Fishing! Beginner help needed

[Tipi]

I need to pick the collective wisdom of any fishermen on here.

I'm off to Sweden with the GF for a conoe trip soon and hoping to do some fishing on route to supplement our supplies. apparently there are trout and pike along the way according to the company we've booked through. now the crux of the matter is I know pretty much nothing about fishing so would like some advice / input on how to do it and kit needed.

have read about "hobo" handlines and such, theses look tempting as take up next to no room. or would a collapsible rod be a better idea?

re tackle. erm yeh, how do I go about setting it up / what do I need?!?!?

thanks in advance!
TP

 

[bopdude]

Small telescopic rod and reel, spinners for both Trout and Pike, check the regs on fishingthough

 

[Janne]

Line - I recommend a thin braided line. Thinner, still very strong.
Get the equipment now, so you can practice casting and knot tying. A good fishing shop will help you putting the equipment togethet. Buy extra lures.
For practice casting do not forget to remove the hook!

To learn a little bit about fishing - check out. www.fish-uk.com

Where in Sweden are you going?

 

[Tipi]

Thanks for the advice guys. Will do some reading around and try and find a fishing shop. You need a fishing licence, , but this can be supplied by the canoe company I'm going through. Or at least that's what they've said.! Better double check

I'm off to southern Sweden near a town called Arvika

Haha! I'll put something safe on the end for practice.

 

[Madriverrob]

Decathlon do some beginner fishing kits and telescopic rod sets at a reasonable price , Have a look online or check your nearest store .
Deliveries over £30 are free .........

 

[Janne]

I would not recommend he buys the stuff online, as he needs advice.
If you do, I recommend you buy a rod that is rated to handle lures up to 35 grams.

Your targeted species are Pike, Perch and Pike-perch, correct?

 

[Madriverrob]

I would not recommend he buys the stuff online, as he needs advice.
If you do, I recommend you buy a rod that is rated to handle lures up to 35 grams.

Your targeted species are Pike, Perch and Pike-perch, correct?

They are designed for beginners and contain a selection of kit to enable someone to get started , agreed advice will be useful but some simple research into lure fishing and some beginners kit will enable him to give it a go . As much as advice is helpful there is nothing better than giving it a go .

OP was suggesting trout and pike as target species ........

 

[Janne]

They are designed for beginners and contain a selection of kit to enable someone to get started , agreed advice will be useful but some simple research into lure fishing and some beginners kit will enable him to give it a go . As much as advice is helpful there is nothing better than giving it a go .

OP was suggesting trout and pike as target species ........

Yes he did mention them. My bad!

The fishing techniques for trout differs hugely from pike. Different areas, different lures.
I would firget trout and go for the ones I mentioned, far more numerous.

 

[Robson Valley]

+1 for ABU tackle. My reels must all be 35+ yrs old and still smooth.
UK flyfishing reels (eg Hardy) are as good as anything you can find.

I'd recommend monofilament which you need to learn to tie.

Trout and Pike have very different biologies and their habitats are likewise different.
90% of the fish are in 10% of fresh water.

Above all, shop face-to-face for what are the regionally effective lures, baits, flies. . . whatever works.
You buy all your gear there and I'd expect a few more than average tips and hints to improve your experience (and meals!)

Northern Saskatchewan pike of serious size? Big 9' rod, Amb 7000 (the disk brake model) with 25lb mono and a 12" steel leader.
For lures, I'll hand you a baby duck, the size of your fist, orange paddle feet and all, for top-water fishing. T55 red&white Flatfish for sub surface.
May read crazy different but that's what works, +/- a meter from where I ask you to place your cast.

 

[Janne]

Do not get rid of your ABU gear if it is old. Made in Sweden.
Most modern ABU gear - Made in China.
I have a Amb. 5000 with oil bronze bearings. Bought it in -71. Like new.
I also have 3 Amb. 10 000i.

Wore them out quickly, warranty fixed, wore them out, replaced on warranty. Made in China. POS.
+
After Sweden replaced them, I placed them on a shelf and bought some cheap POS Okuma. I thought POS. But not so!
The oldest one is 10 years, flawless function!

The 'i' in the name stands for 'idiot' as I was an idiot for paying good money for substandard stuff.

 

[Robson Valley]

ABU-Garcia and Ambassadeur reels, old dirty stuff, just need a bath and a tune-up with reel oil.
Old American Penn and Shakespeare are good finds too in garage sales.
Other than building rods and replacing lines, I have not bought a reel since the mid 70's or earlier.
Fishing in Sweden. What an exciting prospect. I may have to read their regs to see what they do.

 

[Janne]

You have much better fishing in Canada. Sweden and Canada have much in common. Nature, plus what Canada copied from Sweden, but that is political so I will not go there.

Couple of minuses in Canada though. Your Pickled Herring is to sweet. Your Vodka is not as good as the Swedish one.
And our neighbour to the South make better cars.

