Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 27 March 2020
It seems that this year nothing is going like planned. It is life but it is also pissing me off. My daughters says that I’m my own life’s Donald Duck. I start to feel little bit same nowadays. Earlier I was just thinking that it is bad luck, roof from tractor took off when I was driving on the road in heavy wind, dropping from rafting boat in biggest rapid etc. You know small things that could happen for everyone. But now my fishing is precarious and uncertain.
End of last year swedish supreme court gave to Girja’s sameby (Girja’s sami village) right to control fishing on their area. Earlier fishing has been ruled by province. I was not sure exactly what waters will be under that Girja’s sameby but when I started to plan our traditional icefishing trip with Satu….. I noticed that all the waters which I (we) have been fishing past 8 years are controlled by Girjas now. That was big setback, I have been using lot of time to find spots and planning some summer trips also on that area. Well I was hoping that will go that Girjas will sell licenses so it wouldn’t really matter but…. they will only sell licenses for people who are living in Norrbotten’s province. So I have to find new place etc.
Our back up plan had nothing to do with fishing but I thought that it would be nice to have different kind of season ending. So I booked flights to Paris and we could visit our friends and meet some people we know around and spent one week in Paris. Flight will be on 18th of May but it is looking like that we can’t go because this fucking corona (not beer) and lock down there and there. I’m not throwing axe to well yet, fingers crossed.
Our Varzina trip is not yet in danger, so I afraid worst and hope the best. Nothing we can do about it by ourselves. So option now when our season ended month earlier that booked and planned is that we go icefishing.
We did that allready on Saturday but Satu only had one perch. Nice day anyway. Today we went again. It was sunny and almost calm morning so Satu talk about that what if we go icefishing in afternoon. And we agreed to do so. After feeding reindeer I took of broken door from our public toilet. (someone broke it end of February and now I have time to change it.) After taking door off and ordering to new one we went fishing.
Weather was really warm and there was no wind at all when we took from farm. Sun was shining, it could be worst. When we arrived to our lake wind got stronger but warmth from sun was still beating the wind. So we made some holes and start fishing. There was nothing happening so we enjoyed some bread and tea. After that Satu had some nibbling and some of the maggots were gone. Next it was my turn. Really carefully nibbling, just like small perch or whitefish. I started to vibrate my lure to make fish little bit more interested about my bait. Little bit stronger take, well not really take it was more like taking bait and pushing little bit. I made more small moves and then I felt take, not big one. I still believed that it was perch. I stand up and lift the line. I could feel that it was rainbow trout. So I pull the line gently and carefully. Water in the hole was rising so I knew that fish is coming, I hold it few seconds to have better grip from line and lifted up. Nice size rainbow trout, Satu was happy because she hoped some fresh fish to eat.
Wind was getting colder and we had what we need so we took off. So we are not able to go icefishing on mountains and our goverment is highly recomending to stay in our home cities. (well there are locking down Helsinki our capital because people didn’t listen these recomandations). So we have to take what we get, our luck is that we have lot of waters to fish around here and especially one own one. I never thought it would be this precious, my precious like someone says.
Have a nice weekend and stay healthy
Mika from Finland
