I have lived in Finland just over five years now, i match fished in England for Mark One Sensas and fished regularly in the East Midlands Winter League and the open match circuit in and around Peterborough.

I now match fish over here, in and around Helsinki mostly, although we do fish in places like Lappeenranta at a place called the Saimaa canal where the World Championships were held a couple of years back.

Although the season is quite short here, fishing from May to approx November (before we have to swap over to ice fishing) it can be quite prolific. For example fishing in 2 and half matches it is quite common to get 15 kilos of Roach when they shoal up before spawning and after that the Bream fishing gets underway once the Roach have moved back out into the sea. And yes we fish the sea over here because the salt content is so low.

The fishing is as you can imagine very positive, no need for light lines and small hooks, 0,16mm main lines and 0,14 hook lengths with fairly big hooks too. Hook baits for Roach 10-12 maggots and 3 gram float coupled to a 6 mtr powerful whip is just about right.

Bream fishing is much the same in terms line strengths but using the pole (up to 13 mtrs only, due to the rules) and very course grounbaits with lots of worm and corn in the feed. The Bream are not massive but they get-up-to a kilo and now again you'll get the odd Carp to 2 kilo.

So there you have it a very quick run down on fishing over here, hope that is of some interest and of course if you are ever planning a visit here of course drop me a line and I will be more than happy to show you around.

E-mail address is simon.gray@suomi24.fi

Thanks for reading.

hello me duck.....welcome to Talk Angling

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Welcome to the site Suomifish1 - look forward to reading more of your exploits in the future

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welcome to Talk Angling Suomifish1

Do you fish the lake in Laapenranta as well. Huge place as I recall, I was staying in a hotel right on the shore while covering the World Champs in 2005. If I remember right the lake fished much better than the canal!

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