 

[Janne]

Get the kit in UK and practice the casting. Not with a dub, but with the actual lures. As I proposed, just remove the hooks. Your GF does not want a piercing, not on her head anyway!

 

[Robson Valley]

And our Crown Royal Northern Harvest rye whiskey was judged the best of 1,200 entries in Britain.
It isn't that wonderful. I bought some. Company can drink the rest of it. Alberta Premium rye has a better taste.

I looked at the fishing in Sweden, much the same as in northerns Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.
There's a elitist attitude here in the west that salmon and trout are orders of magnitude better than
pike, walleye (& your Zander) and perch.
I don't care. I could pack my tackle and fish in Sweden = all the same.

Put a pencil eraser on your line. Set out a soup plate at 10 meters then 15, then 20.
Can you land in the plate?

 

[Janne]

You make one decent Vodka in Canada. The one that comes in a bottle shaped like a human skull.
Most Vodkas are over purified. Sales blurp call the Ultra Premium.
Ketel One and Grey Goose are good examples.

Vodka should have a taste. The over purified ones taste like diluted medical Ethanol.

I have not tried many Rye Whiskies.

 

[Robson Valley]

I like the look of the fish you call Zander. Closely related species to our Wall-eye (big eyes as are nocturnal killers).
Fantastic salmon and salmon fishing here, "Tyee" are big Chinook, more than 30lbs. Biggest 90+ lbs. Big deal.
I'll cut boneless fillets of your Swedish pike and deep fry them for a shore lunch, any day.

If you ascribe to a fatalistic outlook, evey day spent fishing is a day which is not counted in your alloted life-span.
Can't argue with that.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Back on topic...

Based upon the evidence of three trips canoeing on Stora Le in Sweden, and one to Vassfaret in Norway, there are no fish in Scandinavia! Okay, not quite true, I did land one tiny jack pike and had another that I released from Stora Le, but the huge fish pictured in all the brochure material were completely elusive. I have all the gear I need and have a reasonable amount of experience and I found that trying to catch fish while on a canoe journey was really difficult. One is seldom able to fish where you want, when you want for as long as you want, when you are also having to make progress on the journey, and take account of other peoples' desires and boredom thresholds.

By all means, give it a try, but the chaps who I had along with me on those trips, who had next to no experience, were really just wasting their time and money for all the danger the fish were in. So, hope that you can supplement your meals with fish, but do not count on it in any way!

Since there have been many books written about fishing for beginners, it is hard to condense all that you could do with knowing into a short paragraph of advice.

If there are pike in the water you need to consider some sort of leader to prevent them biting through your line. Braid line may be strong, but it cuts pretty easy. I have used hard mono, but wire is better. Spinners and spoons are easier to cast than plugs, especially in wind. I like Mepps. Smaller lures can catch small fish, of which there are usually more, so don't go too big. I wouldn't use anything more than 70mm long. Practice casting. Practice in the wind. Practice for accuracy, since you will be throwing out and retrieving and you want to be able to land your lure next to structures in the water, logs, rocks, weeds, without losing the lure or having it snag all the time.

Take a pair of medium forceps, or long nose pliers. You do not want to be wangling a hook out of even a small pike's mouth without them.

Practice your knots in mono filament line. They aren't the same as knots for camping and are fiddly. Save yourself from tying too many every time you change lure by getting some "snap swivels" matched to the size of what you are throwing.

How long do you have to prepare? Are you going on this trip this year?

 

[Robson Valley]

On topic, 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water.
You can thrash the water to a foam for days in the wrong places. Easily done.
The fish species fit niches in aquatic ecosystems and not all of a lake or river is anywhere near adequate.
Try pike with big streamer flies on a #9 fly rod.
They do not have cutting teeth to bite through monofilament.

 

[neilnbeanie]

I've fished for most of my life, and I would advise you to go for a travel spinning rod or a normal spinning rod and a Shimano reel in 4000 size. They are bombproof. Telescopic rods are generally useless. You want a long set of forceps and a good glove. Don't put your bare hand inside a pikes mouth, if you get bitten, it can get nasty. You DEFINITELY need a wire trace, they will bite through line, you can buy them ready made. A selection of plugs and spinners, the shop owners would help you. A decent size landing net will be a great help especially as you are a beginner.
Take a look at the rubber lures, they are fairly cheap and work great, natural colours tend to work best if the water is clear. You can buy weedless ones where the book is buried inside the lure, and it won't snag so much until a fish takes it. Safer too while you are learning. Diawa sensor mono about 15llb breaking strain is a cheap reliable line. Look at setting the drag up on your reel properly so you don't get snapped up. Good luck.

 

[neilnbeanie]

Just re-read the original post, if you want to target trout as well, take a look at the small Mepps spinners, and the Dexter wedge. They will take pike and trout. You will still need some wire traces though. The only downsides of these is, because they are small, they can be hard to cast, especially if it's windy, and they do sink if you stop winding them in, so you could get them snagged up on the bottom, and you may lose some. Personally I would troll them behind the canoe while I'm on the move.