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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Autumn season is on, or is it?

Hi to you all,

Another weekend is soon coming to its end here at Camp Dragsö and I have to say that it's hard to understand the fact that we're actually in September by now. We've been having about 22-23 degrees in daytime with mostly sunny conditions. Still most guests are walking with shorts outside and people put themselves to bath in the bay of Dragsö, since temperature is about 17 degrees inside the bay.

This nice weather conditions is in my mind of course not good. I want to have moderate winds, cloudy and the water temperature down 3-5 degrees. But I guess you can't get everything, and most people I argue with thinks I'm crazy since most non-fishing people loves this weather.

During this weekend we've had fishing guests from Belgium, Poland, Denmark and Sweden. Only one group will be fishing for a whole week whilst the other groups have been staying for a fishing weekend Thursday-Sunday. Biggest fish from our guests yesterday was 91cm but I've heard reports about several fish over 100cm during the week.

For me next week will be up to a lot of preparations. A few more boats needs to be hull cleaned and lots of small "to do's". Of course some fishing will be off as usal. Hopefully with some results worth posting on the blog. I think I will try more into the bays one of the days acutally since both reports and own experiences last week has told me to do so.

Another fact worth to mention; Blekinge Pike Festival is now fully booked with a month before the competition starts. Around 300 anglers will start from Dragsö. Busy, but funny times!

Next week we are waiting almost 30 anglers with arrival on Thursday and Sunday. It's pike time!!

I remember this fish from last season. Caught same week one year ago. Beauty!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-09-08

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Where did time go?!

Hi to you all.

It has been a busy time last two weeks by ending the regular camping season and preparing for the fishing autumn. At the moment we don't have any fishing guests at all at the campsite but on Thursday several groups arrives to hunt our pikes for a weekend. More groups to come in upcoming weeks as well, even though we have vacances still for most weeks. A few guided fishing trips has also been made lately with decent results. 

To be honest, it feels like autumn is coming late this year. At least for one more week we will have more than 20 degrees in daytime but at least wind strength has started to look more like autumn. Today and the day before yesterday we've been having +10m/s, mostly from west. 

A few days ago, there was some time over before work so I decided to go to multiple places just to find out where pikes seems to be at the moment. I got kind of surprised when I was trying out a shallow bay, approx 0,5-1m of water and actually I did see at least 10 pikes in a small area of water.
Since water temperature still varies between 16-18 degrees, I was kind of surprised that so many pikes seemed to be in the bays already. Interesting, for sure!

Upcoming days I will be off work so I look forward to some fishing, even though forecast doesn't look to promising. 

Another fun fact is that we got more than a month left to Blekinge Pike Festival but already, less than 2 weeks since registration opened for the competition, approx 430 anglers has signed up. Most of them will start from Dragsö so already the guys in charge of the festival has stopped the registration with starts from Dragsö. This means that from now on the last anglers who joins the festival will have to start from Ronneby, Karlshamn or Sölvesborg since we are full on Dragsö.  

// Daniel Wickman 

   2013-09-02

Fishing is fun in the clear waters!

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