It's about time..

..to sum up this season of pike fishing since we have closed down our campsite for season 2013. This has been my third season at Dragsö Sportfishing and for sure it's only getting even more fun for every year.

The beginning of season 2013 didn't turn out as we wanted. When I arrived to Dragsö in mid Mars, snow and ice was far from gone and every day started with tilling snow from the small roads on our island. It was ice time and open water was not even in the near future.


It felt almost like winter was going to stay for ever. Since we had several reservations with anglers supposed to arrive in first & second week of Mars, it became a fight against the clock for the ice to disappear. Unfortunately mother nature wanted us to freeze a bit more so several guests had to reschedule their fishing vacations. Every day we received phone calls and e-mails regarding the ice situation. It was frustrating to not be able to give any news other than the ice was still there.   

13th of April we dropped in our first boats and of course made our first fishing trips. I remember it like yesterday when I brought trainee Albin out on the first day of season. We had to drive most distances through thin ice but managed to catch a handful of pikes in the cold water. It didn't take more than a few days before all boats were out by our guests, and many of them reported about good spring fishing.

In the end of April most pikes were already done with their spawning. Weekends were flying by with variating results for our guests but meter pikes were reported more or less every weekend. As usual May didn't disappoint anyone and record high numbers was caught during the month. French group in Krolik company managed to catch amazing 845 pikes shared on 9 anglers during a week here at Dragsö. These guys are coming back next year and with these numbers in mind, I guess they're going to have a great week next year as well.

May was a really good month and all 11 Master500 boats were booked all weekends and many week visitors as well. While writing this summary I strongly recommend to book soon if you want to go pike hunting in May 2014 since some weeks already looks pretty booked. The same when it comes to guided fishing trips. This year we experienced a great interest for guided fishing trips during popular weeks in April-May and also in September. Most anglers wants to go on a guided trip on their first or second day here to hopefully get a good start and knowledge about where to find the fish at the moment.

This year we even had anglers in June staying with fishing packages at Dragsö Sportfishing. June actually surprised me since we had really good fishing whole June. Personally I caught many meter pikes during mid June and overall fishing was very exciting and comfortable being out fishing in 17-23 degrees!

As every year we arrange the very popular Pike safaris every Thursday in summer. In 7 pike safaris we had 185 guests following with 152 pikes caught in total. Not a bad number since the trip only lasts for 3 hours each time and many guests that follows have none or at least low experience in pike fishing. There is hard to beat the feeling when new guests find interest in fishing and acutally succeed by catching fish during these trips. Great family event!

Autumn season started out really good in September with meter pikes reported regularly. Several teams caught very good numbers during the month. I know it might sound crazy, but these days I aint surprised if our guests report numbers like +250 pikes in one boat per week. The best days this season overall has given over 80 pikes per boat and day, which is CRAZY. I have to say that this season is the best of my 3 seasons when it comes to both sizes and numbers. Many returning guests experience their numbers to be better and personally I think my numbers and definitely size has been better than past years. Of course, this is due to more knowledge and proper thinking. As I always say, It's all about finding the key. 

Blekinge Pike Festival was once again a participant and competetive success. Less than 2,5 weeks after registration opened, the limit of 500 participants was filled with more than 300 of them starting from Dragsö Sportfishing camp. Our own team didn't really have the luck this year to find big pikes but meter samples was reported from our guests during that weekend. A nice sample of 114cm was caught in our nearby area.

Tasty McTail?

After Pike festival there was only one week left of our fishing season. All Master boats was fully booked during our last three weeks of season 2013 but actually fishing wasn't to good in the last days. Maybe the pikes had a bit of a "hangover" from the pikefestival when they were molested by baits from all the 540 anglers. Just a few boats reported about good numbers and sizes. One group really found their way since they caught +100 pikes from Thursday-Sunday with two meter pikes on top.

After every season we have plenty of work to do behind the scenes. All boats is to be cleaned, serviced and "packed" for winter storage. Since we have 17 boats, and all with engines, it means that we always have some work to do efter close down.

