Awesome Christmas fishing!

Hi guys!

I hope you had a great Christmas holiday and that you've eaten far to much food. Maybe you received some nice fishing tackle in your Christmas gifts?

Since yesterday was a day off work I decided to try my luck on the water. It's been some very windy days during Christmas, some days with wind squalls up to 24m/s. Yesterday during daytime winds went down a little bit to 8-10m/s from S/SW. Water level was good, around normal level. Cloudy with some sun coming thru at some points. For being the end of December the temperature was very high with eigth degrees. In other words perfect conditions for pike fishing!

Unfortunately, I didn't hit the water until 10:30. I decided to stay close to Dragsö this time since I didn't have to many hours to spend on fishing this day. Therefore, I picked a bay where I know a lot of breams normally gather up in winter. The colour of the water was just perfect this time. Slightly murky and about 1m of depth. I started with a SZ McPike in 25cm, red tiger colour. This showed up to be a good decision.

In my very first cast of the day I caught a very good fish. I had just tightened the line and was about to start retrieving my lure. BAM! Fish on! It felt like a good pike and for sure it was. Being alone in the boat is sometimes tricky but fortunately I had prepared my net before starting to fish. After a short fight I managed to land the fish and directly I told my self "This fish got to be 105cm, or maybe more?!".

The pike started to twist in the net and got entangled with the hooks and itself in the rubber net. I cut the hooks just to get the fish out as soon as possible. When I had the fish out of the minor chaos in the net I were almost in by a boat jetty since I was drifting. I asked a guy that was working with his boat if he could help me take a photo of the fish and so he did. I took a quick measure of the fish and it showed up to be 109cm and had a huge head. Condition was pretty good to so for sure a fish around 9,5 kilos or more. I didn't check the exact weight of this fish since she had been in the net for some time and looked a little tired. She went back very quickly though so it was a pleasure to see!

I continued fishing in the same area (obviously) and after about 15 more minutes I had another meterpike following my lure to the boat but this lady missed her attempt to strike my lure. A few minutes later I caught a small pike before I started over with a new drift. It didn't take long until I striked another beautiful big pike and this fish fighted well. Soon enough she was landed and what a success! This lady measured 107cm and pulled the scale to 9,6 kilos. I managed to take a couple of poor pictures with time lapse on my phone..

This day wasn't over yet so I made more drifts in the same area and caught a few more small pikes. Soon enough I found a big school of breams which I unfortunately hooked in their backs a handful of times. Those were some very big breams up to 5 kilos! I knew that most probably some big pikes are standing close to these breams so I dropped the anchor and casted more accurate in the area. It showed up to be a good decision. My third meterpike of the day was a fact and this lady measured in at 101cm. Huge head but a not so impressive body. She needed to eat something, that's for sure.

I went back about 14:30 with seven pikes caught and the biggest ones 109, 107, 101cm. Awesome result since I was alone and only fished for less than four hours. Best lures today was McPike 25cm red tiger, Big Mcrubber motoroil and Beastly Tail 23 in motoroil from Renz Stein lures.

Have a continuously nice Christmas holiday and I wish you all a happy new year!

// Daniel Wickman
   2016-12-27

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Mid December fishing

Hi guys!

Time to share a new report from last Saturday. I went out fishing together with my colleague and recent Swedish Sportfish Masters winner, Willy. Weather looked okey with cloudy sky, slow winds from west and a few degrees in the air. Unfortunately, pikes wasn't in mode for dancing this day. We went far west of Dragsö and tried several areas where we normally have potential to catch big fish and numbers. Well, this day we caught neither of it.

When we arrived to the first bay we discovered that the water was very cold. Earlier last week there was a few nights with night temperatures down to -6 degrees and this created a layer of ice once again in many bays. Unfortunately, ice was still covering some bays when we tried our luck this time. It took us several hours to catch the first fish and it was Willy who managed to fool the first pike. It wasn't big but still the first fish and an important catch for our confidence.

