Punch, lift and kill

Punch, lift and kill

Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 14 April 2023

We are in lake Inari, huge lake in North Finland. Sami people call it as a sea. Old times it has been feeling like that, 80 km cross 60 km about, including lot of fjords. Last weekend there was reindeer race finals and we were watching those. After that it has been fishing after fishing, ice fishing.

Lake has grayling, char, trout, whitefish and of course basic perch, pike etc. There are six different species of whitefish and all of those you can find from this lake.

Our main focus has been in grayling and whitefish, arctic char would be awesome suprise, trout (Satu caught one) nice suprise.

In the beginning of week there were lot of water on the ice and it made fishing more or less difficult, problem is that at the moment water is getting under ice and weather is cooler so fish are absolutely not active. It is hard work to find active and eating fish.

Yesterday evening I found few spot where perch were really active and now I'm smoking those. I got also lucky some previous evenings and got some whitefish so those are on menu also. 

Water is crystal clear and we are mostly fishing with depth under 1,5 meter (under 5 ft) that's were graylings and whitefish should be in this time of the winter and spring. So fishing is kind of sight fishing, you lay down on ice and watch to the hole, you can see bottom, lure and fish when they come.

Because fish have not been so busy, I had time to observe how bottom behaves when you drop lure and what kind of effect it has. If you have fishes around they will come to see what's going on and then you have great game going on.

We have got totally 4 different species: perch, whitefish, grayling and trout. They all have different approach against the lure. That means that you know from take who is your opponent.  

First there is punch, that is perch. Perch normally punch or push the lure first and you can see line moving sideways, then they will take, if you hesitate you miss the fish. Your luck is that they will hang around.

Second is lift, that is always whitefish. You can see how your line get loose, when fish push it up. Now have have a second patience, then fish has normally take your bait, line has been tighten again and you have fish on. Sometimes you have to play little bit with these guys, sometimes they just lift and you have to confident them to take. It is nice game also.

Last is kill, that is trout and grayling. They don't make any questions. Grayling especially can give to you blood stopping take, you see something coming on hole, swimming thru, bait has disappeared and line is getting tide on other way where fish came. Awesome strike, especially with bigger graylings. Trout is similar of course. If you have few graylings in the hole then they might just swim around, but when you get one to make decision is furious one.

Our dinner starts to be smoked, so I will go to have sauna and then some nice fish dinner. Friday (today) is our last fishing day, before heading back home on Saturday. I try to start early in the morning fishing, don't want to miss a second from fishing.

Have a nice weekend and go fishing.

Mika from Finland

Ps. We have fly fishing rods with us but haven't got time for casting, maybe Friday evening if we have good fishing day.

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