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[Rodney]

I am still playing catch-up, two more entries on the Bornholm trip to go. Yesterday the sky finally cleared in Copenhagen, the temperature suddenly soared and people emerged onto the streets. We spent some time fishing in a couple of small lakes in the evening. In the past, these lakes always produced some pikes in the winter when we fished them. We suspected that after the cold winter we had this year, there had been a winterkill. Well, at least that has been our excuse so far. I decided to fish with a size 2 spinner yesterday for perch and a small yet chubby pike came up and grabbed it as it approached shore. Half of the battle was caught on video until the spinner popped off after a giant leap by the fish. Anyways, back to the Bornholm journal...

Finally Some Result
May 26th, 2006

After a disappointing fishing day on the 25th, we decided to wake up early in the morning to give Hammersø one more go just to see if timing makes a big difference. The howling coastal wind woke us up at 7:00am. We spent 30 minutes fishing at Hammersø with no result. We decided it was time to give the other lakes a go as well.

We drove to a lake called Smaragdsøen, which is basically several feet from the east coast. To get there, we parked our car right on the coast and walked along this trail that was just blasted with strong wind to the lake. The beach view was spectacular.



Thankfully, the lake is surrounded by tall trees and high bank, so we were pretty sheltered even though it is so close to the beach. The lake is basically a pond in Canadian standard and the water clarity is not so good. There is a stream that feeds into the lake from inland, then another stream from the lake that feeds into the ocean. Sadly, a stream in this case, is no wider than 5 feet. Most streams in Europe, have unfortunately been channelized or taken over by farm lands. Tremendous amount of effort has been put in by local fishery societies to restore many lost streams recently, hoping to bring back some of the fisheries that were long lost.

We were told that due to the stream connection, there are sea trout in this particular lake. Upon our arrival, we found that two gentlemen were already fishing at one spot. They were after large carp, several float rods were set up. After fishing by one of the creek mouths briefly, we witnessed several very large fishing jumping. They were all sea trout, doing what they do best, leaping completely out of the water and creating huge splashes. All the ones we saw were easily between 5 and 10lb. I also saw a large pike cruising by slowly only several feet directly in front of me. Signs of fish while fishing are always good, because it raises your confidence. Luck was with Nina this morning as she managed to hook and land three good sized perch on a tiny silver spinner that I had made up. All fish grabbed the lure only several feet from shore.



It was sunny during the entire fishing time, we were actually getting hot in our waders since no wind was getting to us. After these fish, we decided to go into town for a quick lunch. On our way, we could see large storm clouds moving in VERY FAST from the ocean. The weather in Northern Europe sure changes fast. One minute it can be sunny, the next minute rain can be coming down sideways. Once we arrived in town, the storm clouds were already above us. Rain was coming down by the buckets. When we were done with lunch, the sun had come out once again.

Not a whole lot happened that afternoon. We decided to go back to Hammersø around late evening because we just love to get skunked. Nina had bought some worms so she wanted to try them under the float for perch. On her first cast, the float disappeared while we were still organizing our gear. A tiny perch was on the end of the line when she pulled the rig in. I walked around the lakeshore briefly that evening, and found couple of places where groundwater was feeding into the lake. Large schools of baitfish circled around these outlets, where the vegetation was also different to the rest of the lake substrate.

Behind Hammersø, is this giant man-made "lake". It is basically this large cylindrical pool that was cut straight into a rocky cliff. Nina told me that it was once used by the Nazis to hide submarines. I don't know much about it other than that, so you'll have to ask her.



After fishing and not catching at Hammersø, we drove up to Hammershus once again to see the sunset. It was worth it. Back in Vancouver, we never get to see a sunset on the ocean.



On the way back, we encountered two common animals that roam the woods and farmlands of Bornholm - Deer and hare. Both were once completely removed from the island but only to be reintroduced later on in the 1800s. More in the videos later.

[Rodney]

Hey, Rodney, if you need/want some pike streamers I could probably send them to you in a day or so

Hey Peter, thanks for the generous offer but I actually already have a bunch of those streamers. I have not used them but plan to (tomorrow actually ) either cast them with my spinning rod or my 8 weight fly rod. I was just discussing this with Chrome Mykiss yesterday about what I would need to do to cast them on the fly rod. Most of the fish that I've seen rolling were only several feet from shore, maybe I'll just drop it down directly.

Our upcoming agenda includes a trip with the gangs of www.globalflyfisher.com and another forum member on June 9th to 11th. After that we may get in a couple more river trips for pikes.

