Updated Points Table

Updated points Table is as follows;

Al;58 pts.
Rafa;18 pts.
Karl;11 pts.
Linda;6 pts.
Kevin;2 pts.
Simon;2 pts.
Jim;0 pts.
Baz;0 pts.
James;0 pts.

With just three months left in 2007 several species have not been caught by anyone. These include Eel, Brown Trout, Sea Trout, Salmon, Burbot, Dace, Chub, Grayling, Cod, Flounder, Ide and Zander amongst others.
A great time of the year for fishing over the next 6-8 weeks. Seatrout start to run in earnest in three weeks, as do Salmon in smaller numbers in Stockholm Strom. Perch, Pike and Zander are all feeding heavily in deeper water and the next 6 weeks are the best chance of a monster fish. Bottom baits are by far the best, though perch may come to lures and jigs too.

Vaxholm; 23rd September 2007

Vaxholm Sunset

Perch for the table...

1lb 2oz. Perch

Harry with a Perch of around 12oz.

2lb 3oz. Bream

A very enjoyable day today at Vaxholm fishing for Perch. Ran into a good friend, Harry Byrne, who had popped out to do a little fishing for the day with Marika. Karl soon followed us and we had a cracker of an evening fishing away in glorious indian summer weather.

First good fish was a suprise in the form of a .99kilo(2lb 3oz.) Bream on the legered worm.(1 point) Soon after we were all catching Perch with plenty of bites coming on the rods. Karl and I got one Perch each weighing 1lb 2oz. which gave us 2 points each. Soon after lost what felt like a very good perch which took a livebait off the bottom. The evening closed out with a glorious sunset over the water before we left, taking a few fish with us for the table...

Vaxholm; 19th September 2007 2007

9oz. Perch

15oz. Perch

Superb three and a half hours fishing today in deep water. Ledgered worm was the method, though I was sorry I did not carry some livebaiting tackle out after two very large Perch snapped on to smaller Perch while I was playing them. About 40 Perch caught altogether, many of them over a half pound, several went very close to a pound, though none did manage! A lot of feeding fish attacking baitfish at the surface towards dusk and live bait may well be the way forward for some very large fish...

Äldalalven; September 2007

... a few days out with the lads up north. The fishing was a little dissapointing to be honest, but all but six of the eight present managed to catch Perch on the second day. Beautiful area to spend time in and another day would of been very welcome.

Tyresta Slott; 30th August 2007

3.10 Kilo Pike

.75 Kilo Perch

.96 Kilo Pike

1.46 Kilo Bream

1.46 Kilo Bream


A great evening out at the Slott with Simon today. Simon took his fist Pike of the season on Sunday and was hoping to add to his point today. Shortly after arriving he hooked a nice Pike on a Zalt plug, unfortunatly the hookhold gave just as it was about to be taken from the water and he lost it, somewhere around 4lb..

After a small Perch on the legered worm I was then really suprised to land a really good Bream of 1.46kilo(3lb 3oz.) The fish is worth 3 points on the table.These fish are obviously in the area and perhaps a large amount of ground bait might bring some more large fish to the net.

More action soon followed when my Perch livebait was taken by a super 3.10kilo(6lb 13oz.)Pike which gave me a great scrap before it was banked. This gave me another 2 points. Another Perch livebait went back out and was taken soon later, this time by a cracking cannibal Perch which weighed in at .75kilo(1lb 10oz.) This was worth 4 points to me and was perhaps the best fish of the day. It also gave a really good account of itself and battled all the way to the bank. Simon then wrapped up a super evening with a lovely .96kilo(2lb 2oz.) Pike which also fell to the Zalt plug and gave him a point for the day..

The fishing seems to be picking up as the water cools and the fish begin to feed hard to build up tone for the winter months.

Tyresö Slott

Tyresö Sunset

Apart from the wonderful fishing at the site the scenery here is stunning. The sunset that brought the curtain down on the evening was stunning....

Drevviken, 23rd August 2007

.38kilo Bream

Kevin with Bream

Roach

Went down to the lake for the afternoon with Linda, joining with Kevin, Sandy and young Ciara. Fishing was fairly slow though a few Bream were taken, the best weighed in at .38kilo. Kevin took a nice .24kilo(1/2lb) Rudd and also had a Roach. Linda had decent sized perch of around the half pound mark. Though there was a bait out for Pike no runs resulted.

