Peter’s fishing trip to Sweden

peter

December 18, 2023

Peter’s fishing trip to Sweden

The 5th of October 2023, Peter Neeson from Northern Ireland visited Sweden for the first time to fish for pike and zander using sharpshooting, casting, and fly fishing methods. I had the honor to be his car transfer driver and fishing guide during his short journey.

Unfortunately, the bad luck of a cold weather front, rain, and strong wind over Southern Sweden in those days posed some challenges for me in choosing the right fishing spots for the next few days.

The entire story is detailed below.

Day 1 – Training

I decided to choose the most covered place on my big local lake to make our first day as comfortable as possible.

Rainy morning and up to 15m/s wind during the rest of our trip didn’t help us in the intro day with sharshooting method. We struggled a lot with results in the first part of the fishing day. After barbecue meal, the fish started to become more active. We ended the day with Piter’s 3 pikes in medium size and few extra bites. Peter was also lucky to catch his very first zander in just the last few minutes of fishing – fish in size 51cm

Day 2 – New Place, New Possibilities!

In the beginning of this session, we decided to try a little fly fishing for pike in some shallow bays of the lake. Almost 2 hours of fishing brought no results with pikes.

The second location didn’t provide any action for both fly and the vertical/cast rod.

We were hoping for a better evening session as the wind was supposed to die down according to the weather forecast. Unfortunately, the wind became stronger after sunset, and we struggled with the whitecap waves.

Peter got lucky and hooked a nice pike on the casting rod but lost two others in the first hour of the night. The next hour brought one lost pike on the vertical rod and 1 or 2 zander bites. Due to the big waves, at the beginning of the third hour of the night, we decided to head back to the harbor. On the last stretch, we noticed a nice mark on the sonar screen, just 4 meters below the surface. Good bait presentation resulted in Peter’s second zander in his life and a new personal best with a length of 78 cm

Day 3 – The Breaking Point

A sunny and cold day – Peter enjoyed the autumn Swedish landscapes. I took him for a little ride before fishing. First time in Sweden – it should be remembered in a good way

The wind didn’t allow us to launch the boat in the usual spot. Thanks to the sun, the fish remained deep for most of the day hours of the trip. The first fish of the day was a lake crocodile – pretty close in size to his personal best.

I’m kind of proud to make one of my best pictures with the fish being released by the angler.

About one hour later, Peter got lucky and hooked some nice zander – a very rare situation this year – active zanders during the day fishing session. Not so many contacts during the next hours, mostly spooked fish actions, brought us to the local bridge to have a warm meal before the evening fishing session.

The wind was expected to change direction after sunset and settle down – I said to Peter – we will see what the evening session brings…

Day 3, Evening – Fishing of a Lifetime

The sunset landscape was amazing this evening. We both took out our cameras to capture the last moments of the sunbeams. Fifteen minutes later, the magic began…

The first strike came on the casting rod set – after a short fight, we were lucky to bring one supersized zander to the landing net – the fourth zander of Peter’s fishing career – what a stunning result.

Fifteen minutes later, Peter got a strike on the vertical rod, and this fight brought him a new personal best record in pike – a kind of slender fish but measuring 110cm (7.10kg). We couldn’t believe what had happened during the last two quarters.

Later, Peter burned one nice-looking pike and catched four more zanders in sizes ranging from 60-75cm.

Around 10:00 p.m., we decided to head back to the harbor because it was getting really cold. On the way back, we found a nice echo staying pelagic at 8m deep. Peter tried with a pike-dedicated bait on the vertical rod and got a reaction and strike within 2-3 seconds. After a really dramatic fight, my guest brought an amazing-looking zander to the landing net! Fish weighed more than each other trophy fishes caught before. What an end of the fishing session.

C&R rules applied to all the caught fish this evening

P.S. We had to scrape the car windows when we came back to the port

Day 4 – Memories of Seashore Pike

On Monday, it was Peter’s last day of fishing in Sweden. I decided to introduce him to a bit of Swedish salmon culture, and our short stop at Mörrums Kronolaxfiske was very exciting for my guest.

Later on, we visited my old pike seashore spot on the way to Karlskrona.

It seems that the sea pike population is still down, as we found only one seashore bay that held a reasonable number of fish. All the other spots were pretty empty

. We had about 10 contacts during the day, most on the spin rod, and we were lucky enough to bring 3 fish on board.