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Last year I visited
central Finland for some fishing, and
I was positively impressed by the
huge body waters of rivers, lake and
rapids, but obviously mainly by the
great number of fishes caught.
On my previous trip, we fished almost exclusively trouts in rapids; so this new trip I had the goal of better evaluate the other potentiality that these waters could offer. Thanks to the invitation of some friends and fishing guides that live in the regions of Hankasalmi and Laukaa, the past June (2005) I went there with the purpose of fishing mainly pike, zander and perch. Even if I had only four free days, I was very trusting of the fact that I was surely able to catch a good number of fishes and have a great fun too. 
THREE IN ONE
These two regions of central Finland, close one each other, has a great number of rivers, rapids, channels and lakes where it is possible to put forward different techniques for different predators. The three most representative fish  here are brown
trout, pike and zander, but there is
also a good number of perch and ide
(a fish very similar to chub). So,
here, in a week of fishing, it is
possible to catch all three different
fishes producing a more interesting
fishing trip.In a very lucky day I caught several pikes, one of which over 6 kilos, some zander until 1,5 kilos and a nice brown trout, so to be able to make a slam in a single day. I think in Europe it is very difficult to find any other place where to catch all these three predators in a single fishing day, and also of good size. Obviously it isn’t so easy catch fish here, like in any other place, but if you have the support of good and professional guides, that know each one of the different zones of body water, it all become easier. Surely, the best month for fishing here for all the three species is June; trout starts to be more active after the long winter, pike has finished the spawning and starts to be very aggressive and zander starts to move to shallow waters of lakes to feed small preys. Moreover, the days start to be longer, and at this moment, it is possible to find more than 20 hours of light; it is possible to fish until late at night, usually the best moment; during the famous mid-night sun. FOUR GREAT DAYS 
Once I arrived at the Helsinki
airport, I met my friend Sirpa, and
from there, by car, we started our
trip to the big town of Lahti, our
first stop. After about one hour of
comfortable drive, we arrived at her
house, and after a quickly change of
clothing we were able to go fishing
on the big lake of the town.
The meeting was at 18 close to "Sibelius Hall", the new Lahti opera house, very close to a tourist pier. Here the guide Jukka Vesanen and his wife were waiting for us on the boat. Jukka, famous local architect, has a double job, in fact during winter he dedicates himself only to the activity of drawing and projecting bridges and motorways, but during summer his main business is being a fishing guide. Obviously, the boat where he was waiting for us was created and built by himself. In effect, at the first sight it didn’t appear like a typical fishing boat. It was built on 2 long steel pontoon and it was very similar, as shape, to the boats used by US army in the Second World War for the discharging of the troops on the beaches of Normandy. Any way, this large and stable boat was built for a valuable intent, to be practical and effective for people on wheel chairs because of moving problems. We spent that evening spin fishing for pike; Jukka, after 20 minutes of boating, drove us to some shallow water spots, with rocks and weeds where we started our casts. At the beginning, there appeared mainly pikes of about 1 – 1,5 kilo, but when the lights started to shade down we saw the size of the pike to increase up to 5 kilos. The best pike was caught by Sirpa working on the surface a yellow Rapala Super Shad Rap. Surely, a good start for our fishing trip.  On the next day we moved to North
direction and in about 3 hours, in
the middle of fantastic and wonderful
landscape, we reached the Hankasalmi
region. I think I lost the count of
the lakes we encountered. The first
stop was the Ranta-Keurula, a very
characteristic guest house placed on
the bank of a beautiful lake. Here, I
think I ate some of the best dishes I
have ever tried.Five minutes by car from here, on lake Vanginvesi, we met Petri Korhonen, a passionate fisherman and professional guide that I had the pleasure to acknowledged in a my previous fishing trip. Petri disposes of some boats and proposes either fishing on the lake for pike, or fishing on rapids for trout and grayling. For that day, we chose pike fishing from the boat; so Petry took us to the mouth of a river, a very good place for him. Unfortunately we had a very timid starting, with only a small couple of pikes, we started to caught some decent size only after over one hour fishing. The most of the pike were around 1,5 kilo, nothing big, but at least the number of fishes was increasing hour after hour. The best fishes of that day got to a maximum of 3 kilos, but surely the amount was great: 26 pikes caught on 31 attacks. Next morning, having Petri as guide again, we fished by boat on lake Pilkanselka; the day was wonderful with a shiny sun and a blue sky, and also the temperature was warm. Surely not a good day for pike fishing, but a lovely day to spent with friends on the lake. In fact, on that morning pike fishing wasn’t too productive as the previous day, the sun didn’t help us, but we were able to catch a dozen pikes, the best ones around 4 kilos. In the afternoon we moved by car to Kapenkoski rapids where we found our friends Jani Himanko e Juha Laitinen. Here after placing our bags in the nearest hotel we went immediately fishing for zander in the final part of the rapids, where they flow into lake Vatinjarvi. Luckily, the afternoon started to get cloudy and on this condition zander were active and aggressive. With small yellow silicone jigs, casting on a 8 meters bottom, in about 2 hours we were able to catch 9 zander up to 1,6 kilos. At around 6 o’clock in the afternoon we drove again by car to Kuusankoski rapids, near the town of Kuusa - about 20 minutes drive. Here, after eating a delicious lunch at the local restaurant Varjola Tila. we met the fishing guide Timo Koikkalainen. That evening we fished mainly in the low part of the rapids, spin fishing with Rapalas of 5-7 centimeters. Due to the fast dropping of temperature in a very cold night, we fished only for about 3 hours, having 7 bites and catching 4 good size brown trout of 1 kilo and 2 ide of 700 grams.  Next morning we moved again to the hotel Varjola Tila were Jarkko Mäkinen joined us - he was our fishing guide on that morning for catching pike on lake Vatinjarvi. Just like the previous morning, the day was very sunny, having no clouds on the sky. As a consequence, our starting was absolutely negative with zero fishes on the first 2 hours of fishing. Fortunately after that our, prayers became true and a strong wind appears, moving the calm waters of the lake and taking with them lots of clouds. From this moment on, everything changed, and we started to catch pikes cast after cast. I was lucky to start with a 6 kilos pike, but we mostly caught many more of similar size or smaller. At about midday, we went back to our car to move again to the Kapeenkoski rapids where Jani Himanko e Juha Laitinen planned for us an afternoon of zander fishing. Here, during the first hour, we didn’t catch a lot, only a good size zander of 2,5 kilos, caught by Juha. So, we moved to another place by boat and we got more action with some smaller zander, few pikes; one of 4/5 kilos cut the line just under the boat. But, the "lucky god" that day chose my friend Jani, in fact were about 10 minutes that he was changing lure every 2 casts. Suddenly with a Storm silicone lure (Wild Eye Nereid) in gray color hooked something seemed a good zander. He fought the fish for few moments after discovering that it was a huge perch of 1,4 kilograms. Surely a great catch for these rich waters.  After an eating break on the shore,
the 2 guides took us fishing trouts
on the Kapenkoski rapids. For this
occasion, we used 2 "drifting boat",
with a flat bottom, that they
directly imported from Canada (the
only 2 here in Europe). In this way,
we were able to fish in areas usually
unfishable with strong currents and
dangerous stones.In effect, the experience was interesting and adventurous and in a couple of hours we caught 2 nice brown trouts on 4 hooked and a pike of 4 kilos that strangely was swimming in a very strong current river section. At about 1 o’clock in the night , under a heavy rain, we decided to stop our fishing day - we were happy of 4 wonderful days spent with great friends. 
USEFUL FISHING ADRESSES
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