jørgen Karlsen (Evja) kom opp med en artig ide tidligere i høst - nemlig at vi burde holde en uhøytidlig konkurranse mellom Evja og Riverpigs neste sesong. Dette syns vi høres veldig artig ut!
Ingenting er spikret eller planlagt i det hele tatt, men det har vært snakk om å kanskje ha et par forskjellige konkurranser. En hvor vi fisker i hver vår båt og en hvor vi fisker i samme båt og fisker annenhver time (altså, Evja fisker første time, Riverpigs neste, osv.). Hadde jo vært artig om vi hadde fått til begge, men vi får se.
Som sagt, så har vi ikke planlagt noe ennå, men jeg ser for meg at reglene blir ca sånn som i Fly vs Jerk showet på Youtube - altså at man får ett poeng for flest fisk og ett poeng for størst fisk.
Håper vi får til dette. Tror det kan bli morro!
Ingenting er spikret eller planlagt i det hele tatt, men det har vært snakk om å kanskje ha et par forskjellige konkurranser. En hvor vi fisker i hver vår båt og en hvor vi fisker i samme båt og fisker annenhver time (altså, Evja fisker første time, Riverpigs neste, osv.). Hadde jo vært artig om vi hadde fått til begge, men vi får se.
Som sagt, så har vi ikke planlagt noe ennå, men jeg ser for meg at reglene blir ca sånn som i Fly vs Jerk showet på Youtube - altså at man får ett poeng for flest fisk og ett poeng for størst fisk.
Håper vi får til dette. Tror det kan bli morro!
Eksperiment Kina
Jeg har lenge vært litt nysgjerrig på produkter bestilt fra Kina direkte (via f.eks. AliExpress.com), men har samtidig vært veldig skeptisk. Ukjente produkter fra østen som koster en brøkdel av hva merkevarer koster her hjemme? Tvilsomt...
Time vill shåvv!
MEN, så tenkte jeg som så: når en rull med 500m multifilament koster under 100 kroner (gratis frakt), så er det vel egentlig verdt et forsøk? Jeg tror jeg kommer til å holde meg til småting (sene, sluker, kanskje kroker, swivels etc.) dog. Sneller og slike ting styrer jeg unna.
Men, nå har jeg altså en rull med 500m multisene, et par dyptgående wobblere og et par swimbaits liggende klare til testing. Sena ser egentlig helt strøken ut den. Kjennes bra ut også. Men den må testes naturligvis. Er bruddstyrken god nok? Hvor lenge holder den seg? Må jeg bytte 2 ganger i året? Blir litt spennende å se kjenner jeg.
Baitsa virker også helt ok. Kjenner at krokene ikke er stort å skryte av, så de kommer jeg til å bytte ut. Men selve baitsa både ser og føles bra ut. Så gjenstår det også her å se da, om de varer. Knekker de ved første gjeddeangrep?
Er jeg ærlig med meg selv så tror jeg nok at jeg i framtiden kommer til å begrense innkjøp fra Kina til sene (og kanskje swivels etc.) - gitt at sena jeg har kjøpt viser seg å være god nok. Om jeg må bytte den en gang i året så er det absolutt verdt det! 500 meter med multisene her i Norge koster vel brått over 1000-lappen, mens jeg altså fikk det for under 100-lappen fra Kina.
Time vill shåvv!
Favorittbaits
Tenkte å ta for meg et forholdsvis vanskelig tema, nemlig å fortelle litt om favorittbaits som jeg bruker. Grunnen til at det er vanskelig er rett og slett fordi jeg er den typen som bytter baits ofte når jeg fisker (sikkert altfor ofte). Jeg tar noen kast og om jeg ikke får noe på de kastene så begynner blikket å vandre mot baitbucket'en og baitboksene. Jeg er klar over at det sannsynligvis ikke er så lurt, men jeg kan ikke noe for det :-). Men ihvertfall, dette resulterer i at jeg får fisk på veldig mye forskjellige baits. Men, jeg, som alle andre har noen favoritter og noen som, tilfeldig eller ikke, har produsert mer fisk enn andre.
Som så mange andre så har jeg et sterkt og godt forhold til Abu Garcia sin Hi-Lo. Når jeg fisket i min ungdom brukte jeg stort sett bare min elskede rød-hvite leddede Hi-Lo... og fikk plenty med fisk på den. De gangene jeg fisket med noe annet og jeg ikke fikk noe, byttet jeg gjerne til Hi-Lo og fikk fisk. Jeg har fortsatt to eksemplarer med meg fra ungdomstiden og selv om jeg kanskje ikke fisker så veldig mye med de lenger, så produserer de når jeg bruker de. Den nest største gjedda jeg har fått (9060gr) fikk jeg på den.
I den "andre bølgen" i min gjeddefiskekarriere (dvs. de siste 3-4 årene) har jeg prøvd mange flere forskjellige baits. Når jeg var ungdom så gikk det så og si bare i wobblere og dorging. Jeg dorger fortsatt selvfølgelig og og det går fortsatt i mye wobblere ved slik type fiske. Forskjellene er mange. Utvalget er jo mye større nå og wobblerne er mye større enn "i gamle dager". De jeg har hatt mest hell med og som jeg har mest tiltro til (og dermed fisker mest med) er nok Westin Jätte 17/19cm Natural Pike. Jeg har ikke landa så veldig bra fisk på denne, men mange mindre og i tillegg har jeg mistet et par skikkelig bra fisk på den.
