06-06-24

Friday

Midsummer

I can't believe it's already midsummer! Seems like it was only yesterday the snow was blowing and the ice lay thick on my fishing waters!
But there you go; time runs as fast as a river and you don't have the time to stop and even make one cast in it before it's gone. The older you get, the faster it runs, that's for sure. No wonder then that the old Greek philosopher Heracleitus compared life to the flow of a river. I mean, he was old, wasn't he?
And now the time of the year has come to me, when life and time runs the absolute fastest. Namely my summer vacation. 
But on the other hand, when it's over, it isn't long to  late autumn when my fishing is on its absolute peak. 

But until then as good as all my fishing has to be done from my boat in one way or the other. And this sight is what meets my eyes almost every time I go out. I know that there are some Italian visitors here on the website and I bet they think I'm on the Grand Canale in Venice, going under the Riva Alta Bridge. 

Here in Sweden, Venice often is referred to as the Stockholm of Italy. But in my opinion Karlskrona and Venice share more similarities. Both in history and appearance. OK, that Venice has a little more canals than we here but both cities lies on islands and islets and is surrounded by a protecting girdle of other islands and islets. 
But the wharfs or shipbuilding yards are the most striking similarities. Karlskrona was founded by the very reason that the King needed a new naval base. And a wharf to build the new ships that were needed to fight the evil and aggressive Danes. We had just conquered Blekinge from them (or liberated it, as it nowadays is called) This took place in the 17th century. 
But Venice's great shipbuilding yards were more famous. A legend in its time and the very name went into all Western languages as a place to keep weapon in. And even a rather well known football team. Arsenal. The word is derived from the impressed Arabs and means a place where things are put together to even bigger things. Or something like it. But the Arsenal made it possible for Venice to dominate the scene for hundreds of years. 
I have a pretty good picture of the fishing here in the lagoon of Karlskrona but how the fishing around Venice is, I don't know. But in historical times, the water was shallow in places and consisted of a lot of small islets and sand banks. Or velmi and bareni as it was called. But what kind of fish that swimmed there I don't know either. I mean, that depends of how salty it is, or was. 
I'm sorry to tell you, you all Italians that read this, that I have a very bad notion of the fish life in the Mediterranean. Are there any medium sized fish at all?
Of course I'm aware of the big game fishes il tonno and il pesce spada  and the little la sardina but are there any in between? 
No wonder then that Italians come here to fish.

Here's a three kilo pike taken on a sinking line. A fast sinking line to that and a heavy #9 rod. My standard equipment while fishing from the boat. I think that is necessary because I almost always fish from a drifting boat. Then you don't have the time to let the fly sink on its own.   And often I fish in rather deep water as well now in summer when the pike leaves the shores and shallows. Or I fish in waters with varied deeps.  I had my waders in the boat but I didn't invade any islets today. This is midsummer and here in Sweden that's a big deal.  A huge deal even! Bigger than Christmas in many cases.  A very old heathen tradition that the Church failed to put a Christian etiquette on. No, it's drinking and dancing around a May pole that counts. And I don't mean juice or even wine or beer; no it's brännvin or vodka till you drop.

A kind of Rite of Summer. What's it all about it's easy to see just looking at that May pole. That is if you got a dirty mind. Or know something of ancient habits and customs. One thing baffles me though and that is why that graffiti in simple sketches found on public toilets or back alleys may cause a mother to blush, holding a protecting hand over her little child's eyes and hurrying away from the obscene painting and absolutely refuses to explain the meaning of the drawing. But when midsummer comes along that same mother eagerly tells the little innocent child to dance around the same thing found painted on the wall of the public toilet! A big phallus thrust into Mother Nature's fertile soil!
What do they teach the children at school nowadays!? I mean that the mother should know. 
Most people think that their own customs are normal, sound and good but other peoples' weird and strange. Even nowadays. 
The connection to fishing is that almost all the islets and islands were occupied today. Today is Midsummer's day but yesterday; the eve of Midsummer (or is it Midsummer's eve?) was the big day. 
The connection to Nature, islands and sleeping out is very strong also. 

There's another connection to fishing in Midsummer and that is that everybody has to eat a special kind of pickled herring along with the heavy drinking. And potatoes of this year's harvest.  Myself, I don't care much about those things. I don't visit Nature just once a year. Well, I don't mean to imply that I'm alone in that aspect but other times of the year I'm pretty much alone out here on the sea or the coastline. Specially if the sun doesn't shine. But I do love to be out on the sea when the sun is shining. But today I had to put on a shirt to protect the skin from being badly burned.  One might think that you would catch much more pikes from a boat than if you fished from the shore. And normally you do because you can reach so many more spots and places. But in all I just managed to book four pikes today. But the last two were very strong and almost big. The one to the right weighed 4,5 kg and after only a couple of minutes after that I caught one even a little bit bigger than that.  It's a pretty heavy work casting away with a #9 rod and a big fly hour after hour from a drifting boat. I would estimate the number of casts in a day as double the ones you make while wading. The retrieving is often quicker in order to compensate for the boat's drift. It might look as too mechanical and mindless fishing, just like trolling, but that would be a mistake. Each cast has an aim and an intention. You try to cover certain areas, between two stones, just beside that weed bank and so on. Sometimes you hold down the rod in order to let the fly go deep and sometimes you hold it high to scan a shallow area.

The big drawback is that you can't stand too much wind. In fact, for my part, almost no wind at all. Last year's summer vacation was a disaster for me in that aspect. It blew and it blew, week after week. But the beginning of this year's vacation seems very promising. 
In the World Cup of football it's the other way around at least for my country. But my prediction of Germany and Brazil in the final stands. But now I hope for England. I consider myself an Anglophile as well as an Anglephile. Was this hard to understand?
I just mean that I both like England and angling. Or rather Britain. I'm not much of a traveler but I have been both to Scotland and Ireland but not to England itself.
As it happens I was cycling around in Scotland one midsummer. There they seemed to have this custom with big bonfires rather than a May pole. I don't think even it was a holyday like here in Sweden.