Looking forward to see your write-ups on the upcoming trip to Canada.

[DutchAngler]

Rodney, man, that's a pretty picture.... again....

As for the flies: No sweat, you've got the contacts to do really well. I was tying some pike streamers, and thought I might as well share them...If you don't need them, it's all for the better....

It's just that this is a fishery I love, maybe best of all. I have no trout streams or lakes 'round. But I can tie a streamer, walk out of my front door, and be in for a decent "duckmouth" within seconds. Or not see one in days, of course, but the potential is there.....

I'll be finalizing my website preps this week or so. Contents=0, but just wait for July 25th.....

[Rodney]

Final Day on Bornholm: Going back in Time
May 27th, 2006

On our final day, we woke up to a gorgeous morning. Not only it was sunny, the wind actually died down for once. We decided to spend the entire morning visiting some of the famous historical landmarks on the island. There are literally hundreds of places of interest but one would need to stay for a month to tour this island properly. The best we could do, like all the other countries where we have visited, was to pick out a few locations that really interest us instead of rushing from one place to the next.

Our first destination was the "helleristninger", meaning holy carving. There are several carving sites on the island. We visited one that is only a few kilometers from where we stayed. These carvings on rocks date back to the Stone and Bronze Ages. Symbols that can be easily recognized include ships, stars and suns. The interesting feature about these carvings is that they were not all carved at the same time, but over a long period of time at the exact same locations on the island. The exact meaning of these is unknown. Today these sites are declared as EU heritage sites. Similar carvings can also be found on the southern coast of Sweden.



More info on helleristninger

Our second stop was Østerlars Rundkirke, a white round church. It's not only a white round church, but the largest one of the four white round churches that are not found anywhere else in the world but Bornholm.



Beside the unique architecture of Østerlars Rundkirke, its historical importance is what attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. The church's history dates back to the 12th century, and has been used as a place of worship as well as a shelter for protection and defence against the enemies from the sea.

Exterior views of the Østerlars Rundkirke



Interior views of Østerlars Rundkirke



Inside the church, narrow steep steps spirally line along the side of the church and lead us to the top, where we were able to observe how the roof of the church was constructed. Tiny windows along the narrow hallway allowed us to peek out and the view was absolutely spectacular.



Part two of our last day on Bornholm will come later. We're going pike fishing now.

[Rodney]

Ok, so no pikes yesterday. I had a couple brief connections but no solid landings. But hey, look at this!



What the heck is that?? Any guesses?

Anyways...

Final Day on Bornholm: Going back in Time (Part Two)
May 27th, 2006

After a morning of history lessons, it was time for lunch. We headed into a town called Svaneke on the eastern coast. The streets were alive on this Saturday. Driving into these towns was always difficult as the streets are narrow and the parking is usually located in the harbour. You have to slowly make your way through town and eventually find a parking spot. Not a big deal though, because it gave me a chance to browse around as we move through the streets slowly.

At the town centre, a small market was in progress. People took advantage of the sunny weather by having their pastries, desserts, coffee just outside the bakery. We found a restaurant that was offering a herring buffet. For just less than 20 dollars per person, we had a choice of ten different kinds of herring (one smoked and nine different marinated kinds). It was quite a treat for the taste buds, but certainly not something I can eat on a regular basis. The smoked herring was good, but not as good as the ones we bought at a small smoke house a couple of days before. The marinated herrings were also good, but the sherry flavoured one did not go well with me.


Smoked herring with brown bread, a typical bornholm dish. There is also a small piece of deep fried marinated herring beside it.


The yellow one beside the egg is curry flavoured marinated herring. Moving to the right, there is a piece of deep fried marinated herring, a piece of vinegar flavoured herring, a piece of sherry flavoured herring. The large piece is a salted herring, very salty, yet fantastic when eaten with bread.

After lunch, we made our way to the final sightseeing stop of the trip - Dueodde. Dueodde is on the southern end of the island. The coast is famous for its white sandy beach, apparently Denmark's nicest beach, popular in the summer for obvious reasons. Upon our arrival, the sand was indeed very white, and very fine. Looking to either the east or west, all we could see were the white beach, greenish ocean and blue sky. One would almost mistaken this place as the Carribean, except we were all wearing fleece jackets. The water was kind of cold though. I put on the waders and went out for a few casts later on, the legs lasted about 30 minutes.



