The fall pike fishing season is on, has been for some time already. I've struggled finding fish this fall in the same bays I fished last year. I've even tried fishing deeper areas and weedy drop-offs with absolutely no results. I'll have to get on my kayak again next weekend to locate new areas to find fish in. It should be a lot easier with the kayak and sonar.
Today I went Halloween fishing early in the morning and got one fish straight away. Maybe I should fish more and earlier in the morning. It's just hard because the days are getting very short and because of that I can't fish in the weekdays at all. It's already getting dark at 5 pm so no more after work fishing this year.
I've been busy tying pike flies for the upcoming fall season. Something synthetic for a change. For these flies I've used Slinky fibre, flash and Craft fur, all of them have rattles in them too. There's also tying instructions with photos in the end of this post.
Olive for the picky ones
Skitmorten
Yellow with chartreuse, green and gold has been productive
Neontetra
ReBl- red and black
Dead undulate
Tying instructions:
I tried to imitate this.
Here's all you need. Slinky fibre, rattles, lead wire craft fur, 3D eyes and flash of yor choice.
Tie in the rattle first. I used Piketrek magnum rattles, uni big fly thread and the hook is Partridge Attitude Extra in size 6/0.
Tie in the lead wire. Use more for fast jigging action and less for slower fishing.
Tie in the first tapered clump of slinky fibre and double it up. Make the top part longer. Superglue helps when tying these slippery materials.
Tie in the second clump.
Add the flash. You can mix the flash and fibres before tying if you want.
Split the forward facing part of the second clump.
Fold the fibres below the hook shank and tie them in.
Add the third clump. This is your back colour.
Split this too.
But this time, fold the fibres to the sides.
Tie in the craft fur. spread it evenly around the shank.
The craft fur tied for the bulky head. Trim it roughly on the sides.
Like this.
Glue on the eyes. I used 10mm eyes and hot glue to keep them in place.
Trim the head.
The fly is ready. I use urethane glue to coat the eyes.
I think I've finally found a perfect fishing boat. I first thought I could buy a fishing kayak but it's just not possible. Despite looking everywhere I haven't found a place to store a kayak. I live in an apartment building and I don't have a car of my own.
But now I found a perfect craft (I think). It is a Sea Eagle Fast Track inflatable kayak. I ordered it from spindrift,com (in the UK) on Friday and it is dispatched already. The boat fits in a backpack, weights around 14kg or under 30lbs, I can stand in it and take it wherever I want even with public transport. It's made from 1000 denier reinforced material and has an inflatable high pressure 'dropstich' floor so it's a serious boat.
This is the package that I ordered. Fast Track deluxe angler package.
Lets see how it turns out, but I'm super excited!!
I'll post first impressions when the boat is here.
It's officially started! The big pikes are in the shallows! The peak time is on for us fly fishers here in Southern Finland.
I just can't figure out what to write right now. I'm so excited! But I think there will be more reports soon about fishing and about gear too. I'll soon receive my new fishing craft from the UK... More about that later.
But now, let's enjoy a video that's all about Juuso's new personal best! Congrats to Juuso, I'm so happy if I did anything to help him catch this fish. What a beautiful fish!
It's been a long time after my last post, sorry for that. There hasn't been a lot to tell you recently as the fishing has been slow here.
The spring has been hard for me so far. I've tried different things and different places, I've fished the shallows in the spawning bays as well as the deeper parts in the center of the bays. Nothing. I've done float tube fishing and I've fished from the boat too.
Every place I've gone this spring I know they hold fish. They're there lurking somewhere, I just can't find them. It would be great to fish with somebody with more experience on early spring fishing on the areas near my home.
But as the spring goes on and the waters warm up, the fishing hopefully gets a lot better as it did last year. The first signs are already here.
We only caught a few tiny pikes this time, but we had a blast! Go fishing!
So now it's time to look at some photos of my last year's fishing. It was such a great year.
First of all, I got married with the most beautiful, caring and amazing woman in the world and we had a perfect day that I'll remember for the rest of my life.
Picture c Marko Viitanen
As for the fishing, it was magnificent too. It was better than I'd have ever dreamed of but it wasn't easy. It required a lot of learning, patience and cold hands.
