A look back

A big shout goes out to Jyri Kivioja & Leo not only coming down and help document this event but also for producing this video of the recent pike fly International which I put on over here. If your from Finland then you can follow his own fly fishing exploits around the country with his two mates Leo & Kari through their blog "Ruoto - for fly fishing" , simply translated means Fishbone - for fly fishing. Nice work mate,I know a lot of hard work went into getting this out.

Kvarken International Pike Flyfishing Tournament at Merikarvia, Finland from Jyri Kivioja on Vimeo.

Kvarken international pike fly tournament

Another two chaps I was glad to have met during the tournament were Steve Gait & David Smith from the UK. Like most they found the going tough the first couple of days and battled to improve their score for the tournament but came into their own once things became a lot more relaxed with both bettering their own PB's.Steve in fact broke his pb 5 times in 3 days


























While David here bettered his with nice fish.Thanks for coming out lads I truly enjoyed your friendship and having you here.

Kvarken international pike fly tournament

Mike Green....What can I say except I am truly happy to have me this true gentelman of the sport. I had the pleasure of skippering him for one of the days during the tournament and how quickly the day went. He was partnered by Guy Eldridge and between them they outfished all of the young guns. Watching him chuck fluff was sheer poetry in motion. He didn't get into any big ones during his time over here but was chuffed with this 75cm pike none the less. Mike Thanks for the great stories and polishing of the whiskey me old son! Looking forward to having you back next year with family n friends.

Harmen-Jan here with a modest pike of around 70cm. This is another chap I'd been looking forward to skippering and between him and Erik they boated 25 fish for the day. all around the 75 - 85cm bracket. I know next year they will be well up for returning with a different game plan and hopefully some smaller flies than the monster 45 cm ones they brandished in their boxes. They did their sponsors proud.Thanks for the laughs and great times Harmen-Jan.

Sander van der Wal....another fantastic fly fisherman and couldn't be more relaxed if you asked him. Between himself and Henk-Jan I spent a fantastic few hours that will go down in my books as a ripper of a session. Caught pikes were celebrated with large swigs from a Captain morgans bottle and discussions about a specific hook most Dutch pike fly fisherman swear by........its shit!

Kvarken International Pike fly tournament

During copius quantities of rum and whiskey on Saturday evening I offered to take Sander & Henk-Jan out for one last session before they left at 10h00 the next day for the airport and what a 3 hour session we had. To be truthful I was surprised they looked as fresh as they did when we got to the boat jetty. A 15min boat trip to a spot they had been fishing the day before turned out to be one of the best 3 hour sessions of Pike fly fishing I have ever experienced in my life. Pike were literally breaching themselves out of the water in front of the boat as we arrived. The anchor was dropped and for the next 2 hours all hell broke loose. 8 fish were caught all above 85cm with this one being 106cm and we lost another 4 or 5 close to the boat as well......Video footage of me loosing one big mother fucker to a dodgy hook.....I'm sure will feature on the Dutch fours blog in the next couple of weeks.

A truly memorable fishing session that will live with me for ever. Cheers for the ride Sander & Henk-Jan it was emotional!

Kvarken International Pike fly tournament

With the coldest winter here in Finland for 70 yrs, conditions just weren't ideal to say the least.Pike were three weeks late into spawning due to colder water conditions which made the fishing extremely hard and more to the point frustrating at times. The fishing grounds were teaming with pike but were reluctant to take fly and any fish caught were nearly all post spawn. Never the less there was a real buzz within the teams and some decent fish started getting pulled out.

Henk-Jan with a 98cm

Pierre-Luc with a 78cm

Henk-Jan with a 96cm & Sander Van der Wal with an 88cm. This was probably the best 2 hours fishing of the whole week and I'll write something about it for tomorrow.