I want to share a big thank you to all our guests, readers of this blog and cooperating partners for this season. It's a shame that season is flying by so fast, but I'm already looking forward to next year. We are working on some very interesting news to make Camp Dragsö Sportfishing even better. What it is? You will see and here about it.... :)

I'm now heading for Costa Rica to continue with fishing guide duties during the winter. Of course I'll be back next season when ice is about to disappear. Of natural reasons, this blog will be going down in activity like the pikes during the winter but there might be some interesting posts so keep look sometimes!

Once again, a big thank you and tight lines!

// Daniel Wickman

     2013-10-22

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Season to its end

Yeap, as the headline tells, fishing season 2013 is now more or less ended here at Dragsö Sportfishing in Karlskrona. All boats were out during the weekend and most anglers left us yesterday. Unfortunately many groups reported about slow fishing and not so many big ones either.

However a few groups did find the right spots and managed to catch +100 pikes in the boat during their stay of a little less than 4 days. Same boat had two pikes measuring over the meter margin as well.

For me this new week is beginning with a few days off work so I decided to go for a long trip today. During the day I managed to catch 17 pikes and also lost plenty! Biggest sizes reached 94,91,90cm plus a handful above 80cm. I guess there will be a trip tomorrow also since I'm leaving Dragsö in less than two weeks.. Will try to spend my spare time left on the water. Some hard working days with winter preparations is around the corner. It's hard to imagine now, but all boats will be up before Friday next week.

One group of guests is still at the campsite and they drove all the way from Czech Republic with their car to get here. They had 25 pikes in the boat today so not to bad numbers!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-10-14

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Team Skraldur reports.....

...About a great fishing week here at Camp Dragsö Sportfishing. These lads have been here many times now and they know our area very well. This years visit for sure peaked their expectations. I translated their e-mail into english to let you guys know about their great catch report.

" Hi Daniel,
Here comes a summary from Team Skraldur's 8th visit to Dragsö, in week 40. This trip exceeded our wildest expectations.

Day 1 & 2 we had north winds and these days we found the pikes in the outer archipelago. During these two days we caught 145 pikes in the boat up to 91cm.
The rest of our week we had south winds and found pikes on almost any kind of place - Bays, islets and outer archiepelago.

We managed to catch 356 pikes up to 97cm. Pikes striked jerkbaits, spinning flies, spinner baits and soft baits where every pike fighted well and showed some air acrobatics! There were several times when we had double and even triple strikes in the boat.

In Blekinge Pike Festival I had a 83cm in the first day and unfortunately missed a pike of 105/110cm in day 2. The big pike striked a 23cm Relax jig and followed all the way to the boat side - It hurt like hell when she disappeared into the deep. The same feeling when we got transported to the camp with a broken propeller while the whole Swedish pike elite were watching us :)

See you in 2014

Tight lines,

David, Team Skraldur"

Well thats some great numbers for the Danish group! Well done and thank you for the report guys. We at Dragsö Sportfishing hopes that the big lady will follow up into the boat next time!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-10-12

                             

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Insane fishing by our Latvian guests!

Just looked through my mailbox and found a very nice e-mail from our returning Latvian guests. They had an incredible week here with lots of pikes with the top measuring 101cm. If their amounts are correct, it's for sure a new amount record for one boat!!

"Hi, Daniel!

Here is a little report about our week at Dragsö from Latvian guests Valdis, Agris and Dainis.

We were at Dragsö in the end of September. Weather was good and sunny and we are very pleased about our trip.
In all week we caught 650 pikes. The best day was when we had 150 pikes in the boat. The biggest pike was 101 cm. And we also had 12 really good pikes above 90 cm. Small pikes was at the coast line but the biggest pikes we caught inside large bays. Our fishing method was spinning.
Attached some photos too. 

See you next year,

Valdis"


 // Daniel Wickman
    2013-10-08

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Blekinge Pike Festival 2013

Hi fellow readers.

In the past weekend we've been visited by about 300 anglers that participated in Blekinge Pike Festival. All our cottages and boats were booked and the boat jetty was filled to its limits with "pike racers".

During the week before the festival conditions looked very good but of course mother of weather nature wanted something else to the weekend. In just a few days water level decreased to 40 centimeters below normal sea level. This caused some trouble and actually we and a few other boats even had problem getting out from the boat jetty on Saturday morning when the competition started.

