06-04-12

Wednesday

The League of the Birdwatcher Watchers

Today was another day off from work with intention to fish. I'm not sure how it looks to you all out there; maybe you wonder what kind of employment I have when I seemingly don't have to show up at work more than occasionally.  But when other people travel to sunnier and warmer latitudes on their holidays, I go down to the coast fly fishing away the day mostly for pike. They, the other people, often take the whole week off or even a fortnight and goes to Greece, the Canaries or some other Mediterranean country to sun and bathe, go to restaurants and so forth. That's their meaningless way of spending their time and money of course. I, on the other hand, think it's great here in the chilly, rainy and windy waters. I never go places. I'm stuck here. The grass isn't greener the other side of the fence. That's an outlook on life I strongly recommend for you. Regarding fishing; the new and exciting place for you is another man's boring and dull home water, don't ever forget that! So stay at home. Of course there is plenty of exceptions from this rule. I only emphasize on this because the fairly amount of shapely pikes in my statistic tables lately. 
And besides; maybe I'm making this whole thing up? Maybe I'm exaggerating my catches in order to impress other people?
Yes, it might as well be true. But do I catch a lot? If the table is correct and truthful in the first place, of course.
That's a very hard question to answer, I think. Even if you take my numbers at face value. 

Before we continue this discussion. let's begin today's fishing with this photo. It's from this birdwatcher's heaven I was talking about previously. And this i what today's headline is all about. Of course I refer to that famous Sherlock Holmes short story with almost the same name. But it's true it exists a little known league of people collecting bird watchers. Or rather photos of them practicing their hobby. And today I got me a nice, fine specimen to add to my collection! This is my 57th and for the moment Yours Truly is in the lead!  Yes, this place certainly is a very good hunting ground for us Birdwatcher Watchers! But unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a decent photo of a bird today either. Now back to the interesting discussion of do I get plenty of fish or maybe was I having a bad day even?

I think that every place and every fisherman have their own standards. Some catches more and bigger and some lesser and smaller. This is of course rather obvious and applies to all fishermen and countries. 
And right now, my catches lies above standard. It's rather unusual I can book more than 10 pikes a day. So I consider today's 12 pikes an excellent result. Not to mention the 20 the other day. 
The reasons for this one can discuss in hours and hours. Many factors are involved but maybe surprisingly enough I don't give the fly all the credit. 
Knowledge of the waters and surroundings, experience and a little luck; there's a few hints. But you'll see as we go along the year round. All is relative. But it's very seldom I don't catch even one little pike in a day's fishing.  If I happen to top off the day with a 4 kilo pike I'm often very happy about it. 
Now back to today's fishing. The picture above will directly pinpoint the very exact place I visited today for a lot of local fishermen, to be sure. And I think many birdwatchers. Surprised? Am I not paranoid and secretive to ridiculous measures where I go?
Ha, ha, ha, not at all! 
Besides, the locals don't read this so it's safe. And you foreigners don't recognize it anyway. If you're not a birdwatcher (or birdwatcher watcher of course)  but in that case it's all right. And besides number two; this could very well be an old photo from last year, for all you know. Remember, this is the Internet and as you all know you just can't believe everything you see and hear, can you? Now if you'll excuse me I must be on my way.
"But, but, but, but, but, but, but...!"
Last bit of conversation I borrowed from the Jimi Hendrix' Axis bold as love-album, first track "Exp". In my opinion his best album. Maybe with the exception from his first...

This picture is meant to show the type of fishing water I love the best. To the right, shallow water and sand bottom. To the left a slope toward deeper water with a more dark bottom. And me standing on the edge in between.  Aaah, can you imagine the fly line tightens, you see a great swirl is forming somewhere in the neighborhood of your fly? Can you actually feel the heavy resistance when you raise your rod in answer? Well, I could do that several times today in real life. I often refer this kind of fishing water as a savannah type of bottom. Luckily enough this type of coastline and nature dominates in many parts of Blekinge.  But let me point out that this kind of bottom absolutely not is considered the best or even good by most fishermen. Often there's a great distance between pikes, if any at all. But I'm like that man in the Good Book parable who was found one night searching desperately for a lost key under a lamppost. A passerby joined him and they searched the area together. At last the passerby asked if if he really was sure he'd dropped the key right here? I think we would've found it by now? -No, I dropped it somewhere else but there it's too dark to make a search for it. I think that old parable still has something important to say to us all, modern people of today about that eternal search in the wrong place for precious things lost. Like the key to Paradise...

