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!
