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