Full moon

The weather was excellent when me and Fredrik decided to go for sea trout fishing after a long break. Light wind from the west and good conditions in the water. A couple of hours of fishing in the evening, and Fredrik’s sinking line and a big shrimp imitation were what the trout liked. He landed two beautiful trout and all I got was a couple of takes and a big wave behing my muddler minnow. When the sun went down the big beautiful full moon rose up, and the lighted up the path to the car. I just love night fishing!

JFF goes Göteborgsvarvet

In order to be in shape for the fishing season me and Fredrik decided to participate in the Göteborgsvarvet, a half marathon running competition in Gothenburg. It’s a big running party with around 50 000-60 000 runners, lots of bands playing by the track and the whole city watching and cheering. The weather forecast is promising warm wearther and sunshine so it will be really hot and sweatty!

My aim is to run under 1 hour 50 minutes, but it will be tough. I’m not sure if I can make it. Fredrik is starting ahead of me, with the “real” runners. His legs are about twice as long as mine and he totally lacks the ability to get tired when he’s moving. When he sits or lies down he can fell asleep in seconds. Power sleeping technique, he says. I remember him mentioning that he must make it to a gig after the running so he must keep up the running tempo. If he finishes at one and a half hours or faster, and he’ll be in time for the gig.

Keep your fingers crossed tomorrow, and all of you in Gothenburg come cheer us up! We are two of the 50 000 similar looking runners out there, you can’t miss us!

JFF lifestyle, part II

Here’s a glimpse of one of the fishing trips me and Fredrik did last week. It was the first week of the sea trout season and despite mostly cold and windy weather we had some nice moments of sunshine. I also got a chance to test my new JFF-camera: it’s a GoPro HD Hero videocamera that is waterproof and very tiny. Easy to carry on wherever you go. The week was not only blue skies and sunshine, and also the darker moments were captured on film. So there’s more to come…

Oh yes, I almost forgot! The music on this video clip is a sneak peek to the material we recorded a few weeks ago. The tune is called “Hatch”, and is one of my compositions for this band. It’s not mixed yet, and I mercilessly faded out from the beginning of Tapani’s wonderful bass solo. Sorry Tap!

JFF-Lifestyle

Me and Joona went to a well known area outside Gothenburg. As we drove to the fishing spot we listened to our new “not-yet-made-CD” in the car. It sounds really hip! Joona also filmed some weird stuff in the car with his brand new super secret camera. He is filming everything (all the time) and since his camera is very small, you cannot see it. I must destroy the content of that camera, otherwise thera will be problems. Hmmm…

Anyway, it was a beautiful day, the first warm spring day this year. We were aiming for the sea trout. We found the sea trout. We caught the sea trout. A NICE sea trout! My biggest so far actually. You see, here along the west coast of Sweden, the trouts in the sea doesn’t get very big. The average size is around, let’s say 37 cm. If you catch one around 50 cm, it is a quite good day. This trout that bit over my fly today had the length of 61 cm! The rod was bent to an o, I was screaming and Joona was (of course) filming. What a day. Later Joona caught a couple of nice trouts.

In the evening I made a nice and easy done fish soup. I have to say that sea trout is one of the best fishes on the dinner table. Some white wine, homemade bread, the soup, jazz music and a bunch of good friends made that evening really nice. It is the JFF-lifestyle.

New fishing season behind the corner

The last few weeks I’ve been feeling quite uncomfortable in my own body. It’s like there’s something crawling inside that keeps me somewhat nervous all the time. My wife calmly noticed that I’ve spent a hell lot of money on fishing literature, gear and DVDs lately. No way I can deny that. -It’s because of the abstinence, I say, and know it’s true.

Tomorrow it is the 1st of April, a big day for most of the fishermen in the west coast of Sweden. That’s when the sea trout season begins and the shores get filled by eager fishermen, ones just like me. Well – it’s just that I won’t be fishing on the 1st of April. It’s like being a kid and celebrating Christmas a bit later than the other kids. I will spend that day at work just like normal people do (apart from those who take a day off on the 1/4). Anyway, from Friday on I’m on vacation for a whole ten days and that might include some fishing…

Here are some happy pictures from last years’ season starts:

Video from our first day of Recording in Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg

Hi everyone!

Here are some more or less random clips from our first day of recording in Studio Epidemin.

Enjoy!

Jazz & Fly Fishing at studio Epidemin – Day 1 from Jazz and Fly Fishing´s Jazzcam on Vimeo.

Spring Depression…

… or maybe you can call it pre-spring depression. Do you recognize the following things:

1. The food doesn’t taste as much as usual. Everything you eat feels like chewing grandmas one week old porridge.

2. You cannot sleep very good, every night you wake up and scream (very loud horrible sounds).

3. When you talk to people you don’t understand anything, all you here is bla bla ice bla ice ice bla bla.

4. You don’t recognize your self when you look into the mirror – instead you see a big grey fish that smiles back at you.

