FishTwits Blog

05-06-09

The Truth about Great expectations…

Canola plants blooming on our way to Lomma Beach from Lund

I am not sure if I am like you but every time before I go fishing, I have great expectations and high excitations. I can barely sleep the night before and when I do sleep, I dream of all the fish I am going to catch.  Last night was no different, I was at an elevated state because Steve and I had managed to fit some fishing in on our busy week by opening up Wednesday for the occasion and I was very excited to catch some Garfish so that I could get Steve off his high horse about his weekend catch.

The week’s weather had been great for Sweden with sunny blue skies and temperature up to the 20s, but the weather proved to do a 180 come Wednesday morning. Although faced with horrible conditions we were too excited by our previous nights anticipation to give up so we carried our trip out. Steve and I met our friend Dan (@DanMancera) and we cycled a 10 Km trek to Lomma harbour. Which proved to be more difficult than we thought as going directly against the wind gave our deteriorating bikes a real challenge. The biggest challenge however presented itself when we got to the harbour. The wind had kept increasing and now it looked like the sea was being blown onto land. We did manage to find a part of the harbour that had some wind protections so we set up there and started fishing.  The wind was so intense that if you tried to cast against it your tackle would end up behind you. That being the case we used the wind to our advantage and casted with the wind. It was so strong, I think I actually got the longest cast of my life. This was fun for a little but we knew there were no fish here and with the wind blowing through our clothes we could barely bare the exposed harbour much longer. Instead of packing it in and going home we remembered we passed what looked like a lake on our way to the harbour which looked less windy on our way in.

A windy day at Lomma beach

We headed to that destination and discovered a little gem. The lake turned out not to be a lake but actually a Dam called Östra dammen. We found an informational sign that showed the dam was filled with pike.

Map of Östra dammen

 We continued to explore the area and found an area with complete wind protection. It was by complete luck that we found the place. I was riding the horrific bike down the path along the dam and started down a decline only to realize my brake don’t work, which inevitably led to me running into some bushes and into a clearing that had great potential as a casting spot. On top of that with my entrance to the spot I saw a big fish jump out of the water. Taking this as a sign we set up and started fishing here. It was an amazing place when the sun actually would peer out for a second you could have mistaken the scene for a summer day instead of a windy (gale force) rainy day. We didn’t catch any fish but did see a couple big pike swim nearby. 

Eric at Östra dammen

Some say if you set your expectations too high you will only have a bigger chance of disappointment.  I feel that if you use these expectations and persevere you may not always get what you want but you get what you need in our case we didn’t catch any fish but due to our perseverance we found a great new fishing location.

04-27-09

FishTwits TV Episode 1: The First Swedish Pike!

Last weekend, Eric and I headed out to Lake Hackebega for our first fishing trip of the spring to try and catch the elusive Swedish pike.  Our mate John, let us use his camera so we could film all the action – as you will see we had some difficulties at first but thanks to some local advice we got using Twitter, we (well actually only Eric…) managed to catch a couple of pike.

FishTwits Episode 1Powered by Quick.TV

04-23-09

Ice fishing Cam

I Found this looking up pike fishing on you tube. Thought it was cool to see how the fish react to the bait underwater. I am definitely going to check out ice fishing next winter after this video.

04-21-09

Welcome: Fishing Fail

Fishing FAIL

Welcome to the FishTwits blog.  This will follow the adventures of an Aussie (@Sspelde) and a Californian (@zirgzirgulis) trying to outwit fish here in Sweden.

Let’s start from the beginning, both Eric and I are keen fishermen and we hit the water whenever we can back home but a combination of a freezing cold winter here in Sweden and trying to live on a student budget have meant that we haven’t been able to go fishing since we’ve been over here. All that changed a couple of weekends ago, I was camping near Lake Vomb, when I caught my first glimpse of the Swedish Pike… perhaps it was a primal instinct to hunt food and prove my manliness to the girls I was camping with or maybe it was because it was the first time we had seen sunshine since October 2008 but I ripped off my t-shirt and proceeded to dive into the lake after the Pike… needless to say this was what you might call a FISHING FAIL and gave us our first lesson:

If you dive into a Swedish lake in the middle of April in the hope of catching a Pike, the only thing you are likely to end up with is a shrunken worm.

Anyway, having finally seen the Pike in the flesh, the first thing I did when I got home was ring my little bro (@DJSpeldie) back home in Australia to tell him the story – as a mad keen fishermen himself, he decided that he would give me an early birthday present in the form of a fishing rod.  No sooner had I put out the message on Facebook and Twitter and I was in possession of a second hand (but basically brand new) spinning rod, reel and and a couple of lures (thanks Rob).

The very next weekend, Eric and I were on our way out to Lake Häckerberga, where the beautiful Häckerberga Castle is situated about 45 minutes from Lund.  We took the camera, so stay tuned for the first episode of FishTwits TV, coming early next week.

If you want to follow our fishing adventures, go fishing with us, or give us some much needed advice on how to outwit Swedish fish please get in touch with us @FishTwits.  If we can’t outwit them, hopefully we will atleast be able to out twit them :-)