Third visit to Fishing Cottage Jokiniemi for our
Romanian fisherman - July 2021
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Our Romanian visitors caught good size pikes by spinning in the end of July 2022.
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In 25 July–1
August 2021 Gheorghe, his sons and their friends stayed at our
cottage for the third time, having previously visited us in 2018 and
2019. This time the weather was much hotter than the previous years,
which had a positive effect on the bite of the fish.
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Biggest perch weighted amost 1 kg.
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They did most of
their spinning in relatively shallow waters of max 4–5 meters deep
by using soft baits and spoons. They told me that the best color for
catching changed daily, but day after day the best lure was a thin
Abu Garcia Toby. Natural colors such as perch and cisco worked the
best in soft bait spinning.
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This zander + 50 cm was released after fast photo shoot.
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Their biggest perch
weighed almost 1 kg, biggest pikes were 70–80 cm and biggest
zanders 50–60 cm long. Most of the time the weather was sunny and
hot, but there were also a couple of rainy days. Rainy weather is
quite often good for catching both pikes and zanders. They did also
some trolling and caught all our most common predator species such as
pike, perch and zander. The end of July is a great period for
catching all kinds of fish near our fishing cottage.
Fishing on Lake Saimaa - July 2019
First week of July was very warm and sunny due wind from south to east. Many of our early spring visitors had been complaining how difficult it was to catch zander. Most common mistake was to try catch them from shallow. Water temperature was varying all spring by effect of air temperature. When we had longer period of hot weather, zanders did come to shallow water of 4 - 6 meter deep, when weather turned colder we had to do catching in water depth area from 7 - 12 meter deep. Midsummer do start actual zander fishing season near our cottage.
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| First fishing day was great for our Estonian visitors. |
In the beginning of second week of July 2019 we welcomed a fisherman group of 4 persons from Estonia in to our fishing cottage. Wind was changing to north, but it did not have influence for catching during first days of their visit.
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| Perch + 500 gr. |
They caught good daily numbers of pikes as well as big perches and breams in shallow water. Couple last days of their visit were colder due north wind which made fishes got passive and move to deep water areas. They tried to do catching for zander as well, but unfortunately they choosed little bit too shallow depth area for catching. Zanders had moved in to water areas of 9 - 10 meter deep.
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| Hooking & cooking is very important part of daily routinues of our fishing visitors. |
Raigo, who is excellent photographer visited Kolovesi National Park trekking trail and shooted some great pictures there. They enjoyed of fishing, sauna and tasty home made fish foods during their stay in our cottage.
Before arrival of our next fisherman group I did some fishing to located
zanders, pikes and perches with my mother, who is keen fishing woman.
It was great to relax and to do 3 - 4 hours fishing with her. Our next group made much more better with zander fishing when I was able to share some fresh fishing information.
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| My mother and zander 47 cm caught by trolling 13 June 2019. |
Quite often our visitors want me to organize a tutorial fishing trip for the beginning of their holiday to quicken the process for getting better fishing results by learning spots, biting times and best colors for area near our cottage.
Many groups want to do all the fishing independently from the beginning to the end of their holiday. They have told me it takes 3 - 4 days to learn spots, colors etc before they start feeling comfortable with fishing in Finland. Quite often their second visit to our cottage is much more succesful by fishing results due experience they have gathered during their previous visit.
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| Cooking and sharing a tasty meal of fish caught by themselves is a important part of fishing holiday for most of our visitors. |
When our our next fisherman group of 6 persons from Latvia arrived I gave them advices for fishing area, best depth area and colors, so they did pretty well with zander fishing. They caught good size zanders and pikes daily and their biggest zander caught was appr. 60 cm long and weighted 1.8 kg.
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| Pike + 60 cm |
Beginning of their holiday was very hot, they used to have a siesta & sun bathing in the middle of day. They did most of fishing in time of early morning and late evening. Luckily some members of their group did catching in shallow water during daytime as well, and they were able to catch good size perches and ides as well.
