I show sharpening hooks, catching, killing and cleaning pike. One summer afternoon in Sapmi, catching 6 pikes. The trip was in total a few weeks, pike was the main food. Open the full video description for more information.

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Date: June 2021

Day: 5-25°C (41-77°F)
Night: 0-5°C (32-41°F)

Location: Sapmi - the land of the Sami people in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Clean and classic northern nature. Fresh water rivers. Pine, spruce and birch forrest. Mountains, bears, wolves, eagles, reindeers etc. You need to take some care regarding animals, but in general no problems with predators.

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A few questions:

1. What is a good location for catching pike?
Pike is a very easy fish to catch and it can be caught everywhere if you are on a location with a healthy pike population... But doing summer is the ideal shallow water with hiding places - example vegetation like in the video or large stones. The pike enjoy heat and the sun heats up shallow waters faster than deep waters - you offen find pikes on so shallow waters that it hardly have enough water to swim. If you paddle a canoe or walk 50 meters in the shallow water neat the shore, will you on a good location see and hear at least 5 pikes swimming away while splashing the water.

2. How to catch pike?
I am not a passioned fisher or a skilled one, I only do it when I need food for myself... But doing summer, as far as I am concerned, is it very easy and you need no skills to catch pike. The pike get agressive/ignored by the splash from the hook hitting the water and from the look and sound of the hook moving/spinning - the pike does offen straight away "attack" hook and does it so agressiv that it most of the time is caught very well without you needing to do anything. The pike is not easy to scare away, so offen possible to catch multiple pikes from the same small spot only minutes apart. Also normal to get the same pike to try and take the hook more than once only a few minutes apart. In the video and usually on other great pike locations does it only take 1-2 casts in-between catching a pike... So catching the 6 pikes in the video was less than 30 minutes of fishing.

3. How many can I catch without hurting the puplulation?
Local laws offen tells you that, so always look that up before going to a new location... But as far as nature is concerned, if you are on a remote pristine location like me on a big river/lake, can you catch all you can eat for all of your life and the local pike population will stay the same... If you are fishing in a small lake in a closed system with no rivers naturally easy allowing for more fish to come, do you need to take ekstra care - in that case only catch a few and when move on to other waters or spend the time getting to know the small lake before catching more.


4. How heavy is the hook you are you using?
25g - I find that size ideal because that only catches pike big enough for eating. I don't like to release a caught fish - the hook offen have done some damage. 25g catches pikes about 1-6 kilos. Basically my advice is to go big to avoid catching fish too small for eating sustainable. The hook I am using in the video is about 3 years old and have caught over 100 pikes, it is still in fine shape.

5.Why kill pike with a knife?
I find it the most humane. Hitting it in the head with something heavy is also an option, I do find it fine for trout and other fish, but not for pike. I offen needed to hit the pike a few times before it is dead and it can be hard for sure to know when it is enough. A knife though the brain only take a second and when you know for sure it is done properly.

6. How long was the trip and is there coming more video from the trip?
The trip was a few weeks. No - this is the only video from the trip. Some trips I record and other I don't, some I only record a small part of. Especially on the longer trips on more demanding locations like this, do I prefer just to enjoy the trip and not spending time on video production... The video is made doing the mosquito season and doing that time is it also nice to be able to keep a fast pace on most of the trip instead of stopping to set up camera and giving the mosquitoes time to bite. Most of the trip was spend in the mountains in the wind away from the mosquitoes. It was a great trip.

7. What knife are you using?
Homemade - blade made from coil spring, handle from birch burl, sheath from birch bark with wooden inlay from ash wood.

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Some of the gear used in the video:

1. Pants = made by "Klattermusen"
2. Boots =made by "Duckfeet", model "Silkeborg", modified
3. Tent = made by "Tschum", model "KATUN 4P Light"
4. Wood stove = Poshehonka M basic
5. Rucksack = old M39 Swedish military, modified
6. Fishing gear = unknown

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Video gear: Canon EOS RP, Canon 50 1.8, Røde videomicpro+, iMovie, Macbook Air M1.

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