I got my first float tube early 2014 and two of my friends got boats so my ability to pike fish went up like a rocket. These float tubes are probably the best vessels to fly fish for pike in. I got some good fish from the boat, too but it was a lot tougher. At first in early March I went to all kinds of places to fish with my float tube. (Thanks mom for loaning your car.) I caught little to no fish, but seeing the nature wake up after the winter was amazing.
It was in the end of April when I decided to try fishing in the bays nearby my home. They are accessible by foot so it's cool to just jump into the waders, throw the float tube on my back, grab the rods and go. The fishing here is a bit on the urban side but it's still very quiet and relaxing. Back then, I didn't realize I had hit a very good spot.
I fished more than ever before and caught the largest number of pikes I'd ever caught in a year. The five biggest pikes (5 pikes over 100 cm/ 39 inches) I'd ever caught in my life all came last year too and the average size was over 85 cm / 33 inches which is very good in my liking.
This is of course possible only because I didn't fish lakes last year. Big pikes have been very hard to catch on the lakes, for me at least.
There were some nice days for float tubing this spring.
My first bigger pike on the fly
Yellow and chartreuse fly with gold flash was a good performer for early spring pike.
93 cm/ 36,5 inches C&R
Big fish makes me happy!!
This fish was one of the few I caught from a boat last year. Thanks to my buddy Eero for taking me on board!
It's one of my biggest pikes, still thin 114 cm and 7,7 kg. It's 44,8 in/ 17 lbs C&R
Float tubing fun!
Pliers anyone?
10th of May was a good day. Only three fish caught, but this was the smallest. The other two were over 102 cm/ 40 in.
My biggest fish ever! 108 cm/ 42,5 in. It was very thick and heavy too. I didn't have a scale with me but I believe it was over 10 kg/ 22 lbs. C&R. I hope It's fine. This was also 10th of May!
This was a strong one. We had a memorable fight of over 10 minutes. 104 cm/ 40,8 in C&R.
Nice one!
My first pike on a popper! It was a blast! There's a marina 30 meters to the left with people watching. They thought I was crazy when I released this pike. 92 cm/ 36 in.
As pike fishing slowed down we jigged for pike-perch in August.
Unusual color scheme.
Typical September pike. Big, healthy and super strong. It was a stormy day with winds over 15m/sec. This one ate a big green fly with flashy silver sides.
Last year i took two small pikes for food. Other than that I always catch and release. Releasing is as much fun as catching in my opinion.
Thank you for your interest. Next post will be about some of my favorite flies, I think.
I did my first tying video. Check it out! It is just a basic pike fly, simple but effective. I just love to tie pike flies 'cause I can just improvise and do what ever comes to my mind. I'll definitely make more of these tying videos!
What do you think? Can you help me make better videos? Please comment!
Hi, all my friends interested in pike fishing and welcome to my blog!
My name is Olli Alanko. I'm a pike fishing enthusiast from Helsinki, Finland. I've been fishing for all of my life. With my beloved dad, we went angling for barbs on a local stream and caught some good ones too. The river was also loaded with pike, so we spin fished for it in pools and other slower parts of the stream. Dad taught me a lot about nature, how to treat the environment responsibly. We practised catch & release.
It was before all that though when i got the "pike bite". I caught my first pike bobber fishing in a trench near our home. I had this rod made from a tree branch, if I remember correctly and the pike was around 1lb/0,5kg but it felt big then. That's a day I'll never forget, my perents even gave me a nickname Hauki-Olli (Olli the pike-catcher in english). After that I've been a pike fisherman. Of course I like to fish for other species too, but the pike strike just makes me so unbelievably happy.. I can't help it.
Novadays I mostly fish for pike on a fly in the archipelago near Helsinki, Porvoo and Turku. Pike gets on well in the brackish waters of Gulf of Finland and they grow huge here. I don't have a boat, or even a car, but I bought a float tube last winter and it opened a whole new world of fishing for me.
In the next post, I'll upload some photos and tell something about my last year of fishing. (Which was better than I could ever have imagined.)
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