Suddenly, we started to have followers on more or less every cast and it felt pretty good. We drifted over 1m of water and caught a few more pikes in the same area. Willy caught the biggest fish of the day which measured just under 90cm. After some time, we decided to go to new areas but this didn't help. Many of the areas we were about to try wasn't possible to fish at thanks to a 1cm layer of ice. Since fishing was rather slow overall, we decided to go back to Dragsö about 14:00 already. In total we caught six pikes and most of them on Wolf tail jr.

All of our boats are now finally out from the water and some of them at Nättraby Marin for mounting of new engines and also for general service. Good thing is that all boats will be serviced and ready when spring comes to us so we can just push the boats into the water when it's possible to do so in February/March.

Hopefully I will have a couple of more days on the water before the end of this year. Last chance to catch a christmas pig before vacay!

// Daniel Wickman
   2016-12-19

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Cold days on the water

Hi fellow readers,

Last weekend was spent on the water so why not share a catch report! Last Thursday I had friends coming for a few days of fishing in Karlskrona. Weather forecast wasn't looking that good since a new front of cold night temperatures was coming in.

Our first day of fishing was Friday and I knew that this day would be our best chance to catch good numbers or a big one, since day temperature was about three degrees. Winds were quite good. Approx 6m/s from north/east. I decided to go west and so we did.

Fishing started out a bit slow, but soon enough we had our first bites and landed pikes. There's not much time of daylight during this time of the year since sun is going down 15:30 in our area at the moment. Therefore, I decided to make short moves between the fishing locations to get maximum amount of time with our lures in the water. We found a bay where wind was pushing in and here we caught many pikes in short time. My friend Stefan caught the biggest fish which measured impressive 105cm. The most successful lure this time was pig shad jr. We ended up with a total of 33 pikes caught which is good since water temp was less than one degree on several places.

Day two showed up to be a bit harder. When we woke up in the morning the thermometer showed -4 degrees. This combined with rather low winds from north-east was for sure not going to help us this day. I decided to go to a new area this day far east of the city. We started drifting over 1,5m of depth and quite surprisingly it only took a few minutes before I had the first bite. Minutes later Jocke landed the first fish which completely inhaled his lure. Within 20 minutes we landed four pikes and all of them striked hard and swallowed the whole lure.

After this strike period pikes decided to get tricky to catch. We had a hard time to find any fish willing to bite and day temperature was about 0 - 0,5 degrees. It didn't help us more when wind decreased to be absent. Still, we continued and tried several different areas. Nothing worked that well and we only caught seven pikes in total this day.

Our last day of fishing was Sunday. Or maybe it's a bit misleading to say that we fished. About 5-6 degrees below zero during the night caused a big problem for us since ice was covering all bays in the morning. Literally, we had to break the ice to even get out from Dragsö. This forced us to try the outer archipelago and so we did with no fish in sight at all. No wind and still cold outside made us decide to end up around lunch time with no pikes caught in our "attempt" on the water.

For me it will be a couple of weeks until my next sessions on the water. Until then, take care and thank you for reading.

// Daniel Wickman
   2016-12-06

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Season summary 2016

December is here and this means that our fishing season is now officially over for this year. Once again it's been a great year and it feels a bit sad to find out that the season is ended. As always, I will hereby share a longer summary of the season in text and pictures, I hope you'll like it!

This year we were quite busy with attending several sportfishing fairs in early spring, which forced us to open officially a bit later than what we normally would do. The first sportfishing fair we attended was in Karlskrona in mid March. Actually, this fair was arranged by the local sportfishing companys together in a step to develope and secure a healthy pike situation now and in the future.

We also attended Sportfiskemässan in Stockholm just a week later in March. Me and Andreas had a good time talking to many anglers and as always when attending these fairs, our energy on the last day when we got back to Karlskrona was equal to zero. Well worth it though and funny days!

Fishing this year started out very well. It was a warm winter and we only had ice for about two weeks in January. In late February and beginning of March I had some very nice fishing sessions with several days of more than 40 pikes in the boat per day. Also, a few days with several +100cm pikes in the same day.

Since spring came early, spawning started in the middle of March this year. As always fishing gets a bit tricky during a few weeks after spawning process has started. Some guests had really tough fishing during these weeks, while other guests found those right spots with active fish and caught both good numbers and sizes. I remember a session with Philip in the end of March were we caught three pikes over the meter margin and also a few just under the margin. Excellent day!