Many of the places that had been good lately wasn't even possible to fish at during the weekend. The lack of water made most bays to shallow. I was fishing with my boss Andreas and our friend Patrik (not former guide Patrick). In the first day we caught 14 pikes and the next day 17 but only one measured just above 80cm which was the minimum length of registration. Most pikes measured around 70cm in our boat.

Since the registration rules was changed this year, every angler could report one pike from Saturday and one from Sunday. The total length of those two pikes won the competition. Winner this time reached impressive 221 centimers! Winner also had the longest pike during the festival which measured 118 centimeters and by this he was elected Pike King. Respect!

Overall we had a very nice weekend even though the big ones stayed away from our lures. Now we're restoring every cabin and boat so everything will be ready for our last weekend of fishing season 2013. All Masterboats will be out and hopefully we can finnish strong with descent results for our guests.

We took some pictures during the festival days and also one picture of the 118cm winner pike is posted below.

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-10-07

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Meter pictures from our guests

Checked my mailbox today and I have received pictures from our returning guests of Belgium. Their stay was very good with 250 caught pikes on 3 persons for a week of fishing. Biggest two pikes measured 105cm and 102cm and as you can see on the pictures, these are some great pikes!

At the moment we have a little more than 30 anglers at Dragsö but reports hasn't been to good today nor yesterday. Weather conditions is getting better though so hopefully our guests can finish strong since all of them leave us tomorrow. New guests to arrive in the beginning of next week and of course to next weekend when its become time for Blekinge Pike Festival.

We will be reporting like last year with photos and short updates from Team Dragsö Sportfishing and how we're doing. Since rules has been changed to this years festival, each angler shall report their longest pike from Saturday but also from Sunday. The angler who reaches the highest amount of centimeters on two registered pikes will be the winner this year. Still, price will also be given like last years to the angler who catches the individual longest pike.

I believe the winner this year will have to reach around 210cm, if conditions is okey. Of course we aim to be in the top standings but there are close to 580 anglers who wants the same and many skilled fishermen will be joining, so it will be a tough challenge for sure. Maybe most important, we are going to have a very fun time together and meet lots of like-minded people during the festival.

Have a continously nice weekend everyone,

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-28  

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Between the pursuits

With another weekend coming up we're in the middle of preparations to make sure everything works as it should. This weekend all 11 Masterboats will be out on the water and to avoid issues I always check so boats seem to be working good before new guests arrive. There is also some work to do before over 300 participants will be visiting Dragsö 5-6th Oct when this years edition of Blekinge Pike Festival is runned.

I've been of work for 2 days now and these days are more or less always spent on the water. Yesterday I went out together with Jens who is the guy of Jenzza Lures. Since I've been quite successful lately we went out with high expectations to catch something nice. Strong winds from north gave us some minor problems with finding good spots to fish. After a few stops I striked a better pike. At first, we didn't realize that the fish was going to measure three digits. When secured in the net I started to see that maybe, maybe it could be enough to be a meter pike.

With a measuring tape we set the count to 102cm. A bit surprised I let the fish swim back and this lady was very eager to get away, giving Jens a nice little slap on his cheek when I hold her in the boat. This pike was caught in about 0,5m of water in a big and shallow bay.

Since fishing was a bit tough we decided to skip the bays and searched our way out in the outer part of the archipelago. This was about to be a good decision since we had plenty of activity out here. While I was landing a small pike of maybe 60cm, a HUGE pike was following on the bottom all the way into the boat. This pike easily measured over 1m+ but she wasn't intrested in biting our lures today. A few more pikes was landed and back at Dragsö we summed up 8 pikes.

With other duties to sort out today, I just went out for a short 3 hour trip this morning. Went to a bay where the wind was lightly pushing in, and great amounts of pikes was sun bathing on the bottom of the bay. I caught about 10 pikes and the biggest ones measured 95+92cm.

When switching to a jerkbait, I made a long cast and had a small touch which I answered with a big strike to set the hooks. Immediately I felt heavy reaction on the other side of the line. At first I really thought that this was finally a 10+kg pike. Soon enough I realised that this wasn't the case. I saw a black shadow coming closer to the boat but the form of this fish wasn't even close to be a pike. I had set my hooks into a big bream by the side of its mouth!

