Ad Swier Page

So I went, after all. After many years of thinking: ‘Maybe I should go one time’ … lots of excuses kept me from doing so. But finally I went to Sweden. Changed my beloved Irish fishing trips for one to Sweden. And what a wise decision it was!

I cannot and will not pretend that I know something about Sweden now. Experts in the fishing field are born the next day, but not me I am sorry. But what I can do, I’ll try to tell you what I found. That’s all.

Invited as I was by my friends Arjan Willemsen and Henk Rusman, we went with six guys all together and three ‘Allumacraft’ aluminum boats. Engines, GPS, depth finders, plus two hundred rods and reels, two million lures and 175 kilogram's of flies. Plus two tons of optimism. As well as the knowledge of Arjan and Henk of the place, who were there earlier. That helped. A darn lot!

The trip from my home (near Zwolle in the east of Holland) to Travemünde in Germany is long, about 6 hours none stop. Specially the stretch between Bremen and Hamburg which is lousy. Some Germans drive like nutcases. Accidents all over the place. So keep your eyes open when you have to pass a slower truck (with that heavy trailer behind your car). The voyage by ferry from Travemünde to Trelleborg in Sweden was very pleasant and highly appreciated by all of us. We went by TT-line and their boats (Peter Pan and Nils Holgerson) are beautiful, clean as well as very comfortable indeed (I stayed in far more expensive hotels that were less well organized) , and… the captains dinner is something to remember and look forward to. You need some little treat after a trip of 6 hours. And a treat is was. The boat left for Sweden at 10 O’clock pm and we landed in Trelleborg at 8 O’clock am. The next morning. Fresh and well rested in a comfortable cabin looking out over the Baltic sea.

The drive from Trelleborg to somewhere just under Stockholm was a drive of another six hours. Driving in Sweden is very relaxing. The Swedes drive easy going, gentleman like and none seems to be in a real hurry. Room enough. Sometime we drove with no other car in side for miles. Both sides. Strange if you come from a packed and busy country like Holland. But you also can fly to Sweden.

The Stay

We had rented two small houses, overlooking a small marina. We brought most of the food down (we had two rather experienced cooks amongst us, yours truly and Peter) not for reasons of cheapness (even though the food and everything else IS expensive in Sweden) but the true reasons was, it was more than an hour drive to the next supermarket. And an hour back. But is all worked out very well indeed, the guys still talk about what Peter and I brewed up in that small but workable kitchen. We only bought meat and fresh vegetables in that shop when we passed it driving down. As well as bread. Swedish bread is not very nice, now I now why they found Knäckebröd and that sort of hard stuff. They do wonderful things with fish in jars though. We brought a lot of these for our lunches. Herring in this, herring in that, Mackerel in…gorgeous. If you happen to like fish that is. We also brought two hundred gallons of beer (or so), as well as 14 bottles of whisky…. We were one short. The last evening we all had to drink beer. Yuk…. No we (I think) are no alcoholics, but after a days fishing you like a little sip of ’whatever’. Six glasses of whisky and your bottle is almost empty. Whisky and drinkable beer are hard to get in Sweden (always very expensive) and the beer they produce tastes like pig slurry. You can buy all of that in Trelleborg, I found out too late.

Maps etc

The guys had brought big plastified maps of the area we were in (A2 size) . You really DO need these! I don’t remember the scale, but every house is on it, as well as every island. So as detailed as possible. There a many thousands of islands….. many of them with houses, so you can always ask if you loose track, or think you are lost. Swedes speak very good English.

My God, I never thought there would be so many islands. Henk had some good bays plotted in his GPS from earlier trips, that came in very handy. If you go there first time and on your own, study the maps carefully and keep track when you are going somewhere. It is hard in the beginning, but even I started to recognise various spots and typical houses, islands etc after a couple of days. A depth finder is needed, for you fish waters you do not know anything about. The interesting water stretches you will find in between 6 and 2 meters. You can discover these places by plane eye for they always have reed on the shores. Where steep rocks form the island it will be far to deep. We have seen holes of 40 meter and deeper just 10 meters out…. No pike here you can imagine. I am sure you’ll find out. It is rather easy. Even I did.

