Pike fishing on Åland in May: the month of monsters, with caveats
Pike fishing on Åland in May can give you the fish of your life: big pike over 5 kg (11 lb) can take on any day from ice-out to mid-June. But May in the middle of the Baltic is cold and changes fast, so fish the inner skerries, keep an eye on the herring and be ready to change plans.
At a glance: four conclusions for May
Fish the inner skerries.
No month, May included, comes with a weather guarantee.
Local knowledge counts double this month, so ask someone who fishes here.
May is the month of monsters: a fish of a lifetime can come on the 1st, the 15th or the 30th.
Why "Åland fishing" is a phrase in its own right
Some pairings simply belong together: German cars, Czech beer. "Åland fishing" is, I'd say, rightly one of them. There is something special about it, and plenty of anglers who come once return year after year. How that particular magic works is hard to say. Here, though, I want to look at a narrower question: what May is really like.
May in the middle of the Baltic is cold
Ask anyone, a builder or a professor of philology, and they will tell you May is the month for pike. They'll be right, and the rule holds on Åland too. But here, in the middle of the Baltic Sea, it isn't that simple.
May on Åland is generally a cold month, because of the sea around us. Having cooled over the winter, it warms only slowly and keeps giving its chill back to the air. So whichever way the wind blows, it brings cool weather, not to mention the cold fronts that are frequent visitors at these latitudes, especially in early May.
Spawning: what the books say and what I see
It's commonly believed that the best fishing starts after the spawn. Exactly how the spawn unfolds, I suspect even ichthyologists don't fully know. However many articles I've read on the subject, I've found little beyond general rules, and nature always has a new surprise in store.
One book, for instance, said the largest fish spawn first, followed by smaller and smaller ones. In practice, I find big fish can turn up at any point from the moment the ice breaks up until mid-June. A big pike, by which I mean a fish over 5 kg, can be caught on the 1st of May just as well as on the 10th, the 20th or the 30th.
Fish don't read calendars
The fish don't know what month it is. They live by their own biology: water temperature, light, weed growth and the movements of baitfish, an endless, interlinked set of processes that decides how our fishing goes. The angler's job is to make sense of it all and offer the right lure in the right place. Simple enough, you'll agree.
Let's apply these general rules to Åland and try to draw a few sensible conclusions. I should say that this is only my subjective view, and an angler living in another part of the islands may well disagree. Small as the archipelago is, geography matters here: how near or far you are from the spawning grounds can shift the angler's calendar considerably.
Four conclusions for May
1. Fish the inner skerries
In May you should fish the inner skerries of Åland. Anglers know how much depends on the weather. If it stays cold, the spawn drags on, and fish that are already sluggish in cold water lose interest altogether. You may catch nothing at all. If spring arrives evenly and steadily, as it did in 2018, the chances are good.
2. No month comes with a weather guarantee
That goes for every month, and May is no exception.
3. Ask someone who knows the water
A guide will know a little more about how local waters fish at this time of year. If you fish on your own, at least ask people who know which lures are working that week. It matters.
4. May is the month of monsters
On the whole, May fishing can be difficult, and working out where to go and what to do is not easy at all. But this is also the time when, at any moment, you can catch the fish of your life. It might take on the 1st, the 15th or the 30th.
How May changes from start to finish
From the beginning to the end of the month, conditions on the water change a lot. The weed grows, the water temperature shifts, and Åland's main baitfish, the Baltic herring, goes through its own transformation.
The closer summer comes, the harder the herring is to find. As far as I can tell, it spreads out over almost the whole area and moves onto relatively shallow ground, no more than about 2 metres deep.
These gradually changing conditions keep us on our toes, trying new things and changing tactics. The speed of change is perhaps what really sets May apart from other months. In short, the pike's metabolism speeds up just as the herring arrive to spawn, and a feast begins that lasts roughly a month. Even in a month as good as May, though, you need to understand these changes to succeed.
So is May the best month for pike on Åland?
May is a very good month for pike fishing on Åland. If you ask me whether it is the best, I'd find that hard to answer.
If you'd like to try your luck with a May pike, write to me and I'll suggest the weeks I'd pick for the kind of fishing you have in mind. Our packages and prices are on the site, and if you want to know who you'd be writing to, there's a page about Leonid, which is to say me. See you on the water.
Read next: the story of our 116 cm trophy pike, and Åland fishing in June, the month after.