In my case I'm just like that man under the lamppost doing his vain search in the light because it was so much easier. I just hate to wade where the bottom is slippery and stony and you easily take a fall. I don't care if I miss a lot of pikes that way.  Sometimes I have to do it, of course, but...
Oh, I find that I hardly can take my eyes off the picture! Suddenly I just want to shut down the PC, throw in my waders, rods and reels and fishing vest and stuff in the car and drive away! Leave everything and speed down to the coast! The more I look at the photo the more I imagine the waves to actually move... Strange... But no, not today. 

I got plenty of pikes today but unfortunately enough not so many good pictures of any.

But here's a reasonable one of today's heaviest champion.  Notice the color of the water. Not the usual clear.  That was a big disappointment for me when I later that day went to place no two. I hate murky water! The reason for the brownish hue is that the small rivers around Karlskrona like Lyckebyån, Nättrabyån and Ronnebyån is in full spate just now and the freshwater from the province of Småland often is humus colored.  I do think that you down in Central Europe is fully aware of what I'm talking about. I hear the floods there are the worst for a hundred years and they should be glad if their biggest problem was the color of the water.  But then again, different countries, different problems.  I think this little inconvenience will remedy itself in a couple of weeks or maybe even days.  The boat season for my part draws nearer for each day. Ordinary years it begins the last week in March when I put the boat into the water. Now the time is short to get in close encounters with the silvery, edible and shiny fish, the sea trout. First of May the season for sea trout is over for my part.  But let's return to those subjects later on when the time is...  Oho... Look who's coming! The Internet Ombudsman. He looks rather upset... Even angry... -Yes, and I have all the reason to be! I must interfere when you spread this... these.... sacrilegious lies!

-Oh, you mean the numbers of the pikes! I see... well. he, he, he... Well you see, I have this little problem with numbers and counting... Even in school I was bad at math and...
-Of course not, you fool!
-Oh, I see... The weights of the pikes! Well you see... ha, ha, ha... Yes, maybe I was a little over ambitious about...
-Will you shut up and listen! This is far more serious! How can you state that the story about the man and the lamppost was a parable from the Bible!? There's not  a single lamppost in the whole of the New Testament! And even fewer in the Old! 
-Oh that... Well, I thought I should raise the moral standards a bit on this website. You know, be a little more spiritual and now it's Easter Time too.
-By telling lies!? Shame on you! Don't you know the consequences of that? Don't you read papers? Don't you watch TV? Don't you know what's happened to your neighbor country Denmark recently?
-You don't mean that...!
-Yes, I do! It's obvious! Extremists will take it as an insult to their holy religion! When they read this they'll be absolutely furious! Specially in the very religious USA!  Nowadays it's he home of Christian fundamentalists! And they're in power for the moment. Trust them to take advantage of this! Heresy, they will cry!
Thousands of angry Christians will rally the streets and cities! Raging crowds will storm and burn down Swedish embassies! And maybe even worse:
 Not a single American will buy a Volvo! Ever! Or a Saab. They will publicly burn ABBA records! They will smash to pulp every IKEA piece of furniture! Even if they managed to put it together in the first place! Which I, by the way, never did. 

And furthermore, the furious, flag waving, torch hurling, cross carrying, bible waving masses will be led by President Bush himself and his fanatic bunch of Christian right wingers! So you better start digging a deep shelter in Gagnekulla when you know exactly how trigger happy he is!  -You can't be serious about that? Not the President himself? -I'm not...? Don't you know that in some states in the Bible Belt Darwin is a dirty word? Don't you know the strength of the fanatical right wing Christians? I'm not saying that all Christians in the USA are like this but it's the fundamentalist ones that are the worst, of course. And they're in power. -How... How can I, sob, make up for this threatening disaster!  Is there a way? -Calm down, calm down. You just have to delete the part concerning this unhappy parable-thing. Just remove it before you transfer it to your web hotel. You haven't done that yet, I hope? -Well yes, but just a little... I can easily change that part from here... Phew! That was close! Thank you for warning me! -Think nothing of it! It's my job to  help. But don't forget it! -I will certainly not do that! But...

-What?
-No. No, that's nothing. I just got information from my web hotel about some changing being made but I don't think that will cause any problems.
 Bye for now!

Now, where was I... Oh, you readers out there! What a blunder I just missed doing! But thanks to that honorable Internet Ombudsman a big catastrophe was avoided. Phew! But now I have some work to remake... hm...
Suddenly I grew very tired and I think it's better to stop right here.