Days without an end…

We rose at about 8 O’clock. I produced bacon, eggs and what had we. What didn't we have? My mate Henk made our lunch. Bread first, but Knächbröd when we got wiser. Jar of herring in…. Chocolate, something to drink, apple. Never forget suntan and lip care. We had sunny weather all the time, a hard wind and remember the water is salt so… mind you lips. Your face and specially neck burns like hell, if you don’ t put something on it. By the way we all came back with suntans you normally get in de Costa’s. Hand and faces only, because you needed fleece and a jacket when you were out on the water. It was cold enough in those high winds. There was a special boating gas station not far from were we stayed. Normally we refilled the tank plus an extra can every two days. For you travel many hours. The little shop sold ice cream, Abu spoons and stuff and soft drink. So with all aboard we went.

The freedom I found by racing over these giant lakes, bay in and out, through very small streams and/or inlets and yet into another bay of many miles long was unbelievable. We only fished a small area (about 15 square cm on one of the maps) imagine how bit the place is, for there are 13 maps all together…. And at the horizon, shivering blue in the distance, with more and more islands. The sun dancing on the waves. The rods lie trembling, waiting for action in the boat. It was all there. The magic of fishing hung high in the sky. I had the feeling I was completely out of sight, uncontrollable far away from anybody, not watched not even by the taxmen. Beautiful, the smiles on the faces by the guys in the other boats. “Jipiaaajeee”. We were completely free, wind in our hear, foam all around… we went fishing, days galore, gorgeous. That was what I felt, and I felt it every day.

The fishing

Well we did that too. We caught 360 pike (biggest 1.15, 1.08 and 1.02 cm. Were the biggest.) Lots of 80’s and 90’s and many smaller. Also some (what we say beetles-very small pike), four perch, three dace and a sea trout of 4 kilo. And really it was… not that good. This may sounds strange and spoiled, but the year before the guys had 590 fish…. With many more big fish. But trust me, I was completely satisfied . We had so many followers, you cannot believe how many. In that crystal clear water you could see them come from far off, racing behind your lure or fly and changing direction just at the boat. That I liked very much. Our best day was 24, our lousiest a day of 3. Still we had to work hard for our fish compared to other years. The other year they found bays where they caught 40 fish in a stretch of a few hundred meters. This year that once famous stretch produced four fish and two interested that said ‘bye bye’ at the boat. Never mind.

The fly fishing

I am sorry but I did not fly fish that much. That is the only thing I missed. Simply because most of the days the wind was far to strong. Since you fish from a drifting boat (and these Alumacrafts do not drift that well) it was not easy, not even with a drogue. To be honest I was glad I also brought a couple of bait casters and lures enough. But in the moment the wind settled I must have caught about ten fish. One of 90 cm. The last day however there was hardly any wind, so I could fish the fly for almost the whole morning. In the afternoon the wind picked up again. I caught three nice pike, missed the same number and had at least 17 following fish that kept my spirit high. What a sight these fish were.

Henk had a big fellow following his Striker. Tens of meters. It came up to the boat, we estimated it to be a 20 plus pounds fish. The Striker came up to the surface, it had to. The pike followed…. but swam away again. The fish hesitated and all of a sudden looked up and decided to have it after all. So it came up and grabbed the lure in the surface. My best sighting of the whole trip. That big mouth. White with aggression.

So if I were you, don’t go there bringing fly rods only. I did that going to Ireland, but in Sweden I was really pleased I brought some other stuff with. Henk warned me on forehand. He was right. “We shall have to find them with lures first. If we hit them, we fish the fly”, he said. We did not hit them big time. So we had to ‘scratch and rake’ for them. I said to Henk at the end of the trip: “Listen old fruit, I don’t have many days in Holland catching 24 fish on one day…and the chance that is always there to get a 30 pounder”. He nodded and said: “Wait till next year!”…..

Even though I like fly fishing the best. So I went, wind permitting, and caught few. I am sorry but it often was far to much work. As a fly fisherman one knows how touch it can be, but as said I was pleased to… well you know.

