Travel - Helsinki

Water Everywhere, But Not A Spot To Fish

With a cruise, one measures ones time in hours – or minutes. Helsinki was a five hour stop (against the three hours in Stockholm). Great city, very modern, trolley loop to get around.

But we are here for fishing, and Helsinki might as well be Scotland or British Columbia for “ease of use”. There are 3 lakes/ponds in the city, but no one fishes there, as the salmon fishing in the sea is (apparently) so much better.

After a couple of hours trying to orient ourselves, read Rick Steves walking tour and a discovered a recommended fishing store: Schroder Sports Shop on Union Inkatu – basically straight up from the leftmost road of the market by the pier. The coffee house and park is opposite on the left.

Very interesting shop, but enormously expensive. Rapala plugs were at least twice as expensive as in US – and, of course, they are made/invented there! Average prices were 12-15€. Never seen such a display of spoons (apparently for pike). Asked about licenses, and was told one needs two; one for Finland and one for the city/province. Have to buy the first at a bank(?!)

Oh, and forget about Stockmans, the űber-department store. Lovely store, but fishing tackle was minimal; think LL Bean, not Bass Pro Shops.

I really detest anything other than first-hand experience, but just in case you are thinking of fishing there, there are walls, piers, where one can fish for salmon – or perch. Supposedly. Saw no one fishing.