Angling has always been more or less my favourite way of fishing.. The calm that appears as soon as the tackle stretches the line, and the float sets in the water and I can just sit down and take it really easy... You know, you check out the sea-gulls curiously hang-gliding above you in the wind, enjoying the sight of a swan-family slowly swimming further out.. then, suddenly, the peace is disturbed by the float, which dips a bit more than it should, just to quickly disappear below the surface.. then you do the hooking-jerk, not too hard, but just enough.. (in theory that is, the first fish of the season can make anyone a bit eager.. ;) And so you've got it! a deasent bass, or maybe a too small one, which is released back into the care of Neptune.. Or a fighting-spirited white-fish... Those, however, I usually release if possible.. Especially since we took a couple home to try out in the pan, just to find out that they have an extremely huge amount of bones inside...
When I was about 7 or 8 years of age, I got my first ABU spin-cast set: a green massive glassfibre rod, with an ABUMatic 220 reel.. My father and I was out a couple times a year with the boat or from the coast of south east Sweden and tried for bass and pike, which we often managed to get at least one of each.. I got quite a deal of bass with that set... When I was about 15-16 me and a friend (Jocke) were out fishing a lot. Since Jocke has an older brother who is really into the game of fishing/angling, it wasn't any crap that Jocke used for fishing, but of course spinning reels and long rods were the only possible alternative.. Which made me spend one of my first salaries on an ABU-rod with a ABU Cardinal 564 spinning reel. One word: wow! The difference in length and feeling I experienced is not possible to express, but it sure made fishing a lot more enjoyable! The summer of 1985 was a time of a lot of fishing. The whole summer we were out as often as we could. We went out early in the morning, about 0500-0530, and used both angling and spinning and stuff... We always took a bunch of sandwiches along to have as lunch, and in the afternoon we started to take care of all the fish we'd caught. (of course we always got a lot of fish, primarily bass) to ensure that we shouldn't be forced to spend the whole night preparing fish.. About 1800 (0600 in the evening) we lit a small campfire down by the water, and sat or lay down, eating fish, looking at the small fishingboats passing by, a swan family passing, bats flying round, eating flies and mosquitos in the dark... When we were finished enjoying ourselves and we had eaten as much fish as we could, it was about half past midnight, or more.. THen we packed our stuff, and went home, slept half the next day, just to go out fishing again the day after that... It's about 20 years ago now, but it is still very nice memories...
A few years ago, spurred by friends and a numerous of books, I throwed myself into the fascinating and exiting world of flyfishing! I bought myself a flyfishing set, in the Bringsén (yep, the guy with the Black Shadow reel) fishing-gear shop in Mörrum, Sweden. With some advice from Bringsén himself, and from my friend Michael, I ended up with a Ron Thompson 9´#6-7 rod, with a Ron Thompson reel. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to get out as much as I want to, but I have been out a few times anyway... My complete catch from flyfishing is so far; 3 small white fish (in Swedish called Sarv) 10-12cm and 4 small basses in the same size, a few birch-trees, a couple of pines, and a couple of other trees, and the bag of my friend Kricka (Christian), who is a friend from Purmo, Finland. This may not count as good statistics, but to step from Sarv (with lots and lots of bones) to Bass is for me a big step in the right direction, since Bass in my opinion is one of the most delisious fish you can catch. Christian was also the one who introduced me to the art of fly-tying.. he led my first staggering steps towards the finishing of a Red Tag, which also was the fly I got those Basses on! This gave a whole new dimension of fly-fishing, to have own-made flies on the leader, which also cought fish!
Well, this was a small introduction to my interest in fishing, which is shared of a lot of people out there... My intention is to have my fishing-stories presented here, with photos and descriptions of the fish, the places and flies etc. which I catch, visit, use and make, along the way...