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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Summer to its end?

Well hello out there my fellow readers. As I wrote a couple of days ago, I had a few days off work this week and spent some hours both days on the water.

Personally, I've experienced the fishing to be a bit hard lately. Last two weeks hasn't been the best this year but maybe this is about to change from now. 3 days ago I went out for a little more than 3 hours. Conditions were okey with hard winds and south winds. Only one pike was kind enough to find interest in my lures so with decreased self esteem I went home to load my gear for upcoming day.

With the poor results in my mind, it took a little time before I actually went out. 5pm I made my first casts and I didn't have a single strike or any intention of pikes in the first hour and a half. After that the rush hour began. Moved to a shallow area with plenty of nice weed rushes and something happened, because pikes were crazy now! 14 pikes between 75-88cm came up in just 1,5 hours! All of them took a Mctail modified with bigtail. It should also be mentioned that water was gin clear so most strikes were visible from far distances as well! This kind of fishing is for sure addictive...

Plenty of vacancies upcoming weeks so for those of you who are thinking about visiting us it's possible most weeks still.

Temperatures continue to drop and in night time we only reach 14-16 degrees now. It starts to smell pike time, that's for sure!!

// Daniel Wickman
2013-08-16

 

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Autumn season is approaching

Sunday afternoon and I'm looking in my calendar and I find out that summer is more or less over by now. Officially, we are in fishing season now and our campsite is open until the 15th of October. A little more than 8 weeks of fishing is ahead of us with most guests arriving in the middle of September.

Every evening from now is starting to feel a little cold even though we still use shorts outside most days. Daytime temperatures has dropped a bit lately so these days we get about 18-23 degrees in daytime, which is approximately the same temperature as it is in the water. In the bay of Dragsö the temperature today is 22 degrees. As you might understand, this is not really preferable for the pikes but soon enough we expect to get better conditions for fishing. Last two weeks hasn't been to good... But better times to come!

For a whole week now we are getting strong winds from west/south-west. Today 9m/s in average and so it will be for the rest of the week. Squalls of up to 16m/s will be registered as well so for sure hard fishing conditions but this will bring good oxygen levels to the water. Hopefully this might result in a pike bonzana in 5-7 days. At least that's what I think!

Will be off work for a few days upcoming week so of course some time will be spent on water. Should be very interesting. Either the fishing will be very poor, but it could also be very good if you find the spots where pikes normally gather up together during rough weather conditions.

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-08-11

Sunsets can be very beutiful at Dragsö

But a day like this, You either stay home or go fishing!

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Pikesafari #7 2013

As I'm writing this summary, there has also become time to sum up this years total of all pikesafaris. Yesterday was the 7th and last pikesafari of this season and as every year we wasn't really fully booked. 16 anglers devided into 4 boats.

A little less than two days before this pikesafari the weathermens told us that we should get up to 65mm of rain during the day. With this fact in my mind, I realized that it was going to be a rainy safari this week. Fortunately, this forecast showed up to be very wrong and just small amounts of rain was falling during the morning and nothing at all in the evening.

This evening I wanted to go to some places that we havn't been visiting before on our pikesafaris. Our first place was west Haglö were we fished on 1-2,5m of depth. This place didn't deliver to good so after an hour we went a far way north of Dragsö to the bay of Skärva. At this place I immediately had a fish of approx 75cm but the fish escaped just by the boat.

We continued to have good amounts of contacts but just a few of them wanted to follow all the way into the boat. Two smaller pikes was landed by German guests Fiedler up to 57cm. We took some pictures of them anyway since we knew that fishing was tough today. Maybe these fish was going to be good enough?

Back at Dragsö we summed up this very last pikesafari and the numbers wasn't much to cheer for. Two boats came in with "pike virginity" and only a few ones in my and the 4th boat. In total we gathered 5 pikes and a perch. Lucky for the Germans, 57cm was the longest pike this evening and were rewarded with winner caps! They were so happy about their achievement and really got into pike fishing so they decided to rent a boat for themselves today!

So, with all the pikesafaris accomplished, we could sum up some interesting numbers.

