In reality only half the time was spent fishing,
the other half marvelling at the scenery and wildlife. Many of the protruding rocks had miniature bonsai trees growing on them, one of the central islands had an Osprey nest with the parents coming and going and occasionally surprising you by taking a fish from the lake just a few hundred metres away. Anders, one of the Swedish team, saw a moose with calf come down to the lake from the forest to drink almost within touching distance of where he was anchored in a bay. Everything here was spectacular and three days on this lake passed all too soon. The second half of the trip was to be spent exploring the Aman River system. We moved camp a couple of hundred kilometres to the east and the kayaks were moored in the tiny village of Holmtrask as we explored north and south along the gentle river and into the large lakes that it passed through. Unlike our previous venues, this area was fished a small amount by the local population. Obviously here people fish for the table and the pike and perch are a favourite meal so we weren’t sure what to expect. Would the local fish population have been affected by this harvesting for food or would it still be in good health. We needn’t have worried. Within minutes of launching everyone was catching pike. Not big fish but huge numbers of them. I have never seen a waterway that holds such a population of pike and perch and over 30 pike a session became the norm with a similar number of perch taking the large pike lures. The challenge on this water was to try and find the larger fish, and Sam Baxter led the way on this using a large casting fly on ultra-light gear to find pike over 90cm every day. He even used his home- made yellow rubber duck lure to great success deceiving a 93cm pike into taking it from the surface. I spent all of my time on this river system surface fishing with weed less frog lures in the reeds. It was a new method for me and is one of the most exciting ways of fishing I have tried. When you cast the lure into the reeds, you slowly twitch it back along the surface imitating an injured frog. From the corner of your eye you see a swirl 20 metres away as a pike notices the disturbance and then you just watch the bow wave getting closer and closer to the lure until a pike launches itself from the water, sometimes three feet into the air as it attacks what it thinks is an injured frog. The hook up rate with this type of fishing was very poor, but it was such an exhilarating and visual way to fish that I couldn’t resist it, and it resulted in many pike to 85cm. Perch on the fly
Sam Baxter with the smallest pike of the trip
ThePaddler 33