En annen trofast følgesvenn når jeg dorger (kaster også med den) er Salmo Fatso. En fantastisk bait som produserer mye fisk.
Jeg fisker mye jerkbait (som kanskje er fiskemetoden som jeg liker best - sammen med spinnfiske med gummishads) og har endel forskjellige. Ofte ender jeg opp med å fiske favorittene mine der når andre ikke produserer fort nok (jeg er altfor utålmodig og bytter baits ofte). Buster Jerk 15cm Natural Perch er den som stort sett alltid produserer. Har tatt mange gjedder på den.
En annen jerkfavoritt er Salmo Slider. Et utrolig lettfisket jerkbait. Det er ikke mye jerkbevegelser som skal til før den fyker fram og tilbake som en forvirra mort. Blir nesten sulten selv av å se den gå i vannet!
Jeg har fått veldig sansen for Svartzonker-baits. Claes produserer så utrolig mange bra baits at det nesten er komisk. McHybrid, McMio, McMy, McRubber, McPike er vel de jeg har mest erfaring med og de produserer. McMio funker strålende på våren før og rett etter lek, McHybrid har jeg fått mest på på sommeren, mens shaddene produserer så og si uansett virker det som.
Et bait jeg mener er utrolig undervurdert (basert på at jeg stort sett finner de i billigkurvene i butikkene) er Strike Pro X-Buster. Utrolig fint bait som er enkelt å fiske og har en utrolig fin gange. Kan både jerkes og fiskes vanlig. Fått mye fisk på disse.
Som så mange andre så har jeg et sterkt og godt forhold til Abu Garcia sin Hi-Lo. Når jeg fisket i min ungdom brukte jeg stort sett bare min elskede rød-hvite leddede Hi-Lo... og fikk plenty med fisk på den. De gangene jeg fisket med noe annet og jeg ikke fikk noe, byttet jeg gjerne til Hi-Lo og fikk fisk. Jeg har fortsatt to eksemplarer med meg fra ungdomstiden og selv om jeg kanskje ikke fisker så veldig mye med de lenger, så produserer de når jeg bruker de. Den nest største gjedda jeg har fått (9060gr) fikk jeg på den.
I den "andre bølgen" i min gjeddefiskekarriere (dvs. de siste 3-4 årene) har jeg prøvd mange flere forskjellige baits. Når jeg var ungdom så gikk det så og si bare i wobblere og dorging. Jeg dorger fortsatt selvfølgelig og og det går fortsatt i mye wobblere ved slik type fiske. Forskjellene er mange. Utvalget er jo mye større nå og wobblerne er mye større enn "i gamle dager". De jeg har hatt mest hell med og som jeg har mest tiltro til (og dermed fisker mest med) er nok Westin Jätte 17/19cm Natural Pike. Jeg har ikke landa så veldig bra fisk på denne, men mange mindre og i tillegg har jeg mistet et par skikkelig bra fisk på den.
En annen trofast følgesvenn når jeg dorger (kaster også med den) er Salmo Fatso. En fantastisk bait som produserer mye fisk.
Jeg fisker mye jerkbait (som kanskje er fiskemetoden som jeg liker best - sammen med spinnfiske med gummishads) og har endel forskjellige. Ofte ender jeg opp med å fiske favorittene mine der når andre ikke produserer fort nok (jeg er altfor utålmodig og bytter baits ofte). Buster Jerk 15cm Natural Perch er den som stort sett alltid produserer. Har tatt mange gjedder på den.
En annen jerkfavoritt er Salmo Slider. Et utrolig lettfisket jerkbait. Det er ikke mye jerkbevegelser som skal til før den fyker fram og tilbake som en forvirra mort. Blir nesten sulten selv av å se den gå i vannet!
Svartzonker
Jeg har fått veldig sansen for Svartzonker-baits. Claes produserer så utrolig mange bra baits at det nesten er komisk. McHybrid, McMio, McMy, McRubber, McPike er vel de jeg har mest erfaring med og de produserer. McMio funker strålende på våren før og rett etter lek, McHybrid har jeg fått mest på på sommeren, mens shaddene produserer så og si uansett virker det som.
Et bait jeg mener er utrolig undervurdert (basert på at jeg stort sett finner de i billigkurvene i butikkene) er Strike Pro X-Buster. Utrolig fint bait som er enkelt å fiske og har en utrolig fin gange. Kan både jerkes og fiskes vanlig. Fått mye fisk på disse.
Gummishads
Jeg har ikke veldig lang erfaring med å fiske med gummi. Det var først i juni 2016 at jeg "oppdaget" dette. Jeg fikk min første 10+ på gummi + hadde kontakt med mange store fisker i løpet av noen få dager. Etter dette har jeg blitt frelst. Spinnfisker veldig mye med gummi. De jeg har hatt mest hell med er faktisk Pig Shad Jr.
Disse har en utrolig fin gange og vugger mer enn ei hyperaktiv bestemor i gyngestol! Gangen er like fin om man fisker sakte eller fort. Det eneste jeg har å utsette på de er at de fort blir "gnagd" i stykker. Den lange og tynne halen er svært utsatt. Men, det er slik de er konstruert og kanskje derfor de funker så bra, ikke vet jeg.