After Dueodde, we started making our way to a lake not far from the ferry terminal for one last bit of fishing. Nina originally thought the ferry was scheduled to leave at 6:00pm, meaning we had to be at the terminal at 5:45pm the latest. We arrived at the lake at 4:00pm, Nina decided to check the schedule sheet one more time, were we ever lucky that she did... The ferry was actually scheduled to leave at 5:15pm, we were supposed to be at the terminal at 5:00pm the latest.

So, that gave us... 20 minutes of fishing time. Nina baited up her hook with a worm, I started chucking spinners. The worms won. In those 20 minutes, Nina brought in two perch and one roach.


The roach


One of the perch

That's what you would call fast action. We sped back to the car soon after the third fish, and made our way to the terminal with five minutes to spare.


The wait before boarding.

Back to Copenhagen... Bornholm is indeed a beautiful island that deserves a few more visits in the future.

[WestEast]

What the heck is that?? Any guesses?

Hmmmm.... could be a BREAM ? They are sluggish swimmers, but "kite" when caught so they can feel much larger than they look. By the way, I spent a few days in Bornholm about 20 years ago.... quaint place.... and recognise some of your shots.... incredible how some things stay the same.

[Rodney]

WestEast, that is indeed a bream, one of many species that are targeted regularly by coarse fishermen in Europe. Here is a close-up photo.

[Big Steel]

That is one ugly-assed fish!!    But great job with all the other pics!!

[WestEast]

... and was it 'hook and line' or 'jump 'n' grab?' 

[BwiBwi]

Does that fish taste like carp? Did you try Rodney?

[Nina]

One of the highlights for me was the visit to the round church.  I was amazed by the engineering and you can hardly stop wondering how many things have happened in such an important place. As Rodney wrote, these churches were not only sites of worship but functioned as small fortresses when enemies were approaching. I especially like the paintings on the walls. These paintings are likely as old as the church itself, as it was a traditionally way of decorating churches from 1080. Back then the masses were always in Latin. This of course meant that peasants (which constituted the majority of the population back then and were forced to go to masses) would have had no chance of understanding what the priests were talking about. Normally, there were no seats either and everyone had to stand up for the duration of the mass. Imagine that, standing for an hour cramped in with all your neighbours listening to someone yakking on and on in a language you do not understand. At least it would give you plenty of time to study these wall paintings, but that was actually just what the church wanted. These paintings served as a kind of cartoon over what the priest was saying, and that way even the simplest peasant got the over all idea. The paintings are really quite illustrative. If you look at the second last picture in Rodneys post about the church you will see Jesus sitting on his cloud. On his right hand all the righteous people who will obviously go to heaven have been depicted and on the left all the damned people are being thrown into hell and eaten by what looks like a giant pacman. One can only imagine what these cartoons did to those poor peasants. Life was tough back then.

In the 1700 many of the painting were covered and painted over because they were considered profane or even vulgar by the church. Much work has gone into finding and recovering these valuable pieces of history.

Anyway, just wanted to share my enthusiasm. Hope you enjoyed the little history lecture     

[Rodney]

We let it go. The fight was ok... but would be better on lighter tackle.

[BwiBwi]

Next time remember to bring a hand pole too. 

[Rodney]

Summer has arrived
June 13th, 2006

The heat wave finally arrived last weekend. After weeks of battering wind and rainy days, the weather now is almost too good to be fishing. Last weekend we did a spring creek trip for grayling and brown trout, I'll have to spend a bit of time tomorrow to sort through over a hundred photographs before I write up the journal for that. You all have to wait. The fishing story today is just as exciting I think, so here goes...

Not only we have to put up with the heat this week, Nina's apartment is getting some reconstruction. They decided to change the entire pipe system in the building, so no toilet and shower for five days!!! To counter this problem, we decided to move into her dad's house, just outside of Copenhagen.

Around this house, there are lots of small shallow lakes. They are not exactly big lakes that we see in BC, but swamps and ponds where vegetation is rather abundant in and around the water. Due to the harsh long winter that we had in Denmark a few months ago, some of these lakes are almost empty due to severe winter kills. A few lakes where we previous fished have yet to produce anything, especially larger predatory species like pike and perch.

Yesterday we decided to check out one of these nearby swamps. We found two anglers fishing on a dock when we arrived. These guys were serious coarse fishermen. They had their carp rods set up with bite alarms and bait runners, as well as float rods for smaller fish. While we were watching, the floats were constantly dipping below the surface, once awhile a fish was being pulled out. We began to chat with them after seeing some success. After all, local knowledge is the best resource for fishing success. It turned out one of them is a writer for one of the main angling magazines here. He gave us one of the recently published issue and inside I found an article on BC sturgeon fishing with photos that were taken on forum member gofish's boat.

