Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 20 December 2019
All waters are frozen now. So only way to fish is icefishing. I was guiding last Sunday two person from Germany. Originally my plan was have day off but I couldn’t resist to go guiding when I got request. Also I like to do this kind of small groups and talk with people. When I picked them up I knew it will be nice day. Mom and son, adults, felt like really nice people.
First they drove with reindeer 1,5 km track and then we took snowmobile and went to our lake. When we stopped on the ice, they asked same question like everybody. How much there is ice? Like always I told that I don’t know let’s drill. Now we have about 40 cm ice which is more than enough for go ice fishing. We often say that 5 cm is enough man to walk and 3 cm for fisherman. This year quality of ice is not so good, there is different layers and in the spring ice will be soft fast and it could be even dangerous in some places.
So I showed how to use drill and they made their own holes. Meanwhile I got rods ready and they could start fishing. Rods which I use with ice fishing are pretty similar as flyfishing…. except that rods are only 1 feet about, but reel is working same as on flyrods, as smaller version. I have found that this are best with rainbow trout but also good ones with any other fish. Those are easy to reel in and brake is simple enough to use even with gloves on. So we fished spot, there was nothing so we went to try another spot. Nothing either. We thought that is time to go warm up by the fire and have some snacks. I took their rods and put them in the snow. I tried that rods will stay by pulling line like fish. Rods were bending and giving some line from reel like they should.
We have quite long break, enjoying reindeer sausage and salmon filled bread. Siberian jays came also to see what we are up to and we spent long time to feed them. Siberian jay is really friendly bird and it is quite easy to be friend with them. After break we thought that we give one more try for fishing. This is not really best possible time when days are so short. Fish are not active and you need to have some luck also to hit right spot on right time with them now.
When we went on ice it look like that one of the rods was missing. And when we got to the spot it was really missing. Guests checked to another one and there was nothing. I started to look what have happened to another one. There was no signs of dragging in snow (that you could see if it has been slowly going with the fish). Rod had just took off and flied in the hole. I checked hole that if it would be stuck there but nothing. So we had furious take but no-one was witnessing that. Same thing have happened once before to me, I think that I was maybe 6 or 7 years old when rod took off like that. On that time I was about 10 meters away from rod but there was nothing I could do.
So on spring I will probably find rod floating in our lake. Fish won’t be there anymore. Fish mucus is kind of that it will ”rust” hook in few days and cut off, in case that hook is on the mouth not deep inside.
Have a nice weekend and Merry Christmas.
Mika from Finland
Ps. Happy birthday Viking lars. (And Paul you had one yesterday)