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| Ide caught by soft bait spinning in July 2019. |
Unfortunately no one rented our cottage for 4th week of July, because weather was perfectly hot and beautiful for vacation and for fishing. Couple last days of this week were the hottest of all summer, but dramatical change for unpredictable weather of summer 2019 was right behind the corner.
Our first ever Japanese fishin family arrived our cottage 27 July 2019. Day was extremely hot, closer to 30 degrees of celsius. Because their arrival was late, we had decited to organize a combined fishing & boating trip one day after their arrival.
We started our event by travelling 20 km sightseeing by boat for our camp site. Hole family helped me with cooking and did some fishing from shoreline. We started our actual boat fishing part near by 18.00 by softbait spinning and trolling. Trolling was completely new fishing method for our Japanese visitors and they were very interrested learning it. We caught both pikes, perches and zanders by softbait spinning and pikes when trolling with wobblers. We ended our fishing day for sunset and I returned our Japanese visitors back to our cottage for hot sauna and evening snacks.
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| Beautiful pike caught by softbait spinning. |
Next day after our fishing event we learned how to use outboard engines and electronics of our cottage boats and did some fish handling together. After that it was time to say good bye and allow our visitors to start their independent fishing week.
Weather turned very cold for the season of summer in time of couple of days. I was totally horrified when seeing dily temps go down to 10 - 14 degrees of celsius. Desbite of cold north wind, worst enemy of fishermen in our area, our brave Japanese visitors did great with fishing. Father of the family did fishing alone early morning and with his daughters and wife after midday and evening time. They caught good size zanders up to 60 cm and pikes up to + 90 cm long. Daily numbers of fishes caught were very good. Many thanks for your visit, it was great to get such a lovely family visiting us.
July 2016 guidances
I had a guided fishing trip with a German fisherman group on the second
weekend of July..... The weather was perfect for catching zanders....so,
that's what we did.
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| Zander 50 cm |
To be honest, beginning of our fishing day was quite challenging. It was easy to locate our target fishes, but much more difficult to reach crazy bite. Weather was calm and hot, fishes seemed to have siesta and we were catching individuals. In zander fishing finding correct color for catching is very important. When color puzzle is solved, we can do great for a while, until they find some other color more attractive and we must start again. In the other hand there are great fishing periods during July and August, in which we can do great fishing day after day for time of couple of weeks as we reached in the year 2014.
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| Beautiful perch + 700 gr |
Challenging days make me humble, but do not worry. Finally we did great. I was expecting to reach very good evening fishing and I did. All of our visitors did catch zanders, pikes and perches, time to time I needed both of my landing nets to be able to take measurements and release fishes we did not want to take or which were too short. We started our evening fishing by softbait spinning and finalized it by trolling in time of very beautiful sunset near 22.00. Actually our visitors would have wanted to continue even longer, but our 8 hour day was full.
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| It is very important to release fishes that do not exceed minimum landing lenght. We do lift the fish in to vessel poured with water, unhook and take measurements & memory pics and release the fish. It is highly recommended to be able to de all this in time of 2 - 3 minutes maximun. |
In the end of July 2016 I had a guided fishing trip with old customer of mine. We had 6 hour guidance starting from early evenig and ending for sunset. I had been training & finding fish right before this event, which made it much more easier for me to make results. We did both trolling and softbait spinning, but mainly spinning. During this 6 hour session we had 3 tops on bite, which is quite normal in perch and zander fishing this part of the year.
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| Beautiful zander and perch caught in the end of July 2016. |
I do not favour pictures in which there are piles of fish to show how many fishes we have caught. I do select one or two fishes that were biggest or gave us great fight for picture taken. Biggest fish is not allwasy published, if there is a better pictures of smaller species available. By my opinion a picture of fish caught must respect the catch and indicate joy and success of fishing.
If we are hanging the fish vertically, it has been killed for cooking, other wise we do hold fish horizontally. Unfortunately there is still a lot to learn in taking beautiful pictures, but I do hope I am improving year by year.