Through the two local anglers, we found out that the lake produces roach, bream, tench, carp as well as some perch and pike. Today we went down to the local tacklestore, and bought a tub of maggots and some size 10 hooks. Yes, maggots, possibly the best live bait for coarse fishing. Back in Australia, we used to breed them by hanging a chicken in the backyard and collecting them in a tray as they fall on it. Half a dozen maggots on a size 10 hook can be deadly for any coarse species.

Nina and I spent some time before and after dinner at the swamp, tossing a tiny Drennan float out with a micro split shot which slowly brought the maggots to the bottom. The bites came almost immediately. First a couple of roaches came to the dock, then we could not keep the breams off the hook. I even managed to brought a perch in. The job is rather messy. During the hour when we were fishing, I was constantly hooking maggots on, setting the hook, bringing the fish in, unhooking the fish, wiping slime off so I could get photos and videos. Breams are VERY slimy. The slime is not thin, it's this thick snot-like jelly that turns into flaky white clumps if not wiped off. Just the thought of it is about to make me vomit.



The breams that we caught today were all fairly small, some were up to 16 inches, but most were between 10 and 14. Good fun of course, I think they are quite pretty at that size, compared to the gigantic one I caught a couple of weeks ago.



For the skeptics, this type of fishery can be just as fun. Although the fish do not fight as hard as the salmonids that we are constantly targeting, it is enjoyable to be fishing and not knowing what fish species you will get on the next hook-up. Sitting by the lake and reeling in fish after fish in a cool evening after a scorching summer day, can't beat that.

Damn, what's this on my hand? A popped maggot or more dried bream slime? Time to wash my hands again.

[Rodney]

Five Species in Three Hours
June 15th, 2006

Seeing that some patchy clouds had moved in this morning, we decided to take advantage of the cooler weather by spending a few hours down at the swamp where we were quite lucky two evenings ago. Our first stop was the local mall, where we purchased more maggots as I had tipped over the previous container and lost almost the entire batch.

We found several cattles resting and grazing by the pier when we arrived, a very typical sight in Denmark even though we are only 15km from Greater Copenhagen area. The first roach came out of the water as soon as I dipped Nina's rod in the water to test the float depth. We thought the fishing was going to be hot, but it appeared either the cooler weather or timing of the day kept the bites slow yet consistent.

Although we did not pull in as many fish as two evenings ago, the three hours we spent on that pier was one of the more exciting outings so far in Denmark. Nina's first fish today was also a new species for her, a crucian carp that had a dark, golden body colouration with thick scales along its broad body.




Eating, while talking and catching fish, multitasking appears to be one of Nina's strength?


Nina reeling in a small bream. A close-up of a bream, and a roach. Notice the beautiful red fins on the roach.

At one point, Nina decided to lay her rod down and walked over to the cattles for a break. Just a couple minutes after she left, her float, which was sitting directly in front of me, was slowly pulled to the left, then to the right, before completely submerged at a very fast speed. Seeing how fast it was going, I knew the rod was ready to fly off the pier. I quickly dropped my rod and grabbed onto hers, immediately the 6 feet 4lb test spinning rod was bent to the max. I yelled so Nina ran back to grab the video camera. The initial run went on for a long time, I was pretty sure that the tiny spinning reel was going to be spooled. Luckily it decided to stop once it reached the weeds on the far bank and started to make a left turn so I could reel in some slack. After a few minutes of give and tug, the large carp finally surfaced and splashed briefly before diving towards the nearby reeds again. I kept the pressure on, just enough without straining the 4lb test line and size 10 hook too much. Finally it approached the pier and it became apparent that landing this large fish was going to be a challenge. Nina continued to capture every second on the video camera... Find out what happened by watching the video when we release it next month.

After that brief drama, I managed to hook another new species at the exact same spot just before we left. The fish had some weight to it and took deep dives so I knew it was neither a bream or a roach. I was delighted once it surfaced, because it was a tench, a small-scaled carp species that I have wanted to catch this week. No photo of the tench, but you'll also be able to see it on the video.

Five species in three hours from the same location, not a bad outing even though they are coarse fish. Maybe we'll try again later on. There'll be another entry if we do.