Well, at least it was a personal best sized bream but such a disappointment when I thought it was going to be a big pike on the other end...

Busy weekend, hopefully many big pikes will be kind enough to provide our guests with happy spirits out there.

// Daniel Wickman
    2013-09-25

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Great interest for pike autumn fishing

From today we have a little more than 3 weeks left of the season and 2 weeks to Blekinge Pike Festival. From this date we are now fully booked with all Master boats for the rest of season when it comes to weekend packages. From today we can only offer Reval 440 boats for week- and weekend packages but Sunday-Thursday is still possible for all weeks with all package alternatives.

For sure pleasant that the interest for pike fishing is so good and fortunately the autumn season has so far been very good both when it comes to amounts and sizes. Upcoming week looks to be good as well if the weather forecast is even the slightest close to be correct.

Most reports is telling the same thing these days. Fishing is good in very shallow bays (0.3-1.0m). A few decent sized pikes has also been caught in the middle part of the archipelago and yesterday one of our returning guests had very good fishing in shallow waters far out in the outer archipelago.

Successful lures recently has actually been spinning flies of variating types and colours. I guess this is because it's hard to find any lures that are presented better in very shallow waters without getting sea weed on your hooks. But as always, It's all about finding the key.
// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-21

Mouse spinning fly +130 pikes later

                                        

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And the meter pikes goes on, ho-ro ho-ro!

Back at work after a few days without working duties so a lot of time has been spent on the water. Fishing is excellent at the moment even though the amounts has been going down a bit since last week.

Yesterday I went out very early when the sun was about to rise but is was a cold morning (Approx 8 degrees) and there was no wind either. Therefore fishing was starting out slow in the clear waters but got better when wind strength was increasing in the morning hours.

Most fishing now is set to shallow bays but still pikes is caught in the middle part of archipelago around the islands. Since a lot of pikes has been caught in 0,5m of water I have now started to fish with Mouse (hand made pike casting fly) again. With this lure I've been very successful and so yesterday as well. 106cm pike in crystal clear water. The strike was to remember for a long time. A small wave was built behind the fly and I saw a big pike following at least 10m away from the boat. I stopped and made a small jerk with the fly and BAM! The big pike inhaled my Mouse (or the residues of it).

A few fish around 80-85 was caught in the morning before I took some time to rest and eat. In the afternoon I joined my friend Jacob to go for a afternoon trip. Since he loves to compete, he was eager to "win" the battle against me when it comes to; 1-First fish 2-Most fish 3-Biggest fish. Once again, he was about the get beaten, of course :-)

Numbers wasn't to good in the afternoon but we reached 11 pikes and a funny thing that happend during our trip was that I catched anoter meter pike. Immediately, I recognized this pike on a few marks on its body and directly I could determine that this pike was caught last Sunday! Same pike, 100 meters away from last time I caught it but this time on the Mouse and not a tail bait. This is such a nice receipt of Catch&Release working well. 5 days between the catches of this +1m pike!

Now a week of work is waiting but of course I will try to get some fishing done before work during this time, so more to come!!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-19

106 centimeter of love!

Catch and Release - Working well!

Look at the colours of this beuty!

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Lunch break meter pike!!

Today a lot of anglers left us after a weekend of fishing. Most groups reported about good amounts but the really big ones were missing. A few pikes just below 100cm was reported but plenty of 75-80's as usual. Some boats caught as many as 60 pikes a day, so the numbers is not to complain about.

When reception closed today at 12:00 I decided to skip my lunch and go out for a couple of hours on the water instead before starting work again at Dragsö. In my opinion the conditions today was perfect. 6-7m/s winds from south-east and very cloudy. A few rain showers sometimes but not so much anyway.

My decision to go out showed up to be good. About 8-9 wild pikes in less than 2 hours and during a drift over a shallow area in a bay, a big pike striked my tailbait. Since I was drifting fast I throwed in the anchor while the fish was going crazy. Fortunately, I had been preparing a big fish net in case of a big fish would bite.

