Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 13 December 2019
We tell to our guests about reindeer and what they and us are doing during the year. During summer we have this time called räkkä, it means that we have mosquitos and horse flies etc. Those are gathering reindeers in big herds first time after giving birth to calves. We say that we have lot of them, and then we hear how people are saying, yes and noding their heads. When we ask have you been here in summer, answer is no. The truth is that we don’t have so many mosquitos and if so you can avoid them, but basicly as reindeer herder and fisherman we need them.
Last weekend I had meeting with person who is organizing fishing trips to our area. We talked about fishing and that kind of things, she don’t know anything about fishing so she was doing notes. In some point she asked about mosquitos, she had heard that we have lot of them and it will be very difficult to be here in certain time. Then she said that of course fisherman can use hat with net to get protection. No, no, no…. For my experience those kind of hat are more disturbing than helping, those are suitable for kids but fisherman who is standing in river, no. It is only disturbing your fishing when you can’t see fly, use your sunglasses and so on.
I went thru that you can use repellent, how there is almost always some wind over river and so on. And that mosquitos are mostly in the swamps and thick forest, those are worst place and we are not fishing there. In the end she agreed that it won’t be so bad and so on. Few days later I got message from her, someone (local) has told her that it is really difficult with mosquitos in June and July. So I was again in starting point, I told her that nowadays there is shirts which have repellent and those are working well with mosquitos and everything previous again.
Then we came about time, when is best time to come fishing before mid July. And still about mosquitos, that there would not be so much of those. If you are afraid mosquitos then everything between mid June to mid July is risk. On the other hand everything depends about winter, spring and begin of summer. If puddles are drying fast after first ”invasion”, mosquitos won’t have place to egg and mosquito season is over fast. There is other side of this mosquito issue…. we fisherman need them. They are hatching, there is lot of food for fishes and it is making your fishing better, it is like any other hatching more or less. If you want to avoid mosquitos there is big possibility that you will avoid good fishing also. You can’t always win so come fishing even you hear stories mosquito invasion, it is legend like many other thing.
Like we say in here when it is snow and -20 celsius, ” gloves won’t get wet and there is not so many mosquitos around.” But it also means that fishing is not so good either.
Have a nice weekend
Mika the legend (real one)