Nets

What the Central fisheries Board does to the pike in Ireland, the Swedes do to theirs. Because everybody is able to fish with nets…. Many tons of pike are sold to France every year. One day we found a small interesting bay , drifting trough it we took about 7 fish that morning. They must have been watching us doing so, because the next day there were two long nets in that very bay. You are not allowed to fish 150 meters near a net…. so bye bye lovely bay. The opposition to this strange lunacy inside Sweden is growing, but from what I hear the fight is not over yet. If I would bring 10 fyke nets next year, no one will say anything about it….

Imagine if this would stop today what a world top fishery this could become. And it already is so very -very good already. The Swedes would gain far more from angling tourism than… well you know.

Weather

We had very sunny weather. Henk said he had weather like this all the times he had been down. He had found that the fishing could be tremendously good even in this brightness. If I am in Ireland and the sun is out on a clear and bright day, I have found that my chances are slim till the sun sets in the late afternoon. Specially in clear limestone water. Henk also said that a friend of his who lives in Sweden once said to him: “Yeah you found the fishing very good, but you have never met a few overcast and drizzly days…now have you?…”. He also said October and November are best, but there is a bigger chance on storms and lousy weather though. We also visited a bay he fished in November last year, with an English friend. Where he caught (are you sitting down?) 80 fish (13 meter plus) … We call that anti social!… but can you imagine? But there is more… the next day they went back to that very bay, to find they ‘only’ could catch 75… imagine how a day like that would go.

The system is so very vast and big you will have to see it to believe it. You also find great differences in water levels. Of course you have the influence of high and low tide. One day you just step of the boat in the jetty, the other you have to climb. Wind can change bays from crystal clear into murky-white. That can happen over a day , but the next one it can be clear again. So never take for granted that a bay is murky. It changes quickly.

Stuff

For my fly fishing I used my Hardy ‘pike teaser’, a nine weight, loaded with a Rio line with fast sinking tip. Together it casts like a machine. Hardy MLA Saltwater reel. My flies were tied on 4/0 barbless Partridge special pike hooks (CS43BN) to my own design- the Black Nickel version. I used 90% synthetics to built my flies. I never thought much of synthetics, but to be honest I had to change my prejudice for ever. It is beautiful and very light indeed. The fly is dry after your first false cast and that helps a great deal. My patterns all had to do with herring (the pike’s main meal). Silvery -with a green or blue back and big eyes all the time, looking around in amazement. Very simple patterns but they worked very well. I did get some interesting ideas from the wonderful book of Bob Popovics that goes under the title ‘Popflies’ (Paul Morgan of Coch-Y-Bonddu has it). Brilliant ideas on fly tying, special effects. I specially liked the flies that go under the name ‘Innerflash’. I made my own variations on this idea. I always use a trace, never without. Spiral lock I use. My tippet is one and a half meter 50/00. No more. Keep it simple.

Even with lures we always fish barbless. I recall we lost three fish while playing them (that happens with barbs too, you know?!). We used a rather light bait casting rod with an ABU reel. They all used ABU reels for that matter. As lures we used the Swedish Zalt quite a lot, but also blue /silver and perch Rapalas. Also spoons (gold & silver) specially these had a great deal of interest from big and long following Garfish. Beautiful. The sea trout was caught on a spoon too. Also jerk baits got good fish: Hammer (the 1.15meter), Striker, Half liter etc. The used colours were like my flies. Grey, blue/ silver, touch of green or purple. Try.

What more?

Nothing much. Well there is one little thing for the interested amongst you. I happen to be a keen bird watcher too. So in all honesty I had two holidays in one, and was very pleased that I brought my binoculars. The wild life is absolute superb. My highlights were: 6 Sea Eagles all together and two Ospreys. I could follow one hunting Osprey in front of the boat in ‘our’ bay for an hour or so. Magnificent. I saw so many sorts of ducks, Plovers and Oystercatchers. Found many nests, also of Eider ducks. Terns and other darters (nesting on the island). Moose swimming . In one bay I counted 40 Loons. In another sheltered bay I discovered about 25 Eider mums, surrounded by about 70 brown dotty youngsters. The plant life on the island is also very interesting. This all was an extra for me and not likely to forget. What a country. Henk told one of our friend laughing: “Every now and then Ad had a tough time… It often was hard for him what to grab first, his binoculars or his rod”.

So as you know by now I liked Sweden a lot, and what is more… it is not the last time I have been there. Trust me.

Ad Swier/Holland.