22.11.11

- Pohjolan Perhokalastaja 5 / 2011 -





A new issue of Pohjolan Perhokalastaja magazine will be published during this week.
I hope that you all like the cover photo, which I have taken!
There is also a story about Muddler and some history about it, which I have also written.

If for some reason you aren't ordering this best Finnish fly-fishing magazine, please, fix it soon as possible!



- J. Inkinen -

21.11.11

Pike Action 2011




Some of the fishermen think pike is a rubbish fish, but for the pike freaks, a huge pike on fly line feels same as salmon or trout!



There is something special, something that fascinates on pike fishing.
The pikes hit can be like torpedo hit, it can be so huge. Also you always have a chance to get a massive size fish on and I think that's the thing that gets you hooked on this.
Unlike salmon, a huge pike can get even a big man tremble with fear!


Sometimes you have to fish from the surface, sometimes deep, slowly or quick, so there is many ways to fish.. Especially on windy days pike is usually deeper waters.

Pike fishing is not always easy. As you might know, the best time to fish pike is on cold and rough weather in spring or autumn. Also rainy, windy and cloudy days inspire this 'beast' to prey.





























Canon 5D MK II, 25mm, f/4.5, 1/25s, Iso 800
- Petri and over meter pike -

Angel & Fly
Pike with a Burkheimer! =)




























Pike fly tying is also a really nice hobby. Only limit is your imagination!
You have all kind of materials and colors to use. When some color is working well, it soon becomes your favorite.

However, one of the most important things is the figure and the size of your fly.
Especially at sea, the fly must be really BIG, even thirty centimeter long and fat, otherwise it's useless to even imagine of receiveing more than fresh air!

The situation is different on the lakes. I have received over meter pikes with less than twenty centimeter fly..
Here is some pictures of those:






Canon 5D MK II, 70mm, f/4, 1/800s, Iso 800
Aleksandra casting




When should you fish for pike?

The best time is early morning, just when the sun rises. On this time fishes are often very active.
Also in the evening, about an hour before sunset is a great time to fish for big pikes!
Those times are usually the best times to fish pikes, but not always.. Personally I have received the biggest pikes middle of the day, when it had rained and was cloudy.

Remember also that the windy side of the beach is usually better!


Canon 5D MK II, 34mm, f/4, 1/400s, Iso 800




It is interesting that a 10kg pike can eat 2kg size fish easily.
It has been found up to 6kg size dead pike, which has tried to swallow bigger pike than itself, so it is the real beast!




Canon 5D MK II, 32mm, f/3.5, 1/40s, Iso 800



Infobox about the pikes age:

1 year  -  9-24 cm
2 year  -  18-36 cm
4 year -   37-61 cm
6 year  -  49-78 cm
8 year  -  61-89 cm
10 year -  71-101 cm




Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/5, 1/250s, Iso 200



The best fishing trips are made by, of course, good friends and not so much by the amount of fish.
Thank you boys who are intolerant of me and my stories =)
Hopefully we can go fishing as soon as possible!





- J. Inkinen - 

4.9.11

- Chasing The BIG ONE -





Our trip started on the friday 26th of august.


I ran away from work at one o'clock and took Kiviniemi brothers with me for the trip to north.
We were rising the atmosphere with our discussion of our dreams of catching the 'BIG' northern trout.
In this moment we had no clue of what to come on our trip =)


Our driving trip to north was really exhausting and long, at least for Me and Ville!
For Alexandra the length of the trip didn't feel bad at all, due the amount of liquor he drank..

We arrived to our destination on 7am.
Our trip only took fifteen hours of driving, how nice!
We drank rum glasses and we went to sleep..



The first day went sleeping and trying to recovery from the driving trip.
We had couple of casts on a river and lot of booze! Ville had a swimming accident and we had lot of fun :D Some fishing gear was lost during the swimming session..





Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/22,  1.0s,  Iso 100

Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/5.6,  1/125s,  Iso 200
Our fishing van


We succeeded to catch our first fishes and we went sleeping happy =)



On one day we went fishing to the mountains.
Weather conditions were great for the trip but the fishing was extremely challenging.
We were just enjoying the views and some rum called Ron Zacapa, perfect!





When the evening arrived the fishing started to get better and better.
After all the evening was great and I was able to catch two graylings and the bigger one was 50cm tall.


