06-03-29

Wednesday

Springtime is a-coming

Here in Sweden we have experienced the worst, longest and coldest winter since the forties. It's not completely over yet. But the first signs are showing that there will be a spring this year as well as all the others. This is information for you in China or South America that may wonder why I stopped with my fishing diary. Not that I think many people do because I'm well aware that this blog thing is growing and the number of websites is still more numerous. I've seen the figures and they are like 578 922. Increasing a day! 
A note; the figure above is fictional because I've forgotten the actual number but I know it's huge. Furthermore I know the subject I'm writing on is a very narrow one. Of a million fishermen here in Sweden, 90 000 consider themselves fly fishers. And of them, only 137 like to fly fish for pike. The figures, again, are an estimation from me or more bluntly put, a wild guess. 
More speculation:
They say there is 3 million hobby fishermen here in Sweden and that would make a total count of 411 weirdoes like me. 
But then again, down in Europe I know there live a great many more millions of people than here in Sweden and therefore maybe thousands of pike fly fishermen that could be a possible, unsuspecting reading audience for this plog (pikeflyfishing web log). 

It seems that I've happened to talk of birds of different kinds in each and every diary entry. It's been like a bad habit because I don't consider myself a birdwatcher by any means. There's even a few species I don't like so much. And still more I don't even know the proper names of. Neither in Swedish nor English. Or even latin.

But then on the other hand I consider myself a nice guy that don't hate or want to harm them. I didn't even laugh or shook my fist at this unfortunate large white bird.  I saw a great deal of dead birds today and that's a main topic in media here in Sweden nowadays . Dead birds. Bird influenza. "The aggressive variant of bird influenza virus H5N1".  But here in Sweden media must have a bacteria, virus or even a prion to get hysterical about to feel really happy. So it has been for ages. HIV in the 80s, Creutzfeld-Jacobs in the 90s and "killer bacteria" or Ebola virus in between.  But you seldom see actual, real killers like tuberculosis or malaria plasmodia

make the headlines. Despite the fact they are responsible for the deaths of millions each year. But it's hard to tell if the swan above died from the long and harsh winter, bird influenza or some other disease. But I regret that I wasn't quick enough with the camera to catch a big, live, flying bird of prey. It was big and fuzzy and brownish and a little clumsy.  I dare to say that it could have been an eagle owl. I know that there are such birds around here in Blekinge. But at the time I stood waded out in the water on a stony, rather slippery ground and when I turned my head to follow the bird with my eyes, I nearly lost my balance. Then it was gone. The great bird of prey. Now. let's close the bird department.

Since this Monday the spring was coming on strong with rain and up to 5 or even 8 degrees Celsius. But the ice was thick and the ground still very cold and this is what I saw standing on the same bridge as last time I was out fishing. A pretty depressing sight:

Just two days of spring wouldn't make it. The ice covers still most of Karlskrona's inner archipelago. A very disappointing fact. As a curiosity I can tell you that within half an hour from the moment I took this picture there appeared to have been a small eclipse. I read it afterwards but just about that time of the day the sun was shaded from haze. To be able to fish I had to go to the other side of the islands. The sides heading to the open sea. Not good. As a fly fisher I don't like to cast against the wind. Ordinary I put myself in a position where I don't have to do that of course. On an island or a point I can do that but not today because on almost every lee side the ice still reigned.

But I got lucky. I caught myself a nice and fine, thick and beautiful and almost big pike. Somewhere between four and five kilos. Stood in a narrow creek or rather passage which goes under the secret name of Loch Lagoon (in my fishing diary that is). And ye who catches a nice pike always have a story to tell about it, goes an old saying I just made up.
There I stood a-casting in the sunshine and it almost felt like a summer's day. To my small annoyance I had noticed a windknot on the leader, just above the wire. "Darnation!" I thought but let it be for the moment. The nylon leader is 0,30 mm and can take a beating none the less. I made an extra long cast. I let the fly sink for a while and started to take home the line slowly. When about half the cast was finished I started to wonder why it felt so easy. Aha!  The line was empty. No fly. Gone.
Now, where was it? I had certainly not felt anything during the cast. 
It must have been snatched away in the back cast, I thought and began to fumble about in a pocket for another white pike sara. But when I tied that on I got more and more suspicious. Had I not seen the fly pop in the water? Did not the feeling of decreasing water resistance come upon me rather sudden? Did I not feel a small tingling in the small of my back? Did I not hear some alarm bells tolling? 

Yes I certainly did and here is the guilty party, responsible for the loss of the first fly. OK, I only have circumstantial evidence but it goes a long way. My belief is that the pike missed the strike a little in her first attempt and only succeeded in cutting off the leader without me even noticing it. Occasionally that may happen. 
That's about all for today. That was the only bite I had. No followers or swirls, just one bite in a whole day's fishing. Considering time left to fish I had plenty of that left but instead I had run out of places to fish. Too much ice. But I do admit it's getting better all the time. Couldn't be much worse. With the exception of me not having caught a pike at all, of course. 
And this 4,5 kilo pike is this year's record. I hope it won't be that long lived. The record, not the pike of course...