Shadden jeg fikk 10+ fisken min på var en Savage Gear shad som jeg ikke har klart å finne igjen. Kjøpte 2 stk på superbilligsalg en gang i tiden, men har altså ikke klart å finne den igjen noe sted. Synd, for den fungerte meget bra!
Som en avslutning vil jeg nevne Savage Gear Swim and Jerk. Denne er dødelig effektiv! Jeg har ikke fått noe stort på den, men veldig mange smågjedder - gjerne i grunne viker og der det er mye vekster i vannet.
Ok, over og ut for denne gang.
Mr. BackAndForth is back!
I changed this blog to English earlier this year. Well, now I'm not sure if I want it to be. I notice when I write posts that the quality of the content is lesser when I write in English.
So, I'm wondering if I should switch back to Norwegian. Let's face it - this blog isn't exactly the most interesting blog around and targets a very narrow group of people.
The next post might be in Norwegian... I guess Google Translate can be used if you don't read Norwegian and really want to see what I'm babbling on about :)
Cheers!
So, I'm wondering if I should switch back to Norwegian. Let's face it - this blog isn't exactly the most interesting blog around and targets a very narrow group of people.
The next post might be in Norwegian... I guess Google Translate can be used if you don't read Norwegian and really want to see what I'm babbling on about :)
Cheers!
A great day of pike fishing!
Last Sunday (2.October 2016) me and my friend Dag Ronny Hansen had our annual fall pike pass. It was supposed to be the weekend after, but because of some double booking we had to change the date.
This is the fourth year in a row me and Dag have fished for pike in the fall together, and we have stamped this event as a tradition now. I obviously always love going pike fishing, but I have to, with hand over heart, say that I really enjoy fishing with Dag. He is a good angler, he knows a lot of good spots and he is a really great guy!
So, the big question before this trip was where to fish? The previous years we have fished 3 different waters - Isesjø (a lake), Glomma (river) and Vestvannet/Mingevannet (lakes, sort of. Extensions of the river Glomma). Since the water was low and really clear in Glomma, we decided to give that a go again. We didn't have much luck there last time, but maybe it would be better this time? Another reason we went with Glomma was that I have my boat on Glomma already. We could just load the boat and be on our way.
We got out of bed at 05:20 (don't you be thinking dirty now! We live in separate houses!) and around 06:00 we were loading the boat with all our gear. The boat was pretty full! Rods, C&R gear, bait boxes ++++. When we were ready and were on open water it was still dark so we drove slowly and used some time to rig our gear.
We had sort of a plan on where to fish during the day. We both know about a few good spots and Dag knew about a few spots that I either never had fished or never had any luck fishing. Our first stop was at the spot where I caught my 10+ in June. I'm not quite sure, but I think I caught one pike there. Like the majority of the pikes we caught this day, it wasn't very big. I would guess around 2 kg.
We headed further north - beyond where I usually fish - to an area with lots of current. This area is told to hold huge pikes. Of course, as with all huge pikes, they are really hard to catch and that also turned out to be true even for the small pikes. We got skunked in this area. At this time of the day it was pretty cold and not very pleasant out. It was cloudy and we had a chilly wind coming in from the north so we could have been more comfortable. Our hands were cold and we realized that we might be under-dressed. Lucky for us this changed later in the day though.
Ok, so our plan was to work our way south on the river from this area. First we moved to a shallow area surrounding a couple of small islands. About 1-1,5 meter of depth and scattered weed beds - and pikes! I don't remember exactly, but I think we landed about 4 pikes there. One which was following my lures a few times before it hit Dag's bait. It was a decent fish but we suspect is was sick. It had a huge head, but it was really skinny. The pikes shouldn't be skinny at this time of year. We had to put it out it's misery though, because it had swallowed the bait completely and messed up it's gills.
The next few hours we fished close to shore, right outside the weeds by the drop offs. We switched between casting rubber baits, jerk baits and poppers so far. I would say that all baits produced equally good. After fishing this stretch for a few hours, we decided to break for lunch. We stopped at a nice place facing the sun and started a fire. The plan was to grill some hot dogs. Sitting down in front of the fire, starting to dig through my food sack, I realized that I had forgotten my friggin' hot dogs in the fridge!! Motherfu**er! The night before I was so focused on the two things I had to remember to grab in the morning - a flash light and those damn hot dogs. Dag was kind enough to share one of his delicious chilly hot dogs and a few of his chicken wings with me (I didn't need any more actually). Thanks Dag! You're a great fishing buddy! I owe you one!
After this gourmet lunch we decided to do some trolling in spots we know hold good fish. This resulted in two nice pikes pretty much on the same spot.
From here on we pretty much did trolling the rest of the day. Dag wanted to fish a stretch not far from my house and I wasn't hard to convince, since this is where I have caught my 2. and 3. largest pikes. This stretch is perfect for large pikes. It's really shallow before it drops fast down to 2-6 meters. There's also a lot of weeds all the way to the edge. Dag ended up catching 3 pikes on this stretch. His newly bought Strike Pro Giant was hot towards the end of the day. It's worth mentioning that one of these 3 pikes gave a really, really good fight. We really thought it was a humongous beast, but wasn't really that big. The weird thing is that the fish got caught on the bottom to something. It got loose, but had some really bad wounds on both sides. We decided to keep the fish because the wounds were pretty bad and the fish would probably not make it anyways.