This pike was really powerful and she swimmed several times under the boat while I tried to get a good position to land the fish in my net. Soon enough she was secured and my third meter pike during the week was a fact! Measuring tape was placed on the pike and to my pleasure she measured a little over 107cm.

After some photos she could swim back and it took just a few seconds until she was strong enough to swim away. Very nice feeling!

A very strange thing with this pike though; After releasing the fish, I discovered that a lot of eggs had been dropped in the boat by this pike. I have never experienced this before, since pikes spawn in spring and eggs should not be produced at this time of the year. Obviously, this pike must have been thinking of next year already :) Has someone ever been experiencing the same thing? Eggs in September?

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-15

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Catch reports close to record amounts!

With Saturday in our calendars, new guests will arrive to Dragsö today and a few groups also left us during the morning. One of the groups leaving today was multiple time returning guests from Belgium, Luc and his friends. They've been here for a week now and managed to catch 250 pikes in 6 fishing days, 3 persons. Two meter pikes was caught by them in the surrounding area of Dragsö.

I asked for their keys of success since they caught good amounts of pikes. They concentrated their fishing to the coast line and into bays already and obviously this was a good choise! These lads have been using Cannibal Shads with great success and firetiger was the colour to trust this week.

Overall fishing is variating day by day since weather and wind conditions variates from day to day. A couple of days ago we had low wind and rain all day. Personally I experienced fishing to be good in this condition. The next day we had no winds turning from north to east during the day and sunny weather.. Pikes seem to be on feeding mode anyway but a little harder to find. Most boats reports about 15-40 caught pikes a day.

I've been having two guided fishing trips during the week with variating results. One thing is for sure, guided trips is the peak with this job. The feelings when guests catch nice sized pikes is hard to describe. Many anglers feel nothing but jealous when others succeed in fishing but thats not even close to what I feel. I'm glad to join these nice moments when other succeed, and I really wish all my guests the best when out there on the water.

More reports to follow in the beginning of next week and hopefully we will receive some pictures from our guests with big pikes!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-14

                 

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When everything just works

Hi to all,

I'm sitting in my sofa and reparing a bunch of soft baits and tails that have been destroyed out there the last two days. A quick look in my bait bucket tells that these days I mostly use tails & bigger softbaits. Unfortunately, these kind of baits doesn't really last as long as jerkbaits when inhaled by the pikes. A lot of tails needs some love before they're ready to be fished again... But that is for sure a pleasant problem since fishing has been good!

Yesterday, I went out together with Jesper, a member of skilled Karlskrona fishing team 'Gäddstaun' (Could be explained as Pike City with a local touch of the famous Blekinge dialect). We decided to go for a afternoon trip, since he was working while I had a day off working duties. Weather conditions looked to be better in the morning, I decided to go for a few hours on my own before lunch. I tried mostly in shallow areas close to our surrounding bays nearby Dragsö. 

Fishing was kind of slow. A 91cm saved my morning while 9 more small cucumbers was caught within an hour on small Relax shads of variating colours. When I picked up Jesper just after 15:00 the sun was terribly strong and we had no winds to talk about. Quite soon we realized that fishing was going to be hard. We did see pikes following our lures but just a few of them wanted to bite in the crystal clear waters. 

With just a handful of pikes caught, we tried our luck at one last place before sun was about to go down. It didn't seem like this was a day to catch big pikes. But all of a sudden, in my very last cast I got a huge strike with less than 2 meters line left out to my lure. A big splash and my heart rate increased like a rabbit hunted by dogs! Jesper landed the pike safely with a net and we felt relieved when we measured the pike to be 102cm. Some quick photos and the pike could swim back to her right environment.. This is what I call a happy ending!

Back home in my flat, I discovered that weather conditions looked better for today. It wasn't to hard to decide going out fishing then as well. It showed up to be a good decision. Rain was pouring down all day, but with cloudy weather and moderate winds pikes were ready to dance. I landed 17 pikes today and at the very first stop of the day I had the fortune to catch another meter sized pike which fighted well! She was eager to swim back directly which felt really good!

Tomorrow a lot of new guests arrive to Dragsö and I think they're coming in the right time. Fishing is only going to be better and better from now on with decreasing water temperatures.

// Daniel Wickman

   2013-09-11

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