Urban live baiting

Ice fishing is one of those winter activities I generally give a wide birth when asked if I’d like to take part. Just the thought of sitting in sub zero temps looking down a freshly drilled hole through the ice for hours on end isn’t exactly my idea of fun, but Sunday saw me doing just that with a spot of urban live baiting in the centre of Vaasa with fishing journalist Juha Ojaharju………. and to be honest I had an awesome time. For Fins that read this blog, check out Juha’s fishing website Ojaharju.com or read his articles in Suomen vapaa-Ajan Kalastajien keskusjärjestö Now it might not be legal in your country, but using live bait to catch pike here in Finland is…. but very rarely used. Dead baiting isn’t effective regardless of wherever you are once the water temperature drops below 6’c, so a cooler box filled with live roach, perch & herring kept us going for most of the day.

We had ten of these rigs set up within a 100m radius.

All hooked up

Now before any of you start jumping down my throat for showing you pictures of me pulling pike out through a hole, Chin gripping them, Sticking long nose pliers in their mouths and the obligatory hero shots, I would like to say that out of the 15 pike we caught seven were un hooked while they were still in the hole while the other eight were un hooked on an unhooking matt, which is more than can be said for the 3 guys who were fishing next to us who killed every pike they pulled out, even leaving 2 on the ice when they left “*****”

I’m all for taking one home for the table and generally put the fish out of its misery as soon as I’ve unhooked it but to leave a string of varying sized fish flapping around in the snow is downright fucking savage. I didn’t upload you any images purely because I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. Here we were probably one of the few fishermen in Finland using an unhooking matt releasing all the pike we caught, only to watch these guys probably catch and kill some of the same fish.

Anyway we didn’t bag any monsters, but had a couple of 70cm specimens which I was very happy with. Just to feel a fish in my hand was worth all the effort. Overall a new technique was learned,a top day was had.Thanks to Juha for everything mate. Looking forward to doing it again in the spring with some deadbaits and maybe some fly fishing.