Recently our fishing guide Henrik Olsson went for two days of vertical speed jigging for char on lake Vättern with Florian Läufer and Christian Fuchert from the German fishing magazine Rute & Rolle. On the first day of fishing the char weren’t feeding actively and fishing was tough. At the end of the day, the three experienced anglers had only caught a few smaller specimens and decided on a day of zander fishing before returning to Vättern for a rematch.
[fblike url=”www.fishing-in-sweden.com” style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial” ] Back on Vättern a day later, the three anglers found an area with lots of bait fish and active predators. The afternoon was met with success and the vertical speed jigging for char resulted in some nice catches. With their goal accomplished and an early morning departure awaiting the two German fishing journalists, they decided to only give it one more hour before calling it a day. It was this last hour that would ultimately result in the best catch of an already successful day of fishing. After locating an echo at about 15-17m in 35m deep water, Henrik was the first to drop his jigg down into the depths of Europe’s 6th biggest lake. He stopped just before the fish and started reeling up at full speed. The fish liked what it saw, attacked lightning fast and after a series of long exciting runs it eventually ended up in the net. Henrik used his trusty Westin-fishing 3776 vertical jigging <40 gr rod to tame the big fish.
[fblike url=”www.fishing-in-sweden.com” style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial” ] It was not the big char the three fisherman expected – instead it turned out to be a massive 77 cm and 5,220 kg trout! Even though this trout might not look like a typical Vättern trout the three experienced anglers immediately identified it as one. For Christian as an avid trout fisherman, Florian with 20 years of experience as a fishing journalist/photographer and Henrik who also works as a limnologist (Limnolog) there was no doubt – this is a trout and not a salmon.
[fblike url=”www.fishing-in-sweden.com” style=”standard” showfaces=”false” width=”450″ verb=”like” font=”arial” ] Having seen the photos, some other fisherman questioned this being a trout based on its atypical appearance. Therefore several independent experts were consulted and clearly confirmed what Henrik, Florian and Christian had been certain about all along – this is a trout and not a salmon! What’s more, the risk of hybrids between the two fish species is considered to be non-existent in Vättern, as salmon are put in every year and do not reproduce naturally.
“Clearly a trout, 100%! No doubt.“, Erik Degerman
“Klockren öring, 100%! Finns ingen anledning att tveka.“, Erik Degerman
Erik Degerman works as an Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Analyst, Diadromous Species for the Swedish Freshwater-Laboratory, Institute for Aquatic Recourses, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU Aqua) and can be considered an expert in identifying salmon and trout.
“There is no way that this is a salmon! Sure it might not look like a typical trout from Vättern, but it definitely is a trout…Note that we handle 3-4000 salmon and trout in a fish trap in Forshaga every year; there are always fish that deviate from the expected appearance (both in shape and coloration), and that holds true for both bred and wild fish.“, PhD Johnny Norrgård
“Jag kan inte på något vis få detta till en lax! Visserligen så har den kanske inte typiskt “Vätterutseende” men det är definitivt en öring…Kan tillägga att vi i fällan vid Forshaga hanterar 3-4000 laxar och öring årligen, det kommer fisk varje år som avviker från det förväntade i utseende (både form och färg), och det gäller både odlad och vild fisk.“, Dr. Johnny Norrgård
Dr. Johnny Norrgård has been the Coordinator of Fisheries Co-management for Lake Vättern at Karlstad University for many years, is currently fisheries manager for the lake Vänern region at Fortum Generation AB and has recently been awarded his PhD for his dissertation ”Migration and quality of landlocked Atlantic salmon smolt – Implications for conservation and management”. He has been studying the migration of salmonides for several year and posses extensive experience when it comes to identifying salmon and trout from lake Vättern.
With certainty that this is a trout, it raises the question: Is this the biggest trout caught vertical jigging in Sweden?
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Many thanks to fishing photographer Florian Läufer from www.angel.fotograf.de and Christian Fuchert for the awesome photos.