The Nest of Trout

Water temp 3,8oC

Flow 14,5m3/s

I was gladly surprised about the number of trout nests. At the same time sizes of the nests tell about what size of fish have made those. Eighteen of the nests are in lenght between two and three meters. Normally it is 60cm trout wich digs this size of hole. We found four relatively big nests and two of those were almost four meters long. It is over 70cm long trout which dig these size hole and besides of those we found two nests oven 4 m in size. These size nests you can expect to find in big lake/river systems like as Lake Saimaa. For example in Kerma Rapids and Vihonvuonne. Trout digging this size of nests must be over 80cm size. During inventory, one this size trout was seen, not clearly but the widht of its back was more than 20cm. This tells that it is over 80cm long, which is very gorgeous brown trout.

Large nest

Accomplishments of smaller trout

Producing the inventory of trout nests

Temp. 4,0 oC
Flow  14,5 m3/s

It's really gray and misty today. I don't mind because it's going to be very interesting day. I'm going to count trout nests with Vesi-Vision guys. Earlier I had found some fifteen nests, but today we have "water window", an aid to see better beyond the surface.  

Searchin trout nests in King's Branch

During the progress of inventory it is obvious that there exist so many nests that there is need to check larger area.
We can find moore and moore nests and this rises our mood in a manner that we descided to chek all potential looking palces. After inventory we had found 41 nests overall. Very, very positive. Now we are hoping that the most of the eggs will hatch. This would be very positive progress for lake migrating brown trout.

Trout are reproducing

Temp. 6,0 oC
Folw  14,0 m3/s

The flow is ideal for trout to spawn. Just walking along the banks I could spot fifteen trout spawning nests. I don't know if that's a lot or not. I have yet no history to compare. Anyway it's good overall to find trout nests.

The season was closed today

The season was closed today. Water temperature is still over 10 oC. The first detectable observation about closing trout spawn was spotting a vivid 50 cm fish in Mill Brook. That was in the end of September.

Quality Fly Fishing at Lasakoski

Fishing pressure has been low because of the low profile we have chosen to keep this year. Hot weather, which we have faced often recently, has also taken the faith of fishermen to believe trout to take and therefore decreased their fishing enthusiasm. No doubt that fishing has been challenging, but despite of that the catches have been reasonable. Bigger trout have been on the lam, like also in other places in Southern Finland rapids where they follow no stoking policy. Despite of water temperature around 23 oC in Mid Summer time some fishermen have chought trout.
I have heard a rumor that fishermen believe that the booking list of Lasakoski has been full. Well, we have had plenty of vacancy.

Nice 61 cm female cought with Hydrolarva

The Flow Grows

Temp. 14,3 oC
Flow   11,5 m3/s

Tagging Lasakoski Brown Trout

Temp. 15,0 oC
Flow 10,0 m3/s

Electro fishing at Mill Brook

The state of Lasakoski trout population is followed regularly. We are mainly searching for juveniles, not more than one year old. Those juveniles are in lenght of 8 - 12 cm. We are recording the number of those. So tiny are those in the first steps of their life. So tiny that its impossible to tag them without causing serious injuries. I really hope that these trout survive at least once for spawning. I means 3-5 years challenging life 

Tagging 2 years old trout

We catch also bigger trout with electric fishing. We tag them all. The tag is punctured carefully in the fish back through the dorsal fin bones so that the number label is left hanging besides of the fin. Tagging doesn't harm the fish greatly but the information from label returning tell a lot about lake migration and growing speed of trout.
We catch other species too with electricity. Mainly Roach but among them Stone Loaches and Sculpins. Here the number of Sculpins can tell roughly about the condition of trout population. Moore of Sculpins and Stone Loaches mean more trout.

Stone Loach, the delicacy of trout

Renovation toughts

Like always it tends to be so that excavator lives its maks on the river bed. Nature repairs slowly the scars of renovation but that's not quick enough. There is a need for human hands to speed up the process. What is needed is adding wegetation on banks and adding spawning gravel areas with bee working. There should be some person who takes this "nobody's work" to look after. Small operations like stabilizing loose rocks or cleaning up the rubbish carried by the current, righ way, will create convinient surrounding for trout and pleasant for human eyes to look at.

Renovation of Lasakoski

Läsäkoski was renovated in three separate steps in 2004 - 2009. Renovation, especially this fierce, leaves marks which are shoking to look at. But the nature tends to fix the marks made by human hands. The nature of these renovations is restoring in type and the target is to get back diversity of the nature rapids. If this goes right it would bring better possibility for lake migrating brown trout to reproduce in Läsäkoski rapid.

Lasakoski beautiful and interesting

I couldn't imagine any other trout stream pleasing my eyes moore. Narrow stretches, speeding  up every now and then, joining again into bigger pools. Then the current speeds again up on next neck where grey stones split the current again. Surging water absorb fresh oxygen just right for big trout to lie even during hot summer days. Plenty of roomy potholes and tense vegetation growing on the banks give good shelter for these big predators.

Main channel above Mill Bridge

North channel

South channel