Bushcraft trip – northern pike fishing, how to, getting food for basecamp, spinning rod, hot tent

I show sharpening a hook, catching, killing and cleaning pike. One summer afternoon in Sapmi, catching 6 pikes. I was two weeks on this locations and pike was a big part of the 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 hiding places like vegetation like in the video or large stones. The pike enjoy heat and the sun heats up shallow water faster than deep water – you offen find pike on so shallow waters that it hardly have enough water to swim. If you paddle a canoe or walk 50 meters in vegetation in shallow water near the shore, will you on a good location see and hear at least a few 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 or any expensive fishing gear. Pikes get agressive/ignored by the splash from the hook hitting the water and from the look and sound of the hook moving/spinning though the water – pikes do offen straight away “attack” the hook and offen does it so aggressively that it get caught very well without you needing to do anything. Pikes is not easy to scare away, so offen possible to catch more than one pike 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 10 minutes of fishing.

3. How many can I catch without hurting the puplulation?
Local laws offen tells you that… 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 allowing for more fish to come, do you need to take care and only catch a few – 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 pikes I consider 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 small fish. The hook I am using in the video is an old classic style hook used only for pike fishing, mine 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?
I was two weeks on this location. The trip is on going, will probably be two months or more. No – this is the only video from this location. Most of the time was spend in the small local mountains, in the wind, away from the mosquitoes. I am still in Sapmi and the trip continues, I have just moved on to other locations.

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, just a normal spinning rod suitable for 25g weight hooks

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

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