Online Trolling Meetups Are Here To Stay!

The historic Kinnekulleträffen has been organized since 1992 starting from Hönsäter's harbor in Hällekis, but in 2020 the event had to be canceled due to covid. As the trolls in Götene SFK did not see any possibility of arranging a "normal" Kinnekulleträff in 2021, Vänern's trolls were invited to an online competition with capture reporting in the app. 

A quarter of a mile – right down into the lake
The Kinnekulleträffen has always contributed to fisheries conservation activities around Lake Vänern. As of the 2015 trolling meeting, all surplus goes back to the lake in the form of a smolt release the following spring. All smolt stocking is done in collaboration with Laxfond Vänern and the supplier of the smolt is Sävenfors Fiskodling. 

The trolls in Götene SFK spend many non-profit hours to, in various ways, collect money for the club's smolt releases. In the spring of 2021, smolt was placed for SEK 250,000 at Kinnekulle Camping, a few kilometers from the ramp in Hönsäter's harbor. The club sends a big thank you to everyone who in any way contributed to this smolt release!

A good online fishing competition requires a good app
The competition staff got in early contact with the people behind "Fishy Live", which is an app-based system for fishing competitions that before the KKO was mainly used for predator competitions with successful results. In addition to the participants handling the catch reporting themselves out in the boats, registration and payment were handled entirely by Fishy Live via an integrated and proven payment system. A feature that the club's treasurer appreciated!

The competition was decided on the total length of the fin-clipped salmon and trout caught by the boat teams, each boat team was allowed to report up to six fish per day of competition. As competition management approved the reported fish, the live table changed. The live table could be followed both in the app and on the web, which was appreciated and gave an extra dimension of excitement. On the last day of competition, the results were also "darkened" in the afternoon to further increase the excitement for both participants and audience.

Photo: Peter Jonsson/Melleruds TK / Trolling boat with Kinnekulleberget in the background.

KinneKulleOnline, KKO 2021 - Sweden's most accessible trolling meeting?
As the event was to be arranged as corona-safe as possible with minimal crowds, the following rules were set for the weekend of April 17-18 when the KKO was arranged:
- Free Vänernhamn, the boat teams could start from any port they wanted
-Free start in the morning, i.e. no congestion in ports and ramps
-Reporting until 17:00 but no requirement to be in port at a particular time
The event's rules of the game gave enormous freedom and accessibility, the participants could start from the home jetty or any port/ramp. Many boat teams started from Hällekis, Spiken and Ekenäs as in the weeks before the KKO there had been very good fishing in the area around Pålgrund in Dalbosjön. The competition attracted a total of 349 people distributed among 139 boat teams around the entire Lake Vänern!

-One of the smallest boats we know of at KKO is a 4.35m boat that left from the summer cottage's jetty at Kil's cape. They would not have participated if the Kinnekulleträffen had been arranged "as usual", says Sten-Gunnar Stéenson from the competition management

Vänern delivered on KKO 
Despite the fact that the mornings meant relatively strong winds from the northeast, the KKO participants were treated to really nice catches, above all, several really big salmon were caught. The winner of KKO 2021 was team De Gule from Laxå closely followed by team JS from the organizing association Götene SFK.
1st Team De Gule registered 9 fish with a total length of 681cm.
2nd Team JS registered 9 fish with a total length of 628cm.
3rd Team Ozza/Mezzi registered 9 fish with a total length of 624cm.

There were also nine salmon over 10 kilos:
Salmon 13.42kg, 104cm caught on lee at Pål/Lemon by team Iogt-Nto
Salmon 13.12kg, 103cm caught on a lure at Baggerud/Kils udde by team Smurf
Salmon 11.40kg, 94cm caught on a lure at Brommösund by team Vänertrolling
Salmon 11.20kg, 97cm caught on plug at Kristinehamn by team WoW
Salmon 11.00kg, 92cm caught on a perch at Pål by team Sjö/Sit Right
Salmon 10.72kg, 93cm taken on VX-ON at Kristinehamn by team Josefsson/ Blücher
Salmon 10.71kg, 94cm on wobbler at Hinden's reef by team Bonnapike
Salmon 10.50kg, 92cm caught on a perch at Brommösund by team Sjönäs
Salmon 10.20kg, 91cm caught on plug at Maken by team Texas

-Actually, length is a bad way to evaluate how big a salmon or trout from Lake Vänern is, as the condition of the fish varies a lot, for example, a salmon of 92 cm can weigh eleven kilos, while a skinny trout of 92 cm barely reaches seven kilos. But it is the same for all participants, says Sten-Gunnar Stéenson from the competition management

-On the whole, it was a success to run this year's Kinnekulleträff as an online competition! The constantly updated live table definitely added an extra dimension to the event, especially for the teams in the top fight who alternated the lead every now and then. Many participants thought on Sunday evening that this year's event was an "all time high" in the number of fish caught, but statistically the fishing was normal. It was probably the tension around the live table that gave the illusion that the fishing was better than it really was, says Fredrik Andersson from the competition management.

- But of course it is strange that a salmon of 13.12 kg caught in a trolling competition on Lake Vänern does not become the competition's biggest fish, Lake Vänern is teeming with many large salmon this spring, concludes Andersson.

