Fishing camp and cooking !

In winter fishing trips are usually short - because of day length and temperature. Although sometimes I go for danube salmon or sea trout and spend there whole one or two days. 
In this case if i don't want to freeze or get seek I need to use the same equipment I use in summer while longer fishing camps.

Cooking equipment!!

Hot coffe and grilled sausage during the cold winter day is something awesome and helps me to return to the game!

 There are 3 main elements of my cooking equipment. Multitool, Portable BBQ and mobile gas stove. When it is summer and you have access to dry wood you can replace bbq with simple fire, although it could be difficult in winter. There are many types of light small mobile bbq's like Gelert Portable BBQ

My best memories from long cold fishing days are related with small picnics in the middle of fishing, cooking fresh coffee and talk with friends about the experience from the first part of the trip, working on some strategies for the "second round" 

Small gas stove is cheap and easy to use. For longer camps You can think about something bigger, but for one days trips Gosystem Trek Classic Cartridge Stove is exactly what you need!

The only thing you need now is a good multitool to prepare your meal, clean you fish for the bbq or repair your equipment. In you still don't have one - it has to change. I find Leatherman Skeletool CX Tool as ideal for me

Good fishing trip is not only about fishing. It's an adventure... Try it and maybe... come to Poland - I'll show you how we do it! :)

Small but important elements of fishing equipment.

In my previous posts I described quite good almost everything what is necessary during fishing trips. Although There are a few things that are sometimes indispensible but we often forget about them. Of course this is only my subjective opinion, but I think lot of You will agree with me.

First of all, if this is not winter and there is no snow around I always need to have a good insect repellent. There is nothing more anoying than dozens of mosquitoes landing on my face and hands. There are plenty of different repellents, but there is one rule to find a good one. It MUST contain DEET.  One of my choices is Lifesystems Expedition 50+. 

The second thing I always have with my is small waterproof bag for my car keys, wallet, fishing license or mobile phone. I often fish in rain so everything that can get wet must be well protected. In addition even if it is sunny we can fall into water and wet our documents or electronic devices.  Something like Aquapac Keymaster will help you to avoid such a bad situation.

Third thing is Safety Whistle. There are plenty of possible accidents that can happen in the wilderness. I can imagine that someone break his leg, all fall into water or swamp. Sometimes we need to call help and the best way to do this is a safty whistle.  This one is very good example it's loudness coud be up to 108dB! There is also good to know that he internationally recognised distress signal is 6 blasts of the whistle with a 1 minute break and then repeated. The reply is 3 blasts with the same pause.

By the same reason  there is good to have light stickers. Not only for calling help, but also for marking our camp or some important things we don't want to loose. Light stickers are small, cheap and they can always be usefull.

I realize there is more things like that, but I've chosen the most important 4 for me. What are your propositions??  

Today I want to show you my best tackle box/bag. Best because hand made and adjusted to my needs. Why I decided to make my lure bag by myself? I have a lot of different size pike crankbaits, twitchbaits and jerkbaits. Some of them are thicker, some slimmer, but all are quite fragile and it is easy to scratch the lacquer. On the other hand I like to change lures often and I hate tangled treble hooks.

Finally i found out how to solve my problems. I bought an inflexible thermic bag (~10in high), and different size foam pipe covers.

Next step was to cut pipe covers in equal length pieces and put them into a bag. Another way was to buy PCV pipes, but foam covers are better for fragile lure lacquer.

There is one more benefit of this bag. If you take out one of pipe cover pieces, you have a perfect place to put your beer  while fishing :)

Make Your own Handmade Tackle Bag!

Christmas gifts for outdoor man

Now is this time of year when everyone think about Christmas presents. What should I buy? What if he/she has this already? What would make him/her happy? Lot of questions year by year. But if you think about a present for an angler... It's much easier. I would like to show you what I would like to get!! :) Hmm.. Maybe my Santa will read this post? :)

Sometimes we buy something more expensive, somtimes something small. I have my choices for all ranges :) What should I start with...

Fitrst of all it is always good to get some tool, like multitool, knife or pocketknife. Even if you have one already you can put second one into tackle box, car or boat and it will always be usefull. Victorinox  pocketknife is the best choice. There are many models and you will find your price range for sure.