David Smith with the 1st or 2 pike over 100 cm. This one was 106cm

Benoit Brumiller with a 90 cm

David Smith with his 2nd at 103cm

Erik Hakkert with an 80cm
Me with a small Jack of around 70cm

Due to a problem with the Internet wireless at the lodge we were unable to update the daily standings and catch progress. Anyway Finland had sent a strong team which left the others playing catch up the remaining two days. With pike either spawning or in post spawn blues getting pike to take flies became increasingly frustrating for the teams. With weather conditions changing daily.....so did the tactics. The Dutch four changed their approach from using their long bunny streamers to shorter 100mm schlapen baitfish patterns while the English team kept plodding on with their typically British bulldog never say die approach.After 3 grueling days
1st place went to Team Vision (Tuomas Rytkonen & Saku Pylvainen) from Finland with a total length of 1449 cm
2nd place went to Team England (Mike Smith & Guy Eldridge) with a total length of 1162 cm
3rd place went to the Dutch four (Harmen-Jan Platvoet & Erik Hakkert) with a total length of 1062 cm
A total of 127 pike were caught during the tournament and over 421 were caught for the whole week. 8 PB's were broken as well

Day 1 of the tournament

Day one of the tournament and its been a tough couple of days fishing, yet has produced a few good sized fish.Conditions haven't been easy in that there is not a hell of visibility due to murky waters and the pike are either spawning or just finished.

Today saw the Dutch take an early lead with a few 80 cm fish and some smaller jacks.


While the day goes to the Fins with Tuomas Rutknonen bagging the 1st of 2 fish over 100 cm with this one at 102cm.
And this one at 112 cm 10 minutes before the clock rang for the end of the 1st days fishing

Finland lead with England second and the Dutch 3rd. I'll write a more extensive report tomorrow as I'll have more time to spend on the internet.

During yesterdays practice day I managed to chuck some fluff for a few hours with the Pikesaber and managed this 6.2kg pike and my 1st pike of the season. Chucking large wads of fluff was a real struggle in the wind and I battled with this girl far longer than I should have. I found the rod extremely soft and just couldn't give it the welly I would have liked. At times I became quite frustrated because the loop to loop connections from my fly line to my shooting head just wouldn't pass through the top 3 eyes and literally gave up trying to cast into the wind when the situation arose.


Not an easy pike to fish for in a small rubber inflatable I can tell you.

This is what the tournament is about........Catch,photo, release!
As I mentioned there will be a more in depth report tomorrow.

1 week to lift off

So with a week to go before the tournament kicks off I've had to make a conscious decision to move the whole event down to Merikarvia due to conditions being what they are here. The Ice is melting quickly but not quick enough. Certain areas would be impassable to get to and so un-fishable which is not what we want.

The weekend has been spent sorting out and changing things and has caused some logistical problems but nothing too major to stress over.

Can you believe it, there are some people out there who don't want this event to go ahead and have even deleted threads about this from on a certain Pike fly-fishing forum. More on that at a later date...

Anyway here's a link to the google map of the new fishing grounds down in Merikarvia.


View Merikarvia river estuary in a larger map

Kvarken International Pike fly tournament

So with four weeks to go before the start of the Kvarken international pike fly tournament and things are are all in place....bar the ice. This was taken 2 weeks ago up in Svedjehamn from the newly erected bird tower. Its hard to believe that this area is the sea. Anyway there are some large open patches visible now and wont take long for it to brake up

With temperatures rising by the week and plenty of rain over the last few days all this ice will have melted in a week or so. One thing you have to remember is that the ice is far more crystallized due to it being saline and so melts at a far greater rate than ice on a fresh water lake coupled with that, 50cm of ice could melt in a day due here to the currents we have flowing around Replot,which is a a lot more dangerous for ice fisherman here...I can tell you!

Kvarken International Pike fly tournament

Kvarken International Pike fly tournament

If you didn't know already I'm busy putting together a pike fly fishing tournament for next year May for here on the island of Replot. Main sponsors will be Vision fly-fishing, Eumer and Baltic Pike flies. Click the image to learn more about this event. Over the next few months this will be advertised on all the top blogs & fly-fishing websites around the world as well as being advertised in many of the fly-fishing magazines across Europe and some in the States 'n Canada.

Advertising billboards

Advertising billboards

Advertising billboards

Pike on the fly tournament

Here's the first glimpse of an event I am putting together for next year May here on the island of Replot. I already have some fantastic sponsors within the fly-fishing world on board. More to follow in the coming weeks & months.