Sweden 2017

Mid June saw us return to Sweden to visit Gunnar of Pikestrike and enjoy some of the fishing on offer. The main target during our stay would be Pike on lures. We had a short 1.5hr flight over from Edinburgh UK to Gothenburg then it was a matter of picking up the hire car then make the 4hr drive south to Karlskrona. I really do love Sweden, lovely quiet and clean country and seems to be full of lakes, my sort of place!

We paid extra for the hirecar to have roofbars meaning we could load up the kayaks and explore a little, the aim to try some of the outer islands. There is so much to go at that is was difficult to decide where was best to fish but we worked on the simple rule of if an area has plenty of boulders then there should be Pike, pretty much that was how it worked out though catch them was a different story. some days they were more interested in following baits rather than hit them! Other days they were very active and providing plenty of sport.

Those Swedish Pike are nuts, they spend more time out of the water when fighting! We did see some very big Pike and any 90cm+ fish we did hook soon shook themselves free! Frustrating but still good fun. We also saw some big SeaTrout and what we found out to be Ide, my fishing buddy Graham did hook into a few including a BIG fish that he couldn’t stop! Ended up snagged in some boulders never to be seen 🙁 Made a good story though 🙂

Highlight for me was when my wife joined us and caught her first Swedish Pike, she was very pleased and it made my holiday. Though the fishing was relatively slow by Sweden standards it was still fantastic, shall return soon and hopefully one day make it permanent!