Ice Fishing Holidays in Finland, Lake Saimaa Area

Welcome to have winter fun at Lake Saimaa, Finland! We are offering you a holiday in our well-equipped cottage in the best season of winter for recreation and ice fishing, as well as fishing with our professional fishing guide and company owner Jari Kayhko. The cottage is located right next to a lake and offers very easy access to do fishing, skiing or snowmobiling on the ice.

   Ice cover usually forms in mid-December on Lake Saimaa, but the best ice fishing time starts from the beginning of January or so. The early ice is very good for ice fishing of pike. The ice fishing season of rainbow trout starts from the beginning of January and ends in April. We use both active ice fishing and tip-up ice fishing methods for both pike and rainbow trout. From mid-January to mid-February we do ice fishing for burbot. From mid-March to mid-April it is the best season for ice fishing of perch, roach and bream near our fishing cottage.

 

Ice Fishing Holiday on Lake Saimaa

Our cosy and comfortable Fishing Cottage Jokiniemi is best suited and especially equipped for groups of sports fishermen of 4 to 6 people. The pond just 30 metres from the cottage is good for independent ice fishing of pike, perch, bream and roach. The actual Lake Saimaa area starts from a distance of 100 metres from the cottage. This area is excellent for ice fishing of zander, pike, perch, burbot, roach and bream.

  

Fun and easy rainbow trout fishing trip

We arrange rainbow trout fishing trips at a privately owned lake area, which is located 35 km from the Fishing Cottage Jokiniemi. There is a small shelter, fireplace and toilet at the area for your use. The distance from the parking place to the shelter is 100 metres and to the ice is only 30 metres. Excellent place for fishing with children.

Available: December – April

 

We do use both tip-up and active angling

 You can use three fishing rods at same time in this place, so we will use one rod for active ice fishing and two sets of tip-ups. We will use small spoons, balanced jigs, leeches and ice fishing jigs for active ice fishing and for the tip-ups we'll use fish eggs as bait.

The rainbow trout in the lake are between 1 and 3 kg in size. You can catch and keep 3 trout / day / one license.

Catch Rainbow trouts with Old School Trolling

Your fishing guide Jari Kayhko will teach you the best spots and tricks, and he will actively assist you with fishing rainbow trout. The price includes the necessary licenses and the use of fishing gear. Also available tasty picnic by campfire for extra charge..

 

A hut for picnic break

Rainbow catched by active icefishing

More information: Winter Fishing on Lake Saimaa
 

Rainbow catched by Tip-up angling

Training day for a softbait spinning course on Lake Saimaa – June 2014

A group of Finnish fishermen had asked me to organize a jigging course for them in early June in Savonranta. It is always important for me to train for these courses and fishing trips in advance, to really go out there to the actual fishing waters and make sure I know where the fish will be. Luckily, the spring weather prior to this particular course was very warm, so I could go and train fishing in perfect conditions for many days in a row. The warm weather also makes the fish more eager to bite.

The day before the course I went training again. The beginning of the session was difficult. I was in an area of deep water and despite of promising signals from the sonar and active trying, I spent two hours catching nothing..... at least weather was very beautiful and hot.....

Fishing Guide Jari Kayhko

My first fish of the day was a two-kilogram pike, which I released to grow bigger and fatter. Once I had pinpointed where the pikes are, I changed my strategy and depth of water to start looking for perches.

 I tried different places and looked for the right colours, swimming patterns and weights of the lures. Finding exactly the right colour proved a great success, enabling me to pull up a nice perch of 200 to 900 grams with almost every single cast. Now that I had the perches figured out, I sent my clients an SMS telling everything was ready for the course the next day.

 My training session continued with targeting zanders, with a speed of 6 to 10 km/h. Being early evening and still very sunny didn’t exactly make it easier to spot the fish, but with the help of the sonar and my prior experience I managed to pinpoint zanders. They were playing hard to get, but eventually I managed to catch one, although I released it after just taking a photo of it. At the end of the day I only kept about two kilos of perches for cooking.

After six hours of training I finally had the right fishing spots and equipment figured out for the next day. I headed back to the cottage to fillet the perches and to recharge my mental and physical batteries by having a relaxing sauna. Here’s a tip: when I fillet perches, I also keep the nice meaty bits of the back, and either fry or grill them. The meat can easily be separated from the backbone by simply sucking, or by using knife and fork. 

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Old School Trolling Softbait Spinning Courses on Lake Saimaa

 A fisherman needs knowledge of how weather affects the behaviour and the hot spots of the target fish in his fishing area. You have to work actively to locate the fish as well as to choose the right lure for the day and the correct way to swim your bait. The most common fish caught on Lake Saimaa are perch, zander (walleye) and pike.

 Step 1
- Use your areal knowledge and experience with the weather conditions when you select your fishing area.

 Step 2
- Use a sonar to find and locate the fish before you start fishing.

 Step 3
 - Start pinpointing the right color, model, weight and size of the soft bait lure by actively trying out different lures until you get contact with the fish.

 Step 4
- Try different swimming variations by reeling and using the rod to find out the right speed and swimming pattern the fish respond to.

 Step 5
- The more you fish the more you gain experience of which parts of the day and which lighting conditions are best for fishing.