The most important advice of a competitive angler also helps the Sunday angler: the perch strikes from shallow in the sea.
Sea bay on the other side, maybe a kilometer away, a dark figure stands out.
The tracks of boots and sticks lead towards it. There is snow on the ice, water under the snow in some places before the hard, load-bearing ice layer.
One side of the sky is clear, the other is cloudy. A sea eagle flies in the sky. It has got above it a tempter, a raven.
Pilkkijän's route is distinguished by boot and stick marks and openings on the ice.
It's early afternoon on the waters of Kirkkonummi in the days between Christmas.
Closer you can see the sharp swings of the hands: the perch has hit the ice and started its skyward journey up the hole. In deep water, the hands of the angler would flutter like a windmill for a while, but now a pull or two is enough. There is only one to two meters of water below.
Over the years, Mika Tuominen's perch has changed from backwaters to inner bays.
“Perch is low in the sea in winter”, Mika Tuominen says openly.
The assessment is based on a lot of my own experience and that of others.
Tuominen, 57, has been fishing since he was a little boy, and he has been catching perch with balance jigs since the early 1990s. At that time, the biggest catches came from the top or cups of the underwater ridges of the back waters. There was usually 3–8 meters of water at the sampling points, sometimes more.
“That's when you waved the tasuri [tasapainopilkkiä] three times, the first fish already caught. In an hour, you could fill the icebox with 300–800 grams of perch. Sometimes even a kilo broke,” Tuominen recalls.
Nowadays, according to Tuominen, there is no need to go around backwaters. Many of his colleagues have made the same observation in the sea areas. There are numerous competitive fishermen in the group, starting with the Finnish ice-fishing champions.
Tuominen himself is a part-time fishing guide and fishing equipment wholesaler OPM International's representative athlete. Last year, he accumulated a whopping 140 fishing days, including the two-hour stops at the nearby lake as well as the full competition days.
Tuominen is not sure what has emptied the back pack from the perch. However, he has considered whether climate change could affect the matter.
The heat is changing the Baltic Sea and maybe also where the fish have food and shelter.
Mika Tuominen changes place. The auger goes in the hand and the other equipment in the stick.
The auger gets its driving power from a cordless drill. Tens, sometimes even hundreds, of holes may be drilled during the day.
First, the sonar sensor is lowered into the opening.
Importing change seats. A new hole is created with the auger rotated by the cordless drill. A black pear-shaped block, the sonar sensor, sneaks into the hatch first. The screen reveals that there are aquatic plants near the hole, vita, but not too much.
The place is exactly according to Tuominen's wishes. Among the plants there are many kinds of cuttlefish, caterpillars and quadrupeds to attract fish. On the other hand, vitelikko is rare enough that you can swim there.
The echo sounder opens up a view under the ice for the angler. The picture tells you whether the bottom is bare or covered with plants and, above all, whether there are fish there. The movement of the ice also stands out.
Soon, a small balance block, only three centimeters long, lands in the water. Its size, shape and movement resemble a baby fish. The hooks are in the front and back and under the belly.
A dear child has many names, or at least two.
“These are Pikku-Väänäs or Jouni's little disc tails,” Tuominen introduces.
For years, he has been ordering his tasers from a small manufacturer and craftsman in Joensuu From Jouni Väänänä. Catchy colors include pink-violet, teal brown, and the blue-green that is now rushing out into the open.
Mika Tuominen trusts Jouni Väänänen's tricks from Joensuu. The fishing line is colored and stands out against the snow. There is a translucent pin between the fishing line and the ice. The tip of the rod is stiff, so that the fish's thrashing can be seen as a swing of the line and can be felt in the fingers.
Sonar shows the water depth to be 1.7 meters. Pilkki Tuominen swims with small, frequent jerks. In shallow water, he has found a technique that works, where the fish is not given too much time to think whether to strike or not.
He adjusts the floating height to a standard with a simple lever. The hand twitching with ice rests on the outstretched leg, and only the wrist does the work. Based on Tuomien's observations, the perch values politeness more than the haaflute.
Mika Tuominen jumps the ice with a tight wrist movement. The hand rests on the thigh all the time. So the minnow swims at the same height all the time and doesn't sail up and down at random.
The echo shows how the fish rises from the bottom towards the ice. At the same moment, the fishing line shows a slight loosening. Tuominen grabs, and in a moment a perch rises from the opening.
It is very small and gets on the ice for a while to wait to be returned to the water.
“Perch swim in shallow water in mixed shoals. Several small or medium-sized ones can come out of the same opening in a row, before it crashes,” describes Tuominen.
The perch rises from the opening with a couple of hand movements. In deeper water, a so-called windmill would be needed, a rhythmic series of pulls with which the fishing line is laid on the ice.
The upright fins of the pout and the grip on the front hook of the balance jig are a language that an experienced fisherman can interpret: a small bream has attracted a big perch to an aggressive strike.
Tuominen usually has a bucket of water with him in his boat, in which he puts the small perch to wait while he is chasing the flounder. Now the bucket has been forgotten at home, and a cleaned patch of ice next to the opening can do its job.
Tuominen knows that the solution is not ideal. However, it was still legal before the turn of the year. Not anymore. The Fishing Act changed at the beginning of January so that the fish must either be killed or released as catch immediately after being caught. However, the law also allows sumps, which can also be interpreted as an icemaker's water bucket.
“Always bring a bucket”, Tuominen reminds himself and others.
The smallmouth bass waits to get back into the opening on the ice while the fisherman is chasing more striped shirts from the same hole. Better and after the turn of the year, the only legal way to temporarily keep the fish alive is suffocation in, for example, a bucket of water. Of course, you can also land the fish right away, but then the school may get scared and run away.
Autumn winter Tuominen caught his best catch from the same bay at the beginning of December. The pole comes with a counter, and according to it, there were a total of 202 perches during the day. The four biggest were 32, 33, 34 and 35 centimeters long.
“I always count back the 32-centimeter and longer ones,” says Tuominen.
“They are good descendants, and I think it's nice if someone else also has a chance for a big perch.”
Tuominen also allows small and medium-sized perches to grow. For food, he takes 25–31 cm fish. Almost every time, they will at least be for your own needs. Food fish Tuominen kills and bleeds immediately.
Mika Tuovinen's edible fish. He reports the day's catches and coincidences on Instagram, where he keeps a public fish diary at puuppa_lowranceproteam.
What about the catch of the day? No real big blacks, but still a good twenty food fish and a lot of small and medium-sized ones. For many Sunday skiers, the catch would be good, if not amazing, for a semi-professional like Tuominen, average at most.
Gotta go again. Not yet tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow.
Mika Tuominen has once been serious about scuba diving, motocross and enduro, but fishing has been number one for years. Last year, 140 fishing days were accumulated, the last of which was on New Year's Eve.
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