At this time of year it gets dark really fast, so we decided to head home before it got pitch black. Dag needed to clean and fillet the three fish he kept and obviously that's a job that's a bit easier when there's some light out.
The cleaning process ended up being pretty nasty actually. I'm not sure how it happened, but he was done cleaning the fish and was washing off the board he used to clean the fish and managed to cut his finger pretty bad. It was a pretty deep cut and there was a lot of blood. We taped it up as good as possible, but Dag was wondering if he maybe would need some stitches. He ended up not stitching it that same night, but did it the day after - since the cut kept opening up all the time. Not the best ending to a really good day :(.
To sum up the day:
We ended up having a pretty good fishing day. 18 pikes landed where the biggest were 4 kg, 4.5 kg and 6.8 kg. I guess I should mention that it was Dag who caught the biggest pikes. He claims it was beginners luck since he hadn't fished in a long time. I call that being modest :).
The weather was good (at least most of the day), fishing was good, Dag is a great fishing buddy... so yeah, a very successful day. It's worth mentioning that the most fish we've caught on our previous trips is 5 pikes (last year).
We're already looking forward to this trip next year!
PS. I had a plan to take a lot of pictures and video with my GoPro. Well, that didn't work out too good. I do have some video and I will probably get that uploaded and included in this post pretty soon.
This is the fourth year in a row me and Dag have fished for pike in the fall together, and we have stamped this event as a tradition now. I obviously always love going pike fishing, but I have to, with hand over heart, say that I really enjoy fishing with Dag. He is a good angler, he knows a lot of good spots and he is a really great guy!
So, the big question before this trip was where to fish? The previous years we have fished 3 different waters - Isesjø (a lake), Glomma (river) and Vestvannet/Mingevannet (lakes, sort of. Extensions of the river Glomma). Since the water was low and really clear in Glomma, we decided to give that a go again. We didn't have much luck there last time, but maybe it would be better this time? Another reason we went with Glomma was that I have my boat on Glomma already. We could just load the boat and be on our way.
We got out of bed at 05:20 (don't you be thinking dirty now! We live in separate houses!) and around 06:00 we were loading the boat with all our gear. The boat was pretty full! Rods, C&R gear, bait boxes ++++. When we were ready and were on open water it was still dark so we drove slowly and used some time to rig our gear.
We had sort of a plan on where to fish during the day. We both know about a few good spots and Dag knew about a few spots that I either never had fished or never had any luck fishing. Our first stop was at the spot where I caught my 10+ in June. I'm not quite sure, but I think I caught one pike there. Like the majority of the pikes we caught this day, it wasn't very big. I would guess around 2 kg.
We headed further north - beyond where I usually fish - to an area with lots of current. This area is told to hold huge pikes. Of course, as with all huge pikes, they are really hard to catch and that also turned out to be true even for the small pikes. We got skunked in this area. At this time of the day it was pretty cold and not very pleasant out. It was cloudy and we had a chilly wind coming in from the north so we could have been more comfortable. Our hands were cold and we realized that we might be under-dressed. Lucky for us this changed later in the day though.
Ok, so our plan was to work our way south on the river from this area. First we moved to a shallow area surrounding a couple of small islands. About 1-1,5 meter of depth and scattered weed beds - and pikes! I don't remember exactly, but I think we landed about 4 pikes there. One which was following my lures a few times before it hit Dag's bait. It was a decent fish but we suspect is was sick. It had a huge head, but it was really skinny. The pikes shouldn't be skinny at this time of year. We had to put it out it's misery though, because it had swallowed the bait completely and messed up it's gills.
The next few hours we fished close to shore, right outside the weeds by the drop offs. We switched between casting rubber baits, jerk baits and poppers so far. I would say that all baits produced equally good. After fishing this stretch for a few hours, we decided to break for lunch. We stopped at a nice place facing the sun and started a fire. The plan was to grill some hot dogs. Sitting down in front of the fire, starting to dig through my food sack, I realized that I had forgotten my friggin' hot dogs in the fridge!! Motherfu**er! The night before I was so focused on the two things I had to remember to grab in the morning - a flash light and those damn hot dogs. Dag was kind enough to share one of his delicious chilly hot dogs and a few of his chicken wings with me (I didn't need any more actually). Thanks Dag! You're a great fishing buddy! I owe you one!
After this gourmet lunch we decided to do some trolling in spots we know hold good fish. This resulted in two nice pikes pretty much on the same spot.
From here on we pretty much did trolling the rest of the day. Dag wanted to fish a stretch not far from my house and I wasn't hard to convince, since this is where I have caught my 2. and 3. largest pikes. This stretch is perfect for large pikes. It's really shallow before it drops fast down to 2-6 meters. There's also a lot of weeds all the way to the edge. Dag ended up catching 3 pikes on this stretch. His newly bought Strike Pro Giant was hot towards the end of the day. It's worth mentioning that one of these 3 pikes gave a really, really good fight. We really thought it was a humongous beast, but wasn't really that big. The weird thing is that the fish got caught on the bottom to something. It got loose, but had some really bad wounds on both sides. We decided to keep the fish because the wounds were pretty bad and the fish would probably not make it anyways.
At this time of year it gets dark really fast, so we decided to head home before it got pitch black. Dag needed to clean and fillet the three fish he kept and obviously that's a job that's a bit easier when there's some light out.
