Mating games of brown trout

Fishing continued at Lasakoski rapids till the end of September. It was good altough there weren´t many catches of bigger trout.
In the beginning of October water temperature dropped at the level where trout start to reproduce. I saw nervous water at the neck of King's banch rapids in 14th of Oct. I realised that trout spawning had started. I took som footages about underwater activity. The underwater clarity is pretty poor but it actually enhances mystic and thrilling mating games of brown trout. Have a good time and wath it to the very end.

Lashing swans

However water gathers into big bondson the ice, the lakes are still frozen. There aren't many meltwater places yet and bird migration is going strong. Goldeneyes, ducks and swans, 34 totally, are swimming in our Neck Pool. FebReds emerg at the same time and troops of those are marching on snow drifts. Snow Buntings get tasty meal from those on their trip to far North. There starts to be traffic so much that it´s hard to get mixed up.
The water temp has rosen to one degree. Trout are feeding on FebRed adults from the water surface relatively steady. Fooling them with fly seems to be easy, but I can tell, it isn't. Trout look at their prey now carefully and if they find something odd, even minor misbehaving, they will sink the fly with lips. They do it so skillfully that the flyman is alwaus too late in striking. You know, long cast and curly lines hanging on the water make your hooking patethick. Every now and then they taking sometihing invisible from the meniscus. And next to that they go head'n tail under your rod tip. Really teasing. Let's go lashing swans. Evey now or then we coud hook a trout at the same time.

Whoppaa!

Hey, have anyone seen FebReds?

Thanks to Pasi. Great shots.

Hungry Trout, Pleased Fishermen

Saturday morning lights up  drizzling gray. Maybe too cold for FR dry fly fishing as well. Despite of cold misty weather two passionate fly fishermen started to wade trough knee deep snow drift aiming to good spots at Lower Rapids.
It's a bit too early for prolific hatches. Every now and then there was new born  FR adult riding on dark water. There were four trout rising at the lower neck of Koskensaari rapids pool. You have to aproach them very carefully this time of the year. When you are close enough the cast has to be gentle otherwise trout will put their noses down.
Yes, fish on, it took the fly. After gentle play the fish slides into the net. These young flyfishermen are so skilled. Two trout took Sumulator dry fly and one took a black nymph.
Trout 47cm, 47cm and 50 cm. Great catch!

The first February Red in 2012 discovered

Oh Gosh I was wrong. Week ago I thought February Red Stoneflies (FRS) will appear after 3-4 weeks. I should have known better. The simple fact is that when there are enough degree-days the maturity reaches emergence. Actually one friend of mine reminded me about FRS emerging a little earlier this spring. The reason is warm last fall. Obviously the sum of degree-days is valid estimation base to determine the time of insect and fish hatching.
Today, March 11th I was sipping my breafast coffee and looking out from the kitchen window. It’s always relaxing to watch slowly flowing stream. Suddenly I discovered FRS adult waddling stiffly pointlessly on the window glass. Oh damn they are early this spring.
Later by day I had more time to find out what was the amplitude of FRS invasion. Well, don’t worry my fellow fishermen, I found only three of them. They were all dark in colour already. But remember, these were scouts and after them come vanguards and after them come the main group. Traffic lasts a week or two and slowly dies down with rear guards.

Today it was a real spring day. In the afternoon sun warmed nicely and the temperature was well over zero. The snow was vaporising in my eyes. Of course there is still a lot of snow but smelting continues according to prognoses with speed in coming week.
 Yes, the smelting snow was dropping from the branches of shore Alder. When hitting the water surface they formed crossing rings. Something, some abnormality in this complexity made me to stare a while longer at the surface under the branches. The main current flows just grazing the bank in front of Willa Salmon. There it is again – clearly a trout taking something just under the surface leaving slowly dying swirls after. I’m sure it was a trout! After a while I saw another similar swirl further down.
It wouldn’t be a bad decision to start the season this week. And if you want to go for FRS, there are still left free rods at Läsäkoski.

Shooting swans from my verandah

 It's six below freezing. It's snowing fluffs quietly, like in slow motion, creating funny hats on winter jutters. There's almost ten centimeters powder on the ground. Dark water engulfs quietly fluffy flakes while flowing slowly towards Puula lake.
Silent cackle, like talking, carries from upstream. Suddenly there is a Whooper Swan family in front of me. Parents and four overgrown "ugly ducklings". They are sailing slowly downstream feeding on weed at the same time. How big they are this close. I shoot my camera few times. At he same time the parents awake about my presence. The silent noise from my camera sounds probably beyond fifteen meters. With high necks peeking behind their back the group paddles majestically further. Later, just before the shimmer of the blue moment fades away they came to sleep on the ice cover of Pölhö island in front of the hut. What a wonderful day this was.

February Red Fly

Do you know how February Red nymph spends its time? It eats and grows of course. While growing it exuviates its skin time to time. That is why some of the nymphs are dark and some are light in brown colour. Nymphs that have recently exuviated their skin are light brown. When time elapses the chitin case turns darker. When the time of maturation is getting closer, the nymphs start to migrate towards decent solid emerging platforms.
In winter, the living ground of February Red nymphs is covered normally with ice.  Reeds and stalking grasses penetrate the ice cover there. With help of warming beams of the sun the ice melts first around reeds. The sun shines like the stars through those formed holes attracting strongly February Red nymphs. Towards those stars, these stonefly nymphs roam and finally find their way to our side of the ice cover. 
If there weren’t ice the brightness of the sky would be prevailing. In these circumstances there are no clear focal point for nymphs to be targeted. Then whatever reed, stalking grass, or other weed pointing upwards from the bottom is a potential way to emerging platform. If this way has dead end, in other words it doesn't reach the water surface the nymph has to find another way. Sometimes the nymph throws itself swimming. It tries that way to find another potential path upwards. The swimming action is like a lizard running on sand. When it exhausts it starts to sink motionlessly legs pointing out. It is sure that trout are following this action.
Several years ago I studied how trout reacted at February Red nymphs during this sinking period. All trout in aquarium fed on sinking February Red nymphs. Only the smallest trout had slight difficulties to swallow their prey. Sometimes they had throwing up actions while gulping these "leggy" nymphs.
I normally fish on two kinds of wet flies close to FR hatch. I have succeeded with standard black nymphs and flies like in the picture. This time I tied a bunch of these.

In March I go with these.

Lasakoski February Red in week 01/2012

I went to collect an insect sample with my kick net. I should have had my waders on, but this time I was wearing only my Muck Boots. I was abel to wade only some half meter from the shore. My intention was to study the insect life around sedge roots. Because of my lazyness I had to accept the limitation in wading I had.
Lasakoski is well known about its February Red hatch in March. That is why I had strong curiosity to find out if there were lurking stonefly nymphs.
I started to operate in lower Sauna Pool well abowe, but not far from the tongue of North Branch.  I really couldn't go far from the bank because of my boots and high water. From my foothold I tried to scrape sedge roots as well I could. From experience I knew the nymphs sholuld be there.
As result I got few lumps of sunken dead leaves and other debris, totally half of a bucket.
I depleted the bucket on a big plate ad started to sort out my catch. What a great catch it was. Normally this kind of qiuck sample produces some ten insects. Now there were dozens of tubed caddis larvas, triple times that of mayfly nymphs and totally fourty February Red nymphs. This promises very good February Red hatches in March, if nothing dramatic happens.

Brotherhood of February Red nymphs