5. The madness is growing, it gets bigger and bigger every second.

Well, do you feel like this? In that case… maybe you should go to the doctor. So should I. The same goes for Håvard, Tapani and Joona.

Anyway, dear folks – We have a problem in Gothenburg! I know that you suffer with us when I tell you what it is about: the ice is still not gone!!! We can’t fish with our fly rods!! It is very bad! Very very bad!

If you take a look at the depression-list again, I have to admit that I lately have experienced number 4! A big grey slimy fish smiles back at me while I’m brushing my teeth. Is this normal?

Now, how shall we solve this “ice-problem”? The first of april we are finally allowed to fish for sea trout again. It is always forbidden during the late autumn, the whole winter and in early spring. That day is the only reason I go up every morning and eat breakfast (not totally true) and now there is a risk that it wont be possible to fish!

In one of the pictures below you see the harbor of Gothenburg. As you can see, there is no ice there but it is only because it’s a big river. In many places where we want to fish it is still 30 cm thick ice! The light is beautiful though…

Some Serious Planning Going On

We had a really good time in Gothenburg this weekend, practicing new music during the day and having endless debates about where we should go for this summer´s big fishing trip during the night. As usual we didn´t sleep much, but I guess we´ve all learned that it´s naive to expect decent amounts of sleep when we´re doing J & FF stuff. The music and the fishing takes about 20 hours every day, and that leaves us 4 hours for travelling, packing and horsing around, which leaves something like minus 3 hours for sleeping.

Enough whining.

After many hours of debates and votes, we managed to narrow our fishing options for this summer´s big trip down to three (of course with a couple of wild cards still in the mix).

After some additional hours of prolonged arguments, considering factors like: the size of the trout/the natural beauty of the area/the number of other anglers/insect hatches/the access to plan B-locations in case the weather sucks/etc. etc., we sort of reached a conclusion, and I can tell you this much: we´re going all-in, trying our luck in an area where no jazz band has been fly fishing before. We´re talking way up north. We´re excited!

These crappy video clips from last summer´s tour, shot with a cellphone, illustrate what the J&FF lifestyle will do to you:

First you become very, very tired:

…and then you totally lose your mind:

Fazioli Party

Yesterday I was at a very nice party. A recording studio in Gothenburg, Studio Epidemin, had a celebration for their new grand piano! The old Steinway has to make room for a beautiful, exclusive Fazioli from Italy. Oh my god what an instrument! Beautifully balanced, wonderful sound and dynamics I’ve hardly ever experienced! The studio was packed with Gothenburg’s pianists and musicians, taking turns in playing the beauty and sipping the champagne!

I’m very excited since I will be recording in that studio soon with the flute/saxophone player Anders Hagberg, and a few weeks later it is time for the Jazz and Fly Fishing/Tight Lines Quartet album recording in that same studio. I can’t wait!

Christmas

Aaaaahh, finally it’s christmas again. Do I like it? Do you like it? Well, both yes and no I guess. I feel that this religious day gets a little bit more hectic every year. This year, the very christmas eve 2009, I decided to skip the family, girlfriend and so on – instead me and David (a perch freak) planned to go 1000 kilometers north with lots of lemonade (!) and food. It sounded like a brilliant idea a couple of months ago. Nothing could go wrong! Yesterday my friend told me that he couldn’t make it anymore. There were some different reasons. Now we are going to my mothers house (she is not at home), 20 kilometers outside the town. Exiting? Very. While the family, my girlfriend and all the other people I know are having a great time, two idiots will go to a lonely house close to Gothenburg. Exiting? Very. Of course, it could have been worse, we are still alive and so on. One big issue though – the ice is here. We can’t fish. Not with our dear fly rods anyway. Maybe the next blog will have the name “ice fishing”. Lets see about that! But we can and will listen to nice music! No christmas tunes allowed, only music!

Last week we had some cosy evenings doing the traditional christmas stuff. For example me, Ingrid (Idas friend) and Ida made a very sweet gingerbread house. Perhaps we overdid it a bit…

By the way, our rehearsal weekend was super nice. The obvious highlight was our late meeting when we decided how to work with the band next year. Håvard was on fire and Joonas bottle with spiced wine was empty. Nice things will happen 2010! Will tell you more about that and our weekend in Gothenburg in a couple of days. But now, to all of you from all of us (?) – I/ we wish you a merry christmas and a chilly time. Håvard, Joona and Tapani do the same. I Can here their voices in my head, slowly whispering (in a unison scary choir) : MERRY CHRISTMAS   M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S    M  E  R  R  Y      C  R  I   S   T   M…