Blekinge Pike Festival & Windy days

Hi guys!

A new week is here and at the moment the camp is very quiet since most guests left us yesterday evening after Blekinge Pike Festival. During last few days we've been completely booked in our cabins so approx 100 anglers stayed here last few days.

This year, about 275 anglers started from Dragsö on Saturday morning and did so in quite good weather. Sunny with some clouds, not to cold and pretty strong winds. Day temperature was almost 18 degrees so it was for sure pleasant to be out there. Water level was just about -10cm or so which was way better than a few days earlier. Water level was going up and down a lot between -50cm and +5cm several times in just a few days. These changes are more or less never good but fortunately the water stabilized during the festival. Big fish was going to be caught but by who and how many was the question.

Well, in my boat we didn't succeed at all. Actually we only caught a handful of pikes during the day and no one with a size worth mentioning. It felt like we tried everything from shallow bays, to deeper parts of bays, to outer part of the archipelago, but also inside Borgmästarefjärden. Nothing worked but still we had a nice time. I was fishing together with Andreas and our friend Patrik, and instead of fighting big fish we ate a lot of candy and other junk to feel better :)

During the first day, a total of 17 meter pikes was caught by the 575 competitors. Top fish measured 114cm so we knew that it would be hard to catch a fish good enough for a top position during day two. Weather changed a lot and rain was pouring down early in the morning but stopped just before we started our drive in the morning.

We changed our plans and drove far east to some big bays. Unfortunately for us, fishing continued to be very slow and we didn't find what we was looking for. Only a handful of pikes were caught in our boat before lunch and no one of good size. Rain started to pour down and strong north/east winds made our day out a bit less nice.....

Back at Dragsö we heard from many of our guests that they also experienced fishing to be slow. A few boats did well though and had maybe 30 pikes or so per day in their boat. Other boats had no pikes at all per day so for sure it wasn't easy. Even though some experienced slow fishing, the final score was impressing. In total 25 pikes over +100cm was caught and the winner this time was actually two anglers who managed to catch a pike of the same length, 114cm.

Today the water level is actually +25cm and it looks like it will be high for most of this week. Normally, fishing is only getting better when the water level raises. NE winds will be present during whole week so hopefully next fishing groups that arrive on Thursday will have some great fun out there.

Today I also received a great report from my friend Philip who caught a stunning fish of 114cm and 10,26 kilos! I hope conditions continues, because then more big fish will come!

// Daniel Wickman
   2016-10-03