06-04-07

Friday

A New World Record

... is the name of an album .by the Electric Light Orchestra. But also a good headline for today's fishing journal or diary. I wasn't too happy about the last entry though. I felt myself entangled in too long sentences and I think my meanings didn't come through. I must try to. Keep my sentences a little shorter!
Well, here we go again with another trip to the Baltic. This time I drove in a whole new direction compared to the day before yesterday.

Here I'm standing in the rain almost singing but not dancing. No irony at all! The rain and half-gale guarantee me to be alone here in the first place. Sunny days it's completely hopeless to be here. The beach is just swarming with people. This time of year not to swim of course but to walk their dogs.  Yes, I visit a lot of beaches in all three seasons with the obvious exception of summer. But this particular beach is what I call a scanning area. Like in Quake 4: -All right Corporal Kane, scan the area for alien life forms! -Yes, lieutenant Strauss, on the double! -Do you read any Strogg activity, Kane? -Yes, I sense a heavily guarded area behind that door! -All right Kane, let's go get them! But in my case my only weapons are my fly rod and wading staff. But sometimes I wish I had my reliable double shotgun at the ready...  When I sense heavy concentrations of these big, white, hissing, airborne creatures... Specially around here they dig a lot of big holes in the sand bottom and you'd better watch your step! Almost like land mines they are!

That was of course a joke. I consider myself a nice person and the only bad things and killings I'm guilty of, take place in one person shooters here on my PC.  Like in Doom, Half life and Quake 1, 2, 3 and now 4. Maybe there's a connection between my being a real mean killing bastard in those games and me patting the nice little pikes on the head, letting them go back to the water with a friendly warning to be more careful the next time?
In real life the scanning for alien life forms is a way of fast fishing or slow wading. You don't really think there's a chance to get a bite or that any fish is around but you cannot be a hundred percent sure. So you make a cast here and there, now and then while you're on a slowly move, kind of. But I had no luck at all on this sandy beach. 
But how 'bout this!

Yes, this almost 8 kilo pike is the biggest this year to be sure. The world record mentioned above, is a personal one in my own little world of private fishing, of course. Namely the biggest pike yet taken on a One Size Fits All. More about flies and sizes in a while. But for starters you can take a close look at the lower jaw of the pike. There it is; the little wing of the fly. I was searching for the proper word to compare it to that little thing that some cod fish wear like a little false beard on the underside of their lower jaws. I don't know what's it called in English but I do know what the cods use it for: Scanning the area for alien life forms!
Anyway, when this fairly big pike struck I had moved to a new place. A place that you of course have absolutely  no need to know the name of. I mean, these Swedish words and names only serve to confuse you with their strange spellings and weird letters like å, ä and ö. I bet you don't even know how to pronounce them, right?
But I can describe the settings a little. The heavy wind and waves swept around a rocky peak and I was standing out waded where the back water started. Almost in lee of the peak. Almost some kind of stream was formed like in a river. And there I knew the chances for both pikes and now in April, sea trout were fairly big. That was the reason I used a One Size Fits All. If you're lucky you could have the best of both worlds. 
Also I got myself three more pikes of a much more moderate size. But no silvery fish.
By the way, some Central European fly fishermen appear to measure their catches rather than weighing them. They have asked me to do that as well but I keep forgetting it. But this pike is about 95 Swedish cm long. It so happens that you can measure it yourselves on the photo. Accidentally you can observe the little mark on the rod to the left. That is the exact 90 cm mark I made when I bought the rod. I promise to be more careful with that in the future. But you have so much to think about when you catch a big pike that it's easy to forget something. There's a lot of photos to be taken, you are in a hurry not to keep it out of the water too long (but today it rained!). But I did weight it though.  

And now for something completely different! A picture displaying two completely different outlooks of life. Two opposite fishing philosophies. The big ugly, yellowish thing is what is known as a jerkbait. The fly is the same One Size that landed all four of today's pikes for me.  Occasionally when I'm wading around in the water or walking down the coastline I discover various kinds of flotsam and jetsam. Mostly rubbish, trash, junk and litter.   Among the worst kinds of that rubbish, trash, junk and litter I place lures, wobblers and jerkbaits. Dangerous things, often equipped with huge, big and rusty hooks. (What's that called; three hooks in one?)  But being a Mother Nature's son I often pick them up and take them home.

Later on I will introduce you to a special old Swedish custom. In the springtime people often like to make bonfires in their gardens. Mainly to get rid of old leaves, twigs and downfallen branches from trees. But it's also a widespread tradition for many Swedes to take the opportunity to make certain sacrifices to some old, nearly forgotten deities from foggy ancient times... Like for instance these wobblers, lures and jerkbaits you pick up along the beaches and coastline during autumn and winter. Many ancient Gods don't like wobblers, lures and jerkbaits. But they love the smell and smoke from burning plastic! There's an old saying that if you place these horrible things on top of your bonfire the Gods will grant you blessings for the whole fishing season to come. The higher the pile the better the luck!  Yes, this is all true and like I said, later on I will make a special report about it.
Today I tried two more places miles apart but with no luck at all. Therefore I put an end to this journal. Now.