July 2015 fishing stories
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| Early evening on Lake Saimaa, July 2015 |
The beginning of July 2015 gave us rain but also a couple of hot summer
days. It was also time for big pikes: on our nearby waters one fisherman
caught a pike over the magic weight of 10 kilos, and our cottage
customers were able to pull in pikes up to 7 or 8 kilos. We had a group
of Belarusian visitors staying at our cottage, and they told that in
their country the waters were more shallow and the pikes smaller. In
addition to pikes they also caught big perches and smallish but
full-grown zanders.
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| Zander 46 cm, catched by Softbait Spinning in early July 2015. Zander was released. |
In the middle of July we started to do evening-time trolling for zander
and day-time jigging on the big open waters of Lake Saimaa. The rapidly
changing weather conditions have been a bit tricky this summer, but
luckily true fishermen and fisherwomen aren’t made of sugar!
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| Pike fishing in the beginning of July 2015 |
Also the eagerness of the fish to bite has varied a lot. When the time
and the conditions are right, you can pull in perches with every cast.
When the fish are lazier to bite, catching fish becomes more challenging
and requires good fishing techniques. You have to know how to use
vibrating movements and other tricks to force the fish to bite.
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| Softbait spinning for perch 12 July 2012 |
When the fish are lazier to bite, it’s also more important to cast more
accurately and use baits of the right size, shape and colour. Baits can
be painted with marker pens to give them the desired colour and a
tempting scent. A group of our customers recently learned the importance
of colour. They used two identical softbaits for jigging, one was
painted with marker and the other wasn’t. The result was surprising:
they caught fish only with the painted one. Another group tried
different colours and to their surprise the most successful colour was
the one that they never could imagine working. When fish are lazy to
bite, you are forced to experiment and at the same time learn a lot.
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| Evening time fishing 22 July 2014 |
Pikes, perches and zanders have been moving on more or less the same
areas this summer, which means shorter boat rides to catch fish. The
size of the fish is normal but catching them has required more work than
last summer. And when you work hard, it’s also more important to have
proper breaks and eat well during your fishing trip. The ideal way to
unwind is to seat yourself around an open fire, empty your mind of
fishing thoughts for a while, have a nice chat with a good meal, and
after a good break like this you are refreshed, filled with energy and
100 % ready for fishing again.
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| Late evening fishing in July 2015 |
Tip from our fishing guide and company owner Mr. Jari Kayhko:
The last week of June and the first two weeks of July are good for
catching zander near our fishing cottage. After mid-July zanders will
start to move towards the streaming water areas in the distance of 5 - 6
km from our cottage and also to the big lakes of the Great Saimaa lake
system, such as Paasselka, Orivesi, Savonselka and so on. Big pikes do
the same and both zanders and pikes will be more often caught from the
deeper areas or bank slopes of the big lakes of Saimaa in the daytime.
July 2014
In the beginning 0f July 2014 we welcomed a group of four fishermen from Lithuania to our
cottage in Savonranta. We started with a one-day guided fishing trip
during which I introduced them to the best lures and fishing spots of
the area. The week was quite cold and rainy, but the guys managed to
catch fish every day, by trolling as well as casting. Our guests were
pleased with the pikes, perches and zanders they caught, and prepared
tasty dishes out of them at our cottage. They also caught a nice fat
ide.
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| Zander fishing 5 July 2014 |
In the middle of July we welcomed Gennady, Sergey and Aleksey from
Moscow. The weather was brilliant and very warm almost every day. We
fished together for five days, catching big pikes, zanders and perches,
which we naturally cooked and ate with delight. The guys went fishing
also on their own by using the two motorboats we have for our customers
to use, free of charge. In addition to sunbathing and having sauna they
also went for a bit of sight-seeing in Kerimäki and Savonlinna.
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| 22.7.2014 |
During the last
weeks in July we also headed for the bigger open waters of Lake
Saimaa to cast for larger perches. The sunny spring days made them
pleasantly active and hungry. I had daily guidances for over 2 week period with differrent groups enjoying of Finnish summer and great fishing with me.
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| Perch fishing 14 July 2014 |