April was a busy month for us as always but maybe even more this year since Jakob who were suppose to work for us was out of duty and I was more or less alone. With many guided trips on my schedule, and about 80 new anglers coming every week, it was tight to find time for everything. Fortunately, Willy graduated from school and started at our camp in May. A great addition to our staff and very nice to have a guy available that already knows the archipelago and fishing here well.

During more or less whole April, weather was variating a lot. Same as with fishing results. I remember that some groups left us with less than ten pikes in a whole weekend. Just a week later or earlier, a few groups could reach 80 pikes in a day per boat. Several really big pikes was caught by our guests with the biggest ones measuring 117 & 119cm.

May is normally one of our best periods for fishing. This year weather went crazy in May and we more or less lost the after spawn pike fishing inside the bays since temperature went up very fast. About 25 degrees in middle of May with very warm night temperatures as well. Instead of staying in the bays for some weeks, it felt like most fish was moving out from the bays to deeper waters and by that got harder to find and catch. Of course we had some days with superb results in May this year to, but overall I must say that fishing didn't reach my expectations this year.

In the end of May we had some very good days. Both guided trips, guest reports and my own private trips went well. Some days more than well. I remember that the two lasts guided trips in May went very good. A four hour trip resulted in 23 pikes and the next day I had returning guests from Sweden out on a full day trip. We had a nice 105cm pike in the boat that gave one hell of a fight on light equipment. We also had a very big follower in the end of the day that didn't bite but I was going to have the last word with that lady a few days later...

Together with Philip from Stinger Productions I went back to the same area as where I have seen the big fish on the guided trip. I dropped the anchor on the same site and I told Philip "Well, let's catch that fish!", and so we did. Philip striked a big pike after just a few casts and it showed up to be the same fish. How could I know? Well, first of all I did see that the pike had a small wound on its head when it was following our lures a few days earlier. But also the fact that pikes of this size doesn't really show up everywhere and everytime. The fish weighed in at 12,51kg and 118cm! The fish was caught on a BeastlyTail 23 from Renz-Stein lures.

With increased inquiries of fishing packages during peak seasons, we decided to invest in another brand new Master500 boat in the end of May, equipped with 40hp Selva. With this boat in our fleet, we can now proudly offer 20 rental boats. Two of our Master500s is locked as extra boats, in case if any of our ordinary ones would struggle or be unavailable for any reasons. It feels nice to always have a boat ready in case if we need one on short notice.

As always, June - August is a bit of a calm period when it comes to fishing in our area. Our camp is busy during this period with regular camping guests and other holiday celebrators. During these months we arrange pike safari every week for our guests and this year was no exception. Willy helped me out with all these events and of course we have a little "battle" between ourselves since we're going in separate boats. This year, Willy and his boat guests outclassed everyone and won six out of seven safaris when it comes to longest fish. Impressive!

In the middle of June we experienced great fishing! Several times when I went out on my own I had 15-20 pikes in half day trips. My top fish was 104cm when I was out with Philip on a sunny day. The funny thing with fishing in June is that the pikes are very strong, weather is pleasant and you can fish more or less everywhere in the archipelago.

We fast forward to the end of August since July wasn't a very fishy month for us. No time to go out and not to many guests here for fishing purposes only. We had a returning group of guests visiting us in the end of August that had good results. About 85 pikes in a weekend and approx 16-17 degrees in the water at this time. Me and Philip tried our luck a few days in the end of the month as well with OK numbers and sizes. A good start on autumn season for sure!

September is always a busy month for us and for many anglers the favorite month for fishing pike in our area. This year the whole month of September was very warm. I remember several trips in the middle of September when we had about 20-25 degrees and many of our guets actually went fishing in shorts.. in September! Some days offered a bit to "nice" weather. 25 degrees, no wind, locals sun bathing on most islands, some jet-skies driving around. Didn't really invite to good pike fishing possibilities but hey, I guess it's bad to complain about it!

