Video from spring season 2010!

Finally.
Finally I get some thoughts down on the past Sea trout season. After peak season there is so much to take care of, office work, family and website. Please enjoy pictures and video. (At least I do when I look back on the season with some perspective...)

Anyway, I consider this season
as very ok keeping in mind the extremely tough winter and spring. This season forced me and the other guides to really get some new thoughts going, using new strategies to find fish. The normal spots did not work during times they would normally hold good amounts of fish, on top of that, the low water temperatures has kept the trout quite passive until late spring. This year we even found leeches of the kind that is found on pike that has been parked for a long time under the ice. The trout normally moves way too much for these creatures to grab hold. The searching for sea trout became very important, or rather, the searching for a bit warmer water. We had a great troutfishing all through May and a good part of June. I'm sorry to say that we did not have many guests during this time, since it is normally considered "too late". It was difficult to communicate the good fishing or more importantly, many people have a hard time squeezing in a trip with short notice.

My theory is that the cold winter is also the reason for us catching so many "semi silver fish", this spring. The trout simply could not gain the weight after spawning because of low water temperature. When this springs first guests showed up, we still had 1000 metres of ice on some places on the east side...


The low water temperatures has made slowly fished baits effective. Fly has been really effective through spring season, many times much better than spinning since you can fish a fly really slow and even completely stop it. Forcing a slow, following fish to strike.

FishYourDream.comthis year released about 90% of all fish caught in the business. This year we caught trout up to 81 cm, the biggest ones are absent in the statistics this year, but they sure are around. Without getting too much of "fish tales" written here, we hooked a handful of herring eating ogres making the rods bend all the way to the cork this year as well. They simply are more difficult to land. I am a bit more worried about the low amount of small fish (below 50 cm). Some days we normally reach two digit numbers of these fish, but this year they have been more scarce. But again, maybe the explanation is in the late spring, I have a feeling they increased in the late season.

Speaking about corc bending, this year we had a close encounter with one of our larger mammals, an adult seal (250 kg) decided to snatch the 3 kg plus silver trout hooked on fly. On leader length distance... The water level dropped on the shallow shelf at the attack, a huge splash echoed against the cliff behind us before the class seven fly equipment was tested for a big run before both fish and mammal left the hook...

The seals are definetly increasing around Gotland, I wonder if they figure out where the main spawning streams are? If they get them into their seal GPS they could do extensive damage to the population. Seal at the mouth of the streams and fry eating Herron in the stream itself.

The predadtion from animals is one thing. Human effects on the population is another. We still lack good rules for our fantastic fishing for, this is important, wild self reproducing Sea trout. The number of people fishing the Gotland coast are constantly increasing and information about rules and ethics must be spread more effectively. I fear that this resource will be nothing but a memory if nothing is done. Since fishing with hand held equipment is free in the Baltic, there is not much more to do than to create good local rules.This (or something like this) is what I would like to see:

1. Bag limit

2. Window outtake (MIN and MAX sizes)

3. Obligatory release of all kelts

4. A rule about putting nets at the 3-metre curve. =away with the shore based land nets.

Nets are always indiscriminate, but land nets even more so since they often cover all water from bottom to surface on the shallow shelves where they are put. The trout goes to this area to feed in the night time. These nets take everything; small and large, kelts or silver. You don't need a boat to put them out, you can wade them out when you are on vacation on the island. The local connection to Gotland could be small or none. (However non Sweden citizens can not put nets.) If the nets were put further out (I can even agree upon the possibility of allowing more net length than todays 180 metres per person) the fish stands more of a chance and sportfishermen have a space to fish inside them. It is not good fun when you arrive with a hopeful group that has travelled far and the first we see are land nets. We simply have to decide for a new spot... The amount of fish we land with net injuries are increasing, they have the characteristic stripes, sometimes combined with torn off gils etc. If this is due to increased net fishing or increasing release of kelts by the net fishermen, I don´t know.

Anyway, we who fish here can try to not take more fish than we need and put kelts back. Kelts are not good eating and spawns again and again. (This we can clearly see from the tagging that has been done, the tagged fish return to the streams.) Sometimes it is difficult to see what is what, I put pictures of three trouts in three phases a bit further down on the left.

Some people say "yea well, I am just fishing here once a year so its not a problem if I kill some kelts". Trouble is I meet people every day that only kills kelts once a year.


A hint is to kill the trout that has the fat fin cut off, a telltale sign that the fish is grown in a tank. In Sweden rules are that fish raised by humans need to have this fin removed for identification. We dont grow them on Gotland but fish don´t know about borders. Especially when they have no "home stream". These fish have nothing to do in our rivers and streams since they could degenerate the much adapted gene pool of our Gotland trout. But they taste just as good…


FishYourDream.com has developed alot this year, the number of guests has increased just as the over all amount of anglers visiting Gotland. We are getting more and more regulars which is great and we have many plans for next season. We are hoping to offer both sea trout fishing from boat and a good freshwater rainbow trout fishery as a complement.

I want to thank all guests and partners, plus of course everyone directly involved in the business who I know make their best to give all our guests the best possible experience.

A big thanks to all you people reporting recaptures of tagged trout to FishYourDream.com. You are contributing with valuable data. I will not forget all you people that sent nice pictures to us, some of which appears here on the left. A big thank you, and welcome back!

See you by the Baltic.

PS. You can see more pictures and interact with us on Facebook! DS.

Regards/
Per Jobs, Visby, 100701
info@FishYourDream.com