Canon 5D MK II,  200mm,  f/5.6,  1/80s,  Iso 400
Smaller grayling with a dry fly

Photo by Ville Kiviniemi / Edit J. Inkinen
Fifty centimeter grayling with a tinsel!

During our trip the grayling fishing was great all the time!
The graylings were eating from the surface very well and dry fly fishing was working nice.


Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/4,  1/250s,  Iso 200
Alexandra casting

Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/5.6,  1/125s,  Iso 200


Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/5.6,  1/160s,  Iso 200
Alexandra & grayling

Canon 5D MK II,  42mm,  f/4.5,  1/250s,  Iso 200
Back to river

Canon 5D MK II,  200mm,  f/4,  1/125s,  Iso 800
Wiljami, Burkheimer & M. Noel

Canon 5D MK II,  160mm,  f/4,  1/160s,  Iso 1600

Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/11, 10.0s,  Iso 200
- The team -

Wiljami

Canon 5D MK II,  24mm,  f/22, 6.0s,  Iso 100
The moment




We were dreaming of catching a big trout so we started to work for our dreams.
One day appeared to be better than all the rest. On the first hours of the fishing day Alexandra was able to hook a huge trout and was able to land it after ten minutes of fight.
The fish was really big and beautiful. 74 centimeter & about 4 - 4.5 kg!


Canon 5D MK II,  62mm,  f/4, 1/160s,  Iso 400
Stor öring! =)

Canon 5D MK II,  46mm,  f/4.5, 1/160s,  Iso 400



The atmosphere was really high because we were able to catch first big trout on our trip!
I was really happy that Alexandra caught a big trout. That mede me feel really confident on my own fishing. Now I realized that the river had BIG trouts also waiting for me!

I chose a fly from my box that would match the colors that the guide told us would work on this kind of weather.
I was concentrating on my casting.
I casted to the middle stream, mended my line and started to slowly strip in..and BOOM! Suddenly I had huge hit on my fly! I mean HUGE!! My fly was accepted!
I started to scream, "FISH ON, FISH ON!!"
All my fish mates started to run to help.

The fish felt really big and heavy.
Right from the hit the fish took a huge run downstream and took my fly line on backing!
The feeling was unbelievable.. I feared that I'd loose my fish that I was shaking all the time.
The fight took about fifteen minutes and I was pretty tired.

When I saw the fish on my net I screamed for joy!
THIS WAS THE BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE! The fish was extremely beautiful and big.
Strategic measures was 79 centimeter and about 6 - 6.5 kg!



Canon 5D MK II,  34mm,  f/5.6, 1/200s,  Iso 200
Happiest moment of my life! 79cm & about 6 - 6.5 kg trout.

Canon 5D MK II,  68mm,  f/5.6, 1/25s,  Iso 200
Black & White

Canon 5D MK II,  68mm,  f/5.6, 1/250s,  Iso 200


Our friend Peter was really happy for us!





After we had landed our big trouts we "öring-mens" decided to go celebrate our achievements to the local restaurant.
While we were eating, Ville was still fishing and trying to catch his own trout.
Soon he called that he had caught his first trout.
The trout was 62 centimeter tall and we named it "baby trout" =D
After all the day was perfect. Each mates landed nice big trouts!





This moment remains in my thoughts forever and I wish I could experienced again some time.
Now this experience feels to be unreal but fortunately, its real! =)






- J. Inkinen -


14.8.11

The Mountains Of Northern Sweden



It was that time of the year, when the battle starts again!
Father-in-law the Spin-fisherman VS  Son-in-law the Fly-fisherman.
Last year we were in northern Finland and northern Norway. The trip was great and we experienced a lot of new places to fish. Fortunately, the fly took care that we had lot of fish to eat ;)

Here is some 'black & white' memories from the trip:




- Norway 2010 -
Canon D10

Now we missed the silence of the mountains and completely new places and views.
So we decided to go to northern Sweden and hike to the mountains.
The plan was to be four nights in the mountains.
One fly-fisher and two spin-fishermans on the trip.
The backpack packing went nice for all of us, as you can on see the picture, right? ;)


Jouko
Joni
Juhani


So the trip began!

The car sounds diminished and the amount of mosquitoes increased. Soon full silence took place.
Trip to the river supposed to last three hours, supposed. If we hadn't strayed from the path.
The trip took five hours and the terrain was really heavy to walk, especially when my backpack weighted almost 50 kg! I really felt like dying many times!
I pit my teeth together and I forced myself to continue.. Now I have to say that the fishing and the hiking doesn't fit together! The only thing that got me continuing was the dream about big graylings and a big trouts..