Drevviken, 17th August 2007

Dragged myself out of bed and got to the swim at 09.30. The first bite led to a Tench of 1.18kilo(2lb 80z.) at 10.20am. The fish is the smallest to date at the site and will easily be identified if taken again due to a scar on the flank of the fish, presumably from a pike attack at some stage in the past. It is interesting that to date the five Tench I have managed to land here have all been different individuals, I would of thought that that perhaps one or two fish might have been caught repeatedly from the swim, assuming they are territorial and faithful to one feeding area.

Other fish did follow with 3 Bream between 10.50am and 11.00am up to 130z. in quick succession. Sporadic small Rudd followed for the next 90 minutes before anothr 15 minute spell brought 2 more Bream and an 8oz from 12.15pm to 12.30pm. Rudd. After this feeding speel things really died off with small rudd the only fish to come to hand. These feeding spells are remarkably predictable. Moon Rise this morning was at 10.50am, so feeding would be expected between 09.20 and 12.20 with noticable peaks at the these precise times and at 10.50am, when the rise occurs. It is uncanny how the bigger fish react on cue to these times!

Drevviken, 14th August 2007

A rather quiet day with the notable exception of a 1.67kilo(3lb 11oz.) Tench that fell to my rod at 17.50. The fish falls short of 4lbs, but still gives 3 points for the tableThe fish took a red worm, despite the fact I also had a boilie in the same area. Linda and Rafa also fish through to the dusk with me, but apart from modest Rudd and Bream no other good fish came to hand, in fact as the day grew later the fishing got noticably slacker, a trend that has beeen noted before at this swim. Rafal visited the swim earlier in the morning, cleared the weed by draaging the fishing swims and prebaited it.

Making Boilies; Step by Step

1. Ingredients; Eggs, Breadcrumbs, Soya Flour, Plain Flour, Fresh Calf Liver, Red Food Dye, Semolina and Sugar. Crushed Dried Cat Pellets were also added though not photographed. The Calf Liver may seem suprising but Carp and in particular Tench are well known to be hugely attracted to Oxblood and Liver. Oxblood is regarded as the top Tench attractant when added to ground bait.

2. Wet Mix; I beat the five eggs first with the sugar, then added the partially liquidised liver, semolina and a few drops of red food colouring.

3. Dry Mix; Next, in a seperate bowl, I mixed the Plain and Soya Flour, before adding the breadcrumbs and crushed dry cat food.

4. Forming the Dough; The dry mix is added to the wet mix gradually a couple of table spoons at a time. I found as more dry mix was added it became hard work the mixture as it becomes very heavy and rather sticky. Good idea to do this when your girlfriend is far away from home as it is really messy and the kitchen was in bits in no time, not to mention me being covered in flour from head to toe! I had to make up more dry mix as I did not have enough to get the dough to a dry consistence where it could be kneaded easily. A lot of thorough mixing was needed but in the end a really nice dough did result.

5. Rolling the Boilies; Found the best way by far to do this was to roll the dough into long sausages and cut them with scissors before rolling them individually. Rolled the sausages into different diameters to get various sizes of boilie.

6. Preboiled Boilies; At this point transfered them to a sieve. Quickly became apparent that too many together would result in them sticking together, so boiled about 25 at a time.

7. Boiling; Really simple, just threw them into a pot of boiling water for about two minutes. They sink at first but pop to the top after 90 seconds or so and I removed them with a ladle and strained them over the pot with the sieve. The egg in the mix comes into its own here and seals the boiles in a thin skin. The longer they are left in the tougher they become.

8. Drying; After draining them, the boilies are placed on towel of news paper and left to dry out on a level surface over night. This is how they looked a day later.

All in all it took me about two hours for the whole process, which was really fairly simple. There is no real limit to the flavours and experiments you could carry out making these baits.

Boilies freeze well and can be used for weeks fresh. After adding liver I decided the best thing to do was freeze them in portions of 20 baits in small freezer bags. The batch I made produced about 400 baits which is probably enough for the rest of the season! Have kept a few in the fridge and am looking forward to trying them out at Drevviken later this week, will be a great buzz to get any good fish on these homemade baits. Hoping that Tench will find them to their taste and am really curious as to results with other species as well, in particular large Rudd and Bream. In theory these baits are able to withstand the attention of smaller fish for long periods due to the tough skin, while being very attractive to larger fish which have no problems taking these baits. So goes the theory! Will have to wait and see how things pan out...