Results variated a lot as always, but I would say that overall, September was a good month. Many guests had good numbers, while others maybe didn't have extraordinary amounts of fish but still left us with a new personal best in size. Several guided trips in September was very good with some +100cm pikes in the boat and some days with more than 30 pikes caught in a day. The biggest fish caught by our guests in September (as far as we know) measured 115cm. In amounts, the best boat in September had a little bit over 90 pikes caught in one day, one boat.

Like most busy periods, time is flying away and suddenly October was reality. This year, most weekends in October invited to big fishing competitions. In the first weekend of October we participated in Blekinge Pike Festival which is one of the biggest pike fishing competitions in Europe. About 600 anglers are starting, almost half of them from Dragsö and the rest devided on three other starting points. This competition is arranged over two days and this year we didn't have the luck with us. No good pikes to report, and no good numbers to cheer for. Next year, maybe! Anyhow, the biggest pike caught during BGF was 114cm.

Continuously, we had a few weekends without big competitions in October and during these dates we had many guests coming for pike fishing. Some days offered very slow fishing, those kind of days when you really need to fight to even reach a handful of pikes. There was also many days in October when you easily could reach 30-40 pikes in a day, or even more. We actually had two or three boats that reported about more than 80 pikes in one day, per boat. I guess the local tackle store Båt&Fiske sold plenty of rubber baits during October...!

In the third week of October the final of Sportfish Masters was arranged in Karlskrona for the second time in a row. This year, the final was arranged over two days with many of the most skilled anglers from Sweden. About 510 anglers were competing for the title and they were doing so in very difficult conditions. Water level was running up and down the days before the final, and rain was pouring down most of the days. Our co-worker Willy did very good with his team Karlskronafiske and actually won the whole final! They were rewarded with a brand new Linder boat, loaded with good stuff, but also a ticket to participate in Youtube series Fly vs Jerk 9 which will be sent in 2018.

November is still a rather calm month for us, if you compare with earlier in the autumn. In my opinion November is a very nice month for fishing since there are less boats on the water, temperature is dropping and the big ladys are located in shallow bays. Last year November was quite warm while this year offered very mixed conditions for us. In the second week of November we got plenty of snow and cold nights. So cold, that many bays were covered by ice for days.

Before those cold nights fishing was good. Very good for some guests and local anglers. Me and Björn Nettelbladt (Nettelbaits) had a good day in the beginning of the month with 55 pikes caught and many more pikes lost. Just a few days earlier I had almost 50 pikes in the boat on a guided trip as well with a meter pike on top. If you find the right spots in late autumn, you can for sure be rewarded big time. During the same days, I know several other boats barely caught a single fish. So sometimes it's very clear that the pikes gather up togehter were the best conditions for living is at the moment.

From the middle of November and onwards we didn't have any guests at our camp for fishing purposes. This is also the time of the year when we pull all of our boats up for service and maintaining. In the middle of November we also shared some great news regarding the boats for next season. We will replace eight of our engines on the boats which will make our boats have 40% new engines, 40% with engines used one or two seasons and the last 20% with engines older than two years but still of good functionality.  

Just a few days ago I also mounted a Minn Kota Terrova with iPilot on our guide boat. For sure about time and a great complement which for sure will increase our results next year.

During 2016 we were visited by anglers from 15 different countries if I remember right. Most of them coming from Sweden (obviously), Poland, Denmark and Netherlands. Some groups also came from Germany, Ukraine, France, Belgium, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Latvia, Switzerland and Hungary.

Our fishing season is now officially ended but of course we ourselves will be out on the water as long as there is no ice on the water. It's also possible to come with your own boat all year around as long as it is possible to fish.

Well, this is the end of this years summary and for those of you who still are reading, thank you for doing so and I hope you enjoyed it. I want to thank all of our guests, readers, sponsors and cooperating agents/partners for a great season. Camp Dragsö Sportfishing is continuing to grow and you are the biggest reason to it. So thank you very much!

Me myself will continue with making everything ready for spring season and before the next season starts, I will go to Asia for a well needed break. Four weeks without even touching a fishing rod (I think!).

Down below you will see some mixed pictures from this year. Enjoy!

// Daniel Wickman
   2016-12-01

 

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