This hike was too much for some ones!
Canon 5D MK II, 24-70mm f/2.8L


Somehow we were able to misguide Juhani and we couldn't find him anywhere!
At last when we found the river we were exhausted.
It was already evening and we knew that we couldn't find Juhani during that day..
The evening was really beautiful and the water was completely still. The water was crystal clear and it tasted good. We started to sit and admire the rising fishes.
In this stage the "fishing fever" increased to the next level..!



Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/4.5, 1/320s, Iso 200
We arrived to the mountains


I found a boat from the forest and we decided to borrow it for a while.
We started to row upstream while we shouted for Juhani ..without success.
We didn't find him!
In the evening we returned the boat and we started to put our camp up. We were extremely tired.
We ate some food, but mostly drank and then we went to sleep..



Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/6.3, 1/40s, Iso 200
Our camp!

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/7.1, 1/40s, Iso 200
..towards to the next morning


The following morning was a early wake-up call.
Quick out of the tent and to see what the weather was like.. The weather looked good and we ate a quick breakfast and ran to the river :)
I was very excited about my new rod which I just got before the trip.
C.F Burkheimer 690-4 DeepActionLoad.
I threw a few test casts and I hooked a nice Grayling! Not a bad start for the fishing, ha? :)




Canon 5D MK II, 70mm, f/5, 1/250s, Iso 200
Grayling vs Muddler

Canon 5D MK II, 35mm, f/6.3, 1/200s, Iso 200
First fish for the new rod!

My new rod was perfect! The color is matt white and it really looks great!  It's also suitable soft, but it has lot of power to cast far.. Just perfect for me :)

During the day I also found my father-in-law. He spend the first night by himself because we lost him. We noticed soon that the river was full of fish. Almost on every throw I had a fish on!
Grayling's, Trout's and even a Arctic char.. All of the Graylings was a some kind of turbo models.
The size was really big and they had a lot of power! I mean a LOT! AWESOME FISHING! =D


Canon 5D MK II, 70mm, f/4.5, 1/500s, Iso 200
Juhani & a Arctic char

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/10, 1/200s, Iso 200
..the hot spot!

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/7.1, 1/250s, Iso 200
Me & Trout

Canon 5D MK II, 54mm, f/5, 1/400s, Iso 200

Canon 5D MK II, 38mm, f/5.6, 1/250s, Iso 200
Me & Grayling

Canon 5D MK II, 38mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, Iso 200


We also met a nice friend, Arne. He helped us to find Juhani and he made lot of effort for us.
He also gave a lot of information about the location and history.
Thank you Arne!


Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/5, 1/80s, Iso 200
Arne the man

So far the trip was great! The weather and the fishing almost incredible..
It was my first trip ever to the mountains. I knew immediately that I have to come back here again.
The silence, pure nature, crystal clear water and good fishing, could it be better?


Then it was time to the last fishing night. This last night was only warm night during the trip, so I knew that it would be good for fishing.
Juhani and Jouko went to sleep already at eleven a clock.
It was last and best fishing night and they went to sleep?! ..Well I didn't.




- C.F "special" Burkheimer's - 

I took two rods and I started to walk to the "hot spot".
I fished by my self all night about four hours. I will remember this night my whole life because it was so incredible.. When I found the right fly I had continually fish on!

Five straight cast's and I got five beautiful graylings in the net. The smallest was forty-fife centimeter!
During the night I catch over twenty fish, Graylings and Trouts.

The photographing was really difficult because I was alone at night!
I edit my pictures 'black & white style' because they was so dark and ugly!
So here they are, some action picts from the last night :




Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/3.2, 1/100s, Iso 1600
..photographing the fish by myself at night!

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/3.2, 1/100s, Iso 1600





Turbo Graylings..





Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/3.2, 1/40s, Iso 1600
Trout


Our journey to mountain's was ending..
During the next day we started to walk to the car.
The trip was heavy but it was worth it. We get lot of nice memories and photos from the trip.
The best thing was the last night, when the fishing was almost perfect, it was so great!
Four nights passed quickly and we started to plan a new trip to next summer =)

Fortunately, I have one week vacation left and we (Ville & Alexandra) will go to north Sweden!



..STAY TUNED




SINCERELY


- J. Inkinen -