Photo: Peter Jonsson/Melleruds TK / Good wobblers for trolling on Vänern and Vättern.

The 50/50 tactic gave the podium at KKO
In the last 10-15 years, most of the top teams at the Kinnekulleträffen have fished exclusively with tackled flounder that were pulled out at relatively low speeds, often around 1.6 - 1.8 knots. But team JS from the organizing association Götene SFK got a well-deserved podium with the so-called "50/50" tactic. Captain Joakim Sahlberg describes the "50/50" tactic as follows:

-The boat is moved at about 2.1 – 2.2 knots, one side is rigged with tin and plastic baits, usually wobblers and smaller spoons because they move well at that speed. Four rods on planer board and one rod on deep rig. These baits can be quickly rigged and you can quickly start fishing, says Joakim.
The other side is rigged with a jig in Jackpot and Salsa Skulls, also on this side it is started with four jigs on the surface and one jig on the deep rig. Should it start nibbling on tackled sheets, 1-2 rods are replaced on the "plastic/plate" side, should it start nibbling on sheet/place, a couple of tackled sheets are replaced with wobblers.

- We never replace all the baits, you never know how the fishing varies over a fishing day, says Joakim.

The team often changes lures on the tin/plastic side to test which colors and lure models work for the day. Also on the slack side, different heads and settings are tested and a flasher on a deep-rigging rod is added now and then to see if it can attract the fish to bite. If it nibbles on a tench on the rod of the deep rig, the bait on the other deep rig is often changed to a tench. If there is a really good nipping frequency on the deep rigs, more rods are stacked on the deep rigs.

If it doesn't bite but it looks promising on the sonar with baitfish and the occasional larger fish, the team often swaps 1-2 wobblers for tackled lures and slows down to grind the fish to a bite. The same tactic is applied to whiting as lures are often superior to artificial baits.

If it doesn't bite and the team doesn't see anything interesting on the sonar, the team swaps out 1-2 lures for wobblers and increases speed to cover more surface and locate the fish.

-At KKO it was wobblers that worked best, out of 9 reported fish 8 took wobblers. Wobbler colors delivered were blue crome and green. We caught two or three fish on "KKT1", says Joakim happily.

"KKT1" is a 10.5cm Strike Provobbler designed by the members of Götene SFK. The wobbler is developed in collaboration with the wholesaler CWC AB and the fishing department at Mariestads Marina. The surplus from "KKT1" goes directly to the club's smolt account.

-We at Götene SFK have actually designed two Strike Provobblers from CWC AB and three mockingbirds from Jackpot which are sold, partly physically in the store in Mariestad, partly via mail order. It is actually one of the "designers" who works in the Mariestadsbutiken who every week sends several packages of wobblers and lures to trolling Sweden. It's great fun that anglers from all over Sweden get in touch and order our baits, and it's extra fun to get catch reports back from happy anglers who have contributed to more smolt in Lake Vänern, says Fredrik Andersson.

Vänern Big Three Trolling Cup 2021-05-01 – 2022-04-30
In parallel with the planning of KinneKulleOnline, the planning of the "Vänern Big Three Trolling Cup", which is a 365-day long trolling competition on Vänern that started on May 1, 2021 and ends on April 30, 2022, was underway. The competition is decided on the total length of the boat team's longest salmon + trout + zander. The surplus from the competition goes, of course, to the club's smolt releases.

- We had long discussions with the guys behind the app about how we could develop competitive fishing around trolling, both on Lake Vänern and Lake Vättern. We quickly came to the conclusion that it would be really fun if the app could handle different species, says Fredrik Andersson.
Around the same time, one of Kinnekulleträffen's long-standing partners got in touch and wanted to be involved and contribute to more smolt. A couple of weeks later, the app people announced that the app can now handle multiple species.

- Very happy that Buster Boats and Rogers Marin in Lidköping got in touch and wanted to be involved and contribute to the club's smolt releases. With a good prize table and a Buster boat as a raffle prize, we were able to launch the "Vänern Big Three Trolling Cup" at the end of April, which we hope will be a success. It is a completely new and interesting layout for the competition and we hope we can attract many boat teams to the start. The goal is to bring in more smolt money than the value on the prize table, says Fredrik Andersson.

It is possible to register your boat team for the Vänern Big Three Trolling Cup during the entire competition period. The cold spring means that the water temperature is low and the spring fishing for salmon and trout on Vänern is far from finished, while the size of both salmon and trout is extremely high, there are reports of +10s almost every week.

When the spring heat arrives at the beginning of June, a good period of walleye trolling begins in many parts of Vänern, there are many indications that it is the walleye fishing that will decide the top battle in the Vänern Big Three.

Then comes an intensive salmon and trout season that stretches from early autumn to the end of April 2022 when the competition period is over. Like an "onion on the salmon", the competition is darkened in the last intense weeks of April, then only the competition management knows what the live standings are.

- We hope that this form of competition will be a success, it would have been fun if in the future there appeared variants such as "Vättern Big Three" with salmon, trout and char as target species, concludes Fredrik Andersson