The cleaning process ended up being pretty nasty actually. I'm not sure how it happened, but he was done cleaning the fish and was washing off the board he used to clean the fish and managed to cut his finger pretty bad. It was a pretty deep cut and there was a lot of blood. We taped it up as good as possible, but Dag was wondering if he maybe would need some stitches. He ended up not stitching it that same night, but did it the day after - since the cut kept opening up all the time. Not the best ending to a really good day :(.
To sum up the day:
We ended up having a pretty good fishing day. 18 pikes landed where the biggest were 4 kg, 4.5 kg and 6.8 kg. I guess I should mention that it was Dag who caught the biggest pikes. He claims it was beginners luck since he hadn't fished in a long time. I call that being modest :).
The weather was good (at least most of the day), fishing was good, Dag is a great fishing buddy... so yeah, a very successful day. It's worth mentioning that the most fish we've caught on our previous trips is 5 pikes (last year).
We're already looking forward to this trip next year!
PS. I had a plan to take a lot of pictures and video with my GoPro. Well, that didn't work out too good. I do have some video and I will probably get that uploaded and included in this post pretty soon.
September pass booked
Next Sunday - 25th of September - me and Ali are going out pike fishing. We'll go out really early in the morning and fish most of the day. Some uncontrollable variables control if we can fish all day or not, but either way it'll be quite a few hours.
I'll be exciting to see if the pikes are willing to bite or not. Sure, it's fall and they should be pretty 'on', but this fall has been extraordinary warm around here, so it might be that they are still in summer-mode. We'll see.
We will be fishing the river Glomma where I have my boat. We'll hit our favorite spots to start with and then venture out of our comfort zone and go further up-river to try some new spots as well.
Our tactics are as usual - no tactics. We'll do what we feel for there and then - but most likely we'll spin fish a lot and troll a little bit here and there.
A report from this trip will be posted next week. I'll try to be good at taking video with my GoPro and if we are lucky and catch some good action with it, I'll make a video also.
Stay tuned.
Anual fall pass booked
So, for the last 3 years me and a buddy of mine, Dag Ronny, have done a day trip fishing for fall pike. It has become sort of a tradition I guess and I'm really grateful for these trips. It's great fun.
I guess you can say that the fishing hasn't been very great on any of the previous trips really, but we've had a great time anyway.
So, this years trip has been booked (we booked in earlier this summer actually). It will be on either Saturday or Sunday the 2nd weekend of October.
Location is still undetermined and will remain so until maybe the week before. The reason for this is simply that we want to see how the water levels are in the different waters we consider. I'm pretty sure it'll be the river Glomma somewhere or Isesjø - both which we have fished before.
Since the fishing has been pretty poor this summer for me, I have rather high expectations to this trip. It should be a good time to fish for fall pike. They should be hungry and happy to strike... at least I hope so :).
Can't wait!
I guess you can say that the fishing hasn't been very great on any of the previous trips really, but we've had a great time anyway.
So, this years trip has been booked (we booked in earlier this summer actually). It will be on either Saturday or Sunday the 2nd weekend of October.
Location is still undetermined and will remain so until maybe the week before. The reason for this is simply that we want to see how the water levels are in the different waters we consider. I'm pretty sure it'll be the river Glomma somewhere or Isesjø - both which we have fished before.
Since the fishing has been pretty poor this summer for me, I have rather high expectations to this trip. It should be a good time to fish for fall pike. They should be hungry and happy to strike... at least I hope so :).
Can't wait!
Then and now...
I fished quite a bit when I was a kid and in my early youth. When I was out fishing today, my thoughts went back to those days and how different the equipment is now from then.
Of course, back then I didn't have a lot of money to buy a bunch of different gear and baits, but even if I did, the selection in the stores was very limited.
I had a couple of favorite baits back then that I fished all the time and which I bought over and over again when I lost them. For me those were Abu Garcia Hi-Lo (jointed red/white) and a spoon called Lillauren (copper color). These were/are pretty small baits, especially if you compare to what most pike anglers use today.
There are of course split opinions about what size bait catch the bigger fish. Theoretically I really believe that there is no right or wrong answer. Sometimes the big pike prefers large baits and sometimes it prefers a smaller bait. I would say that it depends on how much it has had to eat earlier... obviously! I mean, would you gobble down a large pizza right after you had a XL burger? I don't think so!
Based on my own experience alone, smaller baits have produced the biggest pikes for me. The two biggest were caught on small baits.
Anyways, I still have a couple of Hi-Lo's in my tackle box and honestly, my 2. biggest pike was caught on that lure. My biggest pike was caught on a quite small rubber shad...
Right, so fishing tackle has changed a lot since I was young. There is a wide range of more stuff to choose from in the stores, we have Internet stores now (which also opens up for shopping from foreign stores)...
Of course, having access to so much more stuff is an advantage. No question about that. We have more variety to choose from and that must be a good thing. But at the same time I think that it doesn't make a world of difference. I mean, people have been catching fish for ages and way back in the day, they didn't exactly have the most advanced gear - and yet they caught fish just like we do today.
So, the moral of all this is:
It's possible to have very successful fishing with just the basic gear and lures. But, for me at least, a big part of fishing is collecting all kinds of different lures and fiddling around with it when I'm not fishing (winter for example - to organize lures, sharpen hooks, look at the baits....). That's a big part of it actually.