Top Pike Lures

Buster Jerk



Belly Buster




Salmo Fatso

Salmo Slider

Salmo Slider

Salmo Skinner

Pike will be moving into deeper water now that the summer is moving on and it is a great time to catch the larger fish with lures. Over the last few years bigger lures and jerk baits have been developed and are now accounting for a lot of really big fish upwards from 20lbs. A few lures in particular are catching a lot of these bigger fish and some of the top ones are those above. All these lures are available in different sizes and finishes, though for Pike larger sizes are recomended for the bigger fish. They are expensive unfortunatly, so are best used in deep water in conjuction with strong line and sturdy tackle.

Salmo Skinner is a fairly shallow diving lure with a really strong side to side wobbling action and is a devastating lure. It is known to draw pike up from very deep water. It is hard work to fish with as the action puts a lot of strain on the rod tip due to the strong action of the lure.

Salmo Slider is a top Pike jerk bait. The rod is pointed down on the retrieve and is constantly twitched back. The lure reacts by darting to one side and rolling slightly off balance, only to dart immediatly to the other side on the next twitch and flashing its belly again. This simulates an injured fish and has devastating catching rates for pike. As with most of these lures there is an internal rattle to help attract fish. This lure comes in floating and sinking models, with sinking being the most useful as it can fish at any depth depending on how deep it is allowed to sink before the retrieve.

Salmo Fatso is another jerkbait and is usually fished in the same way as the Salmo Slider. It can also be straight retrieved and is a very good caster. It flashes and wobbles and moves to the sides and is widely regarded as one of the top Pike lures. Very popular at the moment and not always available as it is being snapped up in the shops very quickly.

Belly Buster is another jerk bait, is hugely popular and is catching a lot of big pike. Another lure that simulates an injured fish and is retrieved with sharp twitches and short bursts of reeling.

Buster Jerk is the top lure by far for the last few years. It was found in a survey last year by a top fishing magazine that over 75% of 2olb plus lure caught Pike in Sweden last year were taken on this bait. The very high percentage may reflect the lures popularity here slightly, but there is no doubting is effectiveness nonetheless. It is a large bait and hard work to fish with due to that but is devastatingly effective for big fish.

Updated Points

Quite a lot of fish caught in July, proved a great month to be out. Kevin had a jack Pike at Drevviken, Ian also had a jack Pike at the same site. Rafal had his huge Roach and I had several fish, a pair of Tench, several Rudd and a Pike. Worth noting that several species have yet to be caught at all such as Zander, Eel, Crucian Carp, Flounder, Rainbow Trout, Brown trout, Seatrout, Salmon, Chub and Grayling among others. Others such as Perch, Bream and Silver Bream have not been caught at any really good weights and are still wide open for end of the year bonus points.
If anyone has other fish to be added that I do not know about let me know and I will take them into account.

Updated Table as follows...

Al; 40 points
Rafal; 18 points
Karl; 9 points
Linda; 6 points
Kevin; 2 points
Ian; 1point
Baz; 0 points
Jim; 0 points
James; 0 points
Simon; 0 points

Rafa's Monster Roach;Dalarna

Here is a photo of the enormous 2lb 8oz. Roach that Rafal took in Dalarna on July 17th. As Roach go this is an abslolute monster. The fish gives Rafal 12 points on the table and is the first 12 point fish to be taken since the league started. It took a sweetcorn oil flavoured boilie legered on the bottom. I am sure this will be the largest Roach caught by anyone this year and will also take the 12 bonus points for largest of the species, a great fish...

Drevviken, 27th July 2007

1.91 kilo Tench

.41 kilo Rudd

Arived at the lake at 16.40 and immediatly found Rudd feeding heavily. Had groundbaited with pellets first thing and as soon as the worm baited leger hit the water it was taken. The second fish, also a Rudd, weighed in at .41kilo(14.5oz.) and gave me 1 point. Things remained hectic until 17.45 when a twitchy bite led to a powerhouse struggle as I battled with a terrific Tench that was clearly bigger than the last one I caught here. Eventually the fish came to hand and the scales tipped at 1.91kilo(4lb 3oz.) and gave me 5 points on the table. To be honest I thought it might go heavier, but was delighted with the fish.

Things went fairly quiet after that with ocassional flurries of activity with Perch, Bream and more Rudd taken. Another Tench rolled on the surface several times but did not fall to my rods before I left at 22.30.