In total this summer, we caught 152 pikes during our 7 pikesafaris. That is 30 pikes more than last year! The average winnerfish this season measured 77cm, compared with 2012 when this number was 74cm.

We had 185 guests following this season on our pikesafaris, which is a little lower number than last season when 196 guests joined us.

Numbers for geeks;

PIKESAFARI
               
        Participants            Pikes caught        Winner pike
1.             16                               12                       87cm
2.             20                               17                       67cm
3.             21                               36                       91cm
4.             36                               35                       101cm
5.             40                               41                       70cm
6.             36                                6                        65cm
7.             16                                5                        57cm

Today I'm posting some mixed pictures from this season of pikesafaris. Enjoy and have a nice weekend!


// Daniel Wickman
   2013-08-09

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Pikesafari #6 2013

Well hello all fishing enthusiasts. We have reached another weekend and the last really busy vacation weekend of the year here in Karlskrona. At the moment Karlskrona Archipelago Festival is beeing runned so a lot of people is visiting both us and Karlskrona at this date.

Yesterday we accomplished this summers sixth Pikesafari and we did it with 9 boats this time. 36 anglers in total including me and our substitute Stefan who joined in instead of David yesterday.

Weather conditions this safari was partly cloudy but more and more sun later in the evening. Wind was fighting hard this time though. Approx 7m/s in average and squalls up to 15m/s. With these facts in my mind, I picked an area east of Karlskrona city so that we could feel a bit wind protected since wind was forcing on from west/south-west. Islands Mjölnareholmen, Kalsholmen and Basareholmen was our staring point and we gathered up approx one hour later. Conditions were okey but obviosuly the pikes wasn't ready to dance...

Another thing worth to remember is that the every year returning "spaghetti weeds" has growed dramaticly during last 10 days. Some places is really hard to fish on at the moment if you don't choose lures who is possible to fish very shallow.

In my boat I had 3 young guys who tried their luck with different baits and I struggled to find something that could work aswell. It felt like we served a minor Nobel dinner but with no guests coming to the feast of food.

Second place of the evening was the whole area of Borgmästarfjärden. For those of you who ain't familiar with our area, this means we fished between Dragsö and Karlskrona city. A closed area with remarkably lower waves caused by the wind. This fact didn't help to much though since pikes continued to refuse our lures.

Back at Dragsö we could sum up a very low amount in total. Only 6 pikes was caught during the evening and the longest measured 65cm. I guess this was a time of fishing when pikes really were off feeding mode.

I will go home this evening and pray to the fishing gods so that the pikes will be more active next time. Because next week we are arranging this summers last pikesafari, and we hope to finish strong and go into the autumn fishing season with good spirit!

Cheers and stay fishy this weekend!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-08-02

   

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Pikesafari #5 2013

Wow another week has obviously already been passing by. In Karlskrona we've had very nice weather lately and is in the lead when it comes to sun hours this summer.

Yesterday was a bit of an exception though since most of the day was cloudy. With these factors in our mind we had high expectations of the evening. We were fully booked this time which means 10 boats and 40 anglers.

With less wind this Thursday we decided to go to the island groups of Smörpundsholmarna. Before the stop over there we went to Kobebus just south of Karlskrona city. Unfortunately for us, great amount of algae growth that appears during warm summer periods has now reached our area. This affects water visibility so even though we had low winds this pikesafari, water was murky.

In some boats fishing was okey at the first stop and David caught a small cucumber almost directly. In my boat a little kid managed to catch two small pikes in short time on a classic ABU Atom spoon, herring colour. Happy smiles in the boat for sure!

After an hour we went to Smörpundsholmarna to continue our pike hunt. We picked a rather big area since we had 10 boats.

Overall it was very happy faces that with interest gathered up by our fishing lodge to see who would win this pike safari. As always we asked boat for boat about their fishing and most guests reported about very strong but small pikes that has been caught during the evening. Winner pike this time measured 70cm and at least 3 other boats were fighting just behind with sizes 67-68cm. With these sizes mentioned, you can understand that this was a night of kinder activity. After some counting we could sum up 41 pikes, which is a really good result.

Two more pike safaris to go this summer...

Have a nice and fishy weekend!

// Daniel Wickman
   2013-07-26

 

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