All right, shit fishing!
Of course, back then I didn't have a lot of money to buy a bunch of different gear and baits, but even if I did, the selection in the stores was very limited.
I had a couple of favorite baits back then that I fished all the time and which I bought over and over again when I lost them. For me those were Abu Garcia Hi-Lo (jointed red/white) and a spoon called Lillauren (copper color). These were/are pretty small baits, especially if you compare to what most pike anglers use today.
There are of course split opinions about what size bait catch the bigger fish. Theoretically I really believe that there is no right or wrong answer. Sometimes the big pike prefers large baits and sometimes it prefers a smaller bait. I would say that it depends on how much it has had to eat earlier... obviously! I mean, would you gobble down a large pizza right after you had a XL burger? I don't think so!
Based on my own experience alone, smaller baits have produced the biggest pikes for me. The two biggest were caught on small baits.
Anyways, I still have a couple of Hi-Lo's in my tackle box and honestly, my 2. biggest pike was caught on that lure. My biggest pike was caught on a quite small rubber shad...
Right, so fishing tackle has changed a lot since I was young. There is a wide range of more stuff to choose from in the stores, we have Internet stores now (which also opens up for shopping from foreign stores)...
Of course, having access to so much more stuff is an advantage. No question about that. We have more variety to choose from and that must be a good thing. But at the same time I think that it doesn't make a world of difference. I mean, people have been catching fish for ages and way back in the day, they didn't exactly have the most advanced gear - and yet they caught fish just like we do today.
So, the moral of all this is:
It's possible to have very successful fishing with just the basic gear and lures. But, for me at least, a big part of fishing is collecting all kinds of different lures and fiddling around with it when I'm not fishing (winter for example - to organize lures, sharpen hooks, look at the baits....). That's a big part of it actually.
All right, shit fishing!
Nedre Glomma Gjeddefestival - report
So, during this last weekend the anual Nedre Glomma Gjeddefestival (Nedre Glomma Pike Festival) was held and Team Riverpigs participated for the second time. We had been looking forward to this event for weeks and this is maybe the highlight of the late summer for us.
This year 51 teams competed - which was a new record (by 15 teams no less) and 104 individuals. Really great. The event got quite a bit of local media coverage also, which is pretty cool. Hopefully this can shed some positive light on pike fishing (and C&R) and maybe also recruit some new anglers.
We packed the car and loaded the boat onto the boat trailer Friday afternoon and headed up to the base camp at Furuholmen (about a 10 minutes drive from where I live). We checked out the camp ground before putting the boat on the water. We got our tents set up and basically just hung around for a while before going to bed. We don't exactly sleep in tends very often, so the first night is usually pretty tough (as in we don't sleep very well). It was really windy Friday night - so that didn't help. But, it doesn't matter much. Waking up bright and early to the sound of exited pike fishers gets the old blood pump going.
We got dressed and started loading and organizing the boat before registration started. New of this year is that every team got a measure board (aluminum I believe) which helps a lot with measuring the fish. The board was to be given back to the organizers after the end of the festival, but it was possible to buy it for 150 kroner.
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| Our tents |
At 09:30 all boats headed out. Fishing started at 10:00.
Our plan for the weekend was to troll a lot and also spin fish known hot spots and other spots we would find interesting (we used the sonar to look for shallows etc.).
We mostly fished Mingevannet and Vestvannet as both are within decent distance from basecamp. The boat we have isn't exactly a speed demon (understatement of the year) so we didn't want to waste too much time driving without fishing. After all, the more the lures are in the water - the greater the chance of catching something.
To cut the story a bit shorter, we didn't have much luck! Fishing was tough. We ended up catching 8 pike during the weekend, but they were all really small. Our biggest fish was 72cm. The winning fish was 112cm. Quite a big difference!
Even though the fishing wasn't all that great for us, the whole thing was still a great experience and we had a lot of fun. Spending two days on the water fishing can't possibly be a bad thing right!?
So, even though we at times were a bit frustrated with the big pikes that didn't bite our lures - we had a great time! Can't wait for next year's NGGF! We'll be back - with bad intentions!
Here are pictures of the pikes we caught:
Here are some links to various information about the event:
Favorite bait type
When my interest for pike fishing re-ignited some years ago, it was mainly due to the amazing movie "Gäddfeber" from Sweden, featuring Stefan "Trumman" Trumstedt and Torbjörn "Buster" Odén. These two guys had a once in a life time fishing experience, catching numerous 10+ pikes. As far as I know, they mainly used Buster Jerk baits.
I got hooked on jerk bait fishing (or glider baits as they're called in the US) and this has been my favorite fishing method for pike... maybe until now.
The last few years, spin fishing with rubber baits/shads/jigs has become seriously popular. Jerk bait is still popular, but not like, say, 10 years ago.
I bought some shads a couple of years ago, but I had much more confidence in jerk baits - and hence I mainly fished jerk baits. However, this changed a bit this summer. I was lucky and found the right spot at the right time. The spot I'm talking about is in a small area which is well known by locals to hold big pike. I haven't had any luck what so ever in this area though. Anyway, this summer all this changed. By chance I was trying some shads in this area.