An anternative for pocketknife is multitool. It is usually bigger and more usefull for harder work. I'm just about to buy one for myself!  Gerber Dime Pocket Micro Tool is one of my choices.

I'm also a big fan of good headlights. Although as I wrote in one of my previous posts it must be good quality, light and must have more lighting modes. One option is Petzl Tikka - new model for 2012. everyone would be happy with it.

If you want to go wild and buy something awesome. And of course you are not an expert in fishing equipment, one of the best choice would be GoPro camera.

In the era of the Internet everyone want to show his fishing successes and sometimes a simple photo is not enough. Personal outdoor HD cameras are increasingly popular. And everyone would like to have a movie like this with his trophy:

Of course there are other good choices for a gift, but my point was to show you how easy is to buy an awesome gift to an angler or any outdoor man :)

Is GPS necessary?

When we fish in big lakes, dam reservoirs and sometimes rivers it is necessary to use boat. It allows us to reach spots far from the shore and find fishes unreachable for other anglers. Problem is how to find a good spot and how to remember where it was??

Of course we need to use a sonar that allows us to see fishes and  find spots where they can be. Some good and expensive sonars have also a GPS function, which allows to remember good spots or places where we caught a big fish. But what if we don't have a lot of money to by an expensive sonar? Are we forced to finding the same place over and over again?

Of course not! Before the GPS devices era we had a good method for this. There are many characteristic points around lake or dam reservoir. Big trees, electric poles, huge chimneys etc... Looking at them and their position relative to each other we can find our spot with a very good precision!! 

Of course we have to remember this positions very good or write them down and this method is useless while night fishing or fishing in the fog. Luckily we have basic handheld GPS devices! They are cheap and they do their job splendidly! There are of course different types of them but I will show you the best choices (according to me of course).

If you don't want to spend a lot of money but you want to have a good working reliable device you could think about Garmin eTrex 10 GPS Unit

Garmin eTrex 10 GPS Unit retains the core functionality, rugged construction, affordability, waterproof and long battery life. That is all you need.

If you want to spend a little mor money you can think about Garmin Garmin eTrex 20 GPS

or Garmin Garmin eTrex 30 GPS

This devices are a little more expensive, but they provide more functionalities like 2.2in 65K colour display, microSD™ card slot for your own different maps, quicker FIX or wireless connection with other similar devices (for Garmin Garmin eTrex 30 GPS)

The choice is yours, but I assure all this devices will do their job and will help you to be more effective. It's worth to try!

If you buy your device it is worth to thing about different accesories for it like Garmin Carry Case or Power Bundle. 

Have fun with your first Handheld GPS device!

The matter of line!

Hi!!
Season in Poland is coming to the end. It is cold, wet and unpleasant  This Year was quit interesting for me. I caught lot of nice fishes, but the most important thing was finding out that good line is a key!

My favorite  fishes are zander, pike, perch and asp. That is why I use mainly braid. Mono line is good for me when I hunt for chub or trout. I tried a lot of braids. As well worldwide known as from polish domestic market. I have some conclusions, that I want to share with You.

First of all good braid should be rounded. Flat braid is definitely not what You are looking for. Next step is to find line that keeps  strength after few months of fishing. Sometimes it doesn’t because it shreds. Some producers add teflon coating to their braids  – for example Spiderwire. Teflon coating makes the braid also smoother. Spiderwire Stealth and Ultracast are one of my favorite 5 – 15LB braids.

        I found some nice article with microscope photos of different braids - check this here: Braid photos

Although when You don’t need the smoothest line, but good strength is important for You, maybe the best choice would be legendary – my favorite 15LB  line. When I want a strong line for pike or catfish it is almost always Power Pro.

I tried also some Dragon, Jaxon and other lines. Sometimes they were not as bad. But after loosing some good fishes I realized that I should stay with good, tested lines.

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING
Always cut off  1 – 2 m (yds) of your line after fishing. The end of your line shreds and it loses strength.

The other way to avoid this is to use fluorocarbon leader like this Fluorocarbon leader:

It is my option when I fish for zander and perch.