The bottom structure and depths there are pretty weird actually. It's in a small bay. The depths here are everywhere from 0.5 meters to 20 meters in a pretty small area. In the area where it's a bit deeper, there are also big variations. One spot holds 2 meters of water while if you turn around in the boat and cast 2-3 meters back, you have 7 meters of water. Right in the middle of all this there is a small hole in the structure, which holds about 2 meters of water. This hole is where things happened for me this summer. I caught my first 10+ pike there and I lost 3-4 more possibly 10+ fish there in just a couple of days. The thing was that the water level had dropped about 0.5 to 1 meter the night before, but was still not at the summer lowest. Also, the air temperature had just started rising quite a bit, so there were lots of important changes going on at the same time. Now when the water is at the lowest, this spot has produced nothing what so ever. It was just a 2-3 day window where it was hot.
Anyway, the point is that the fish I caught (and lost) hit on rubber shads. I tried jerk baits among a lot of different types of lures over the same spot, but it turned out that it was the rubber shads that did the trick. Why? I have no idea. It was not the size that tipped the scale, because some of the other baits I tried where approximately the same size (around 15cm). After this I have a new found love for rubber shads. I have invested in some new ones (Pig Shad among other things) and had pretty good success with that.
Don't get me wrong though. I haven't excluded other types of baits. I still fish a lot of jerk baits and I love it as much as before - but I would rather see it like this: I have broadened my fishing. I have more strings to play on, so to speak. But at the moment, I must say that jerk bait and rubber shads are my favorite baits to fish for pike. There's nothing like the feeling of a big hit while spin fishing!
When we (Team Riverpigs) fish competitions, we troll a lot. Mainly because we usually then fish waters that we aren't too familiar with and hence don't know the best spots. Therefore our strategy is to cover as much water as possible - hoping this will increase our changes of catching bigger fish. We are fishing Nedre Glomma Gjeddefestival 2016 in a couple of weeks, and this being our second year, we have gained knowledge of a couple of good spots where we'll try some spin fishing. Crossing our fingers!
Cheers, and good luck with those monster pike!
My first 10+ pike!!!
I went out this morning to fish some pike. I started off with some shallow trolling and did that for a while. Didn't catch anything - as expected really.
The water level in the river has went down drastically the last couple of days - especially during last night. It's almost down to the lowest level actually.
I went to a well known spot - it's known to hold big pike, but I have never had any luck there... until today! I put on a Savage Gear rubber shad (brown trout pattern). A couple of casts and something hit the lure. I was concentrated and sat the hook. At first I thought that this must be an OK fish. I was thinking maybe a 4-6 kg fish. But all of a sudden it took off on a hard run. Wow, this is something really big! After a couple of minutes I manged to pull it in far enough to see it. Holy shit! It was massive! I instantly knew that this is a PB for me! The fish did 4-5 long and hard runs and it took me about 10 minutes to net the old lady!
The problem with catching fish like this when you're alone in the boat, is taking pictures. It's friggin' hard! And the display on iPhones really suck out in bright light. I couldn't see the display and hence I couldn't see if I was getting good pictures... and I didn't. Not super bad, but they could have been a lot better.
I got the fish measured and weighed and by golly, new PB - with good margin. My biggest fish was up to this point 9060 grams and 106 cm.
This sucker was 10780 grams and 123 cm long! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
I got the fish back in the water and it took a while to get her swimming again. Man, what a wonderful feeling to see such a big fish swim back into the deep!
But, it doesn't end here! I turned the boat back to fish the same spot some more and I noticed something on the surface. It was my fish - floating up-side-down! Nooooo! I got a hold to try to save her from dying. It took me about 10-15 minutes, but finally she swam down to the bottom (it was really shallow there). She sat on the bottom for a while - which was a good sign - she wasn't turning up-side-down again. Finally, she took off and made the water murky from the sand/mud bottom! Happy times!
Still not finished...
I started fishing the same spot again. First cast and another huge fish attacked my lure again! It was about the same size as the first one and hit real close to the boat. A couple of headshakes and she was gone! I got a good look at her though - she looked more like a muskie than a pike. Real dark gray and the markings on her were pretty 'weak'. Anyways, I couldn't believe it. Two pikes around the same size on the same spot! And I lost one of them!!!! Argh!
A couple of more casts and WHAM! Again!!!! Different fish again, and again around the same size!!! What??!!?? She came off also I'm afraid! God damn motherf****!!!!
But you know what - I'm not allowed to be mad. I got my 10+ kg fish today and I couldn't be happier!
Go Team Riverpigs!
PS. We should have caught this fish last weekend! It would have been the winner fish - by far!
PSS. I wish I had gotten better pictures, but there's nothing I can do about that now.
The water level in the river has went down drastically the last couple of days - especially during last night. It's almost down to the lowest level actually.
I went to a well known spot - it's known to hold big pike, but I have never had any luck there... until today! I put on a Savage Gear rubber shad (brown trout pattern). A couple of casts and something hit the lure. I was concentrated and sat the hook. At first I thought that this must be an OK fish. I was thinking maybe a 4-6 kg fish. But all of a sudden it took off on a hard run. Wow, this is something really big! After a couple of minutes I manged to pull it in far enough to see it. Holy shit! It was massive! I instantly knew that this is a PB for me! The fish did 4-5 long and hard runs and it took me about 10 minutes to net the old lady!
The problem with catching fish like this when you're alone in the boat, is taking pictures. It's friggin' hard! And the display on iPhones really suck out in bright light. I couldn't see the display and hence I couldn't see if I was getting good pictures... and I didn't. Not super bad, but they could have been a lot better.
I got the fish measured and weighed and by golly, new PB - with good margin. My biggest fish was up to this point 9060 grams and 106 cm.
This sucker was 10780 grams and 123 cm long! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
I got the fish back in the water and it took a while to get her swimming again. Man, what a wonderful feeling to see such a big fish swim back into the deep!
But, it doesn't end here! I turned the boat back to fish the same spot some more and I noticed something on the surface. It was my fish - floating up-side-down! Nooooo! I got a hold to try to save her from dying. It took me about 10-15 minutes, but finally she swam down to the bottom (it was really shallow there). She sat on the bottom for a while - which was a good sign - she wasn't turning up-side-down again. Finally, she took off and made the water murky from the sand/mud bottom! Happy times!
Still not finished...
I started fishing the same spot again. First cast and another huge fish attacked my lure again! It was about the same size as the first one and hit real close to the boat. A couple of headshakes and she was gone! I got a good look at her though - she looked more like a muskie than a pike. Real dark gray and the markings on her were pretty 'weak'. Anyways, I couldn't believe it. Two pikes around the same size on the same spot! And I lost one of them!!!! Argh!
A couple of more casts and WHAM! Again!!!! Different fish again, and again around the same size!!! What??!!?? She came off also I'm afraid! God damn motherf****!!!!
But you know what - I'm not allowed to be mad. I got my 10+ kg fish today and I couldn't be happier!
Go Team Riverpigs!
PS. We should have caught this fish last weekend! It would have been the winner fish - by far!
PSS. I wish I had gotten better pictures, but there's nothing I can do about that now.
Report from C&R pike competition
Ok, so we participated in Aremark Gjeddeklubb's C&R Pike Competition in Aspern and Ara near Halden this last weekend. Me and Ali headed out on Friday night and spent the night there (the competition started on Saturday morning). Why? Because the registration started fairly early Saturday morning and we wanted to avoid having to get up super early on Saturday to make the fairly long drive.
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| Our tents are up and ready |
We got the boat on the water when we arrived and got the tent set up. We hung out for a while, talking to some of the other contestants (a majority of them had also showed up on Friday) before we decided to hit the sack.
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| Good night! |
We didn't get much sleep that night. Hard and uneven ground plus some party-happy fishermen in the big tent right next to us contributed to that. Didn't matter though, we were up and running by 08:00 on Saturday.
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| Parking lot |
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| Ali getting his rod ready ;) |
We loaded the boat with all the fishing gear, food and other stuff and got registered. We got our catch form along with number tags for the fish and a measure board. Good to go!
We went out on the water about 09:30 and just hung around out there until 10:00 when the fishing could start.
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| Hanging around on the water waiting for the start time |
We didn't really have a solid plan for how we would do our fishing, other than to do trolling for the most part - and stop for some spinfishing/jerkbaitfishing once in a while.
We had never been to this lake before - and other than studying a map of the lake and getting some tips from friends here and there, we didn't really know much about it. So, we tried staying close to shore as much as possible and just keep an eye on the sonar for edges.
The first part of the day Saturday was pretty decent for us. We caught 5 fish (I think) - where on of them was decent size. 85cm isn't really that bad. The rest though, were really small. 4 of the 5 were caught on trolling, while the last one was caught in a shallow bay while spinfishing.
Ali's new Swim Whizz Helin Frog was the hottest bait Saturday. It caught 3 fish I believe.
We fished the full day - until 21:00 when everybody had to quit fishing. Talking to some of the other guys it sounded like we had done fairly well with out 85cm fish. However, when we later talked to some more people, it turned out that we would need 3-4 more fish that size or bigger to have any chance what so ever. Oh well, it's not about winning...
We went to bed around 23:30 that night - after grilling (and eating) some hot dogs. We both slept really well actually.
The fishing could start at 06:00 on Sunday and sure enough - Team Riverpigs were up at 05:20 to get ready.
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| Ali digging in his tent at 05:30 in the morning |
Sunday turned out to be really slow for us (and most of the others too). We caught 2 fish and they were really small. We needed some more and in bigger sizes! We saw lots of fish on the sonar (both Saturday and Sunday) but they weren't especially interested in our baits. We did the same thing as on the day before. Mostly trolling, but stopped for some spinning once in a while.
The fishing ended at 14:00 and we went in to give our report. 345cm for our 5 biggest fish. It obviously didn't give us any prizes, but in the end we ended up on a OK 14th place (shared that spot with another team). Not too bad I guess. 14th out of 37.
All in all the weekend was near perfect. Even though we didn't do super well fishing, a weekend of pure fishing, nice weather, nice company, nice camp ground, super nature and being part of such an event (it's fun when so many people with the same burning passion for pike fishing gather like this) - is so much fun!
Now we're looking forward to the next competition, which is Nedre Glomma Gjeddefestival in August. We attended this last year also, and since that event takes place on my "home river" Glomma, we hope to do even better this time. We now know the area better and we have equipped the boat so we can fish 5 rods at the same time, rather than 2 last year. It obviously gives us a better change of catching more fish.
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| The view from our tents |
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| Saturday night dinner |
