Picture gallery from the north

Here are some pictures from one of the recent Jazz and Fly Fishing trips. Let’s start with the introduction:

Fly Fishing in the Nuclear Zone

Håvard goes fishing in a secret area in Northern Norway known as “The Zone”. For years, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and the Norwegian government have been conducting secret weapons tests in the area, wiping out all animal life except the aquatic insects and the fish. As a consequence, the fish grow to enormous size. But if you want to experience this bonanza, you have to be prepared to pay the ultimate price…

Back in town

We came home two days ago. It feels kind of strange to be in a city again after the latest adventure. Since it never gets dark up there, we hardly got any sleep at all. Instead we had this strange and fantastic flow of fishing, filming, eating and laughing.

Some weird things happened, more about that will be showed later in the blog. Did we get any fish? Yes, we did. Did we loose any fish? Yes we did. Joona will tell you more about that. Here are some pics from the trip. Soon we’ll put up both beautiful and ugly movies, just wait and see! /Fredrik

Håvard casting

Alone on the mountain

Take a closer look!

Nice trout

Håvard enjoys something

Magic light of northern Scandinavia

Magic light 2

On the meny

At the fire place

Why is Tap smiling?

Our producer made some casts...

Tapani was very happy.

Beautiful Norway

Håvard vs the Volcano

Tomorrow, I was supposed to go on tour in Russia and the Ukraine with my own band, the Håvard Stubø Quartet, but now it seems like it´s all gonna be canceled. God damn it.

The reason is of course the volcano Eyjafjallajökull on Iceland, which is currently spewing out an enormous cloud of ashes all over northern Europe, grounding all air traffic in Norway, Denmark, the UK, western Russia, etc.

Tapani was supposed to come, too, he´s sitting in for the band´s regular bass player, Torbjörn Zetterberg. We were really looking forward to the trip – I´ve never been to Russia or the Ukraine before, and was very excited about going there.

There might still be some hope of making the tour, or at least making the Ukraine part of it happen. Let´s see. Seems like it will take a major shift in the weather or a pause in the eruption to make flying possible…

Well, here´s some video from the bloody volcano:

And these local guys are taking it with a (slightly uncomfortable) smile:

Oulu, Elojazz

We had a very nice concert in Elojazz with a featuring sax player Antti Hynninen. He has recently released an excellent album with his group Auteur Jazz. It just so happened that Antti is also an established fly fisherman, so he decided to join us for the trip to Norway’s Varangerfest. We all thought that it was important to make Antti feel comfortable with the Tight Lines Quartet, so soon after the concert we decided to give him a crash course of the ways of the JFF. After many hours of driving, jamming and inside jokes we finally set up the tent at the beautiful lake Inari. While glaring at the silent wilderness, he began to understand.

You’ll hear Antti’s own music here.

The Elojazz Concert

Antti and Håvard Interplay

Getting Into the Mood

Some pics from my test fishing in Upper Itchen

Really looking forward to starting the tour now!

As the guys said earlier, I have been test fishing for about a month now, covering lots of exciting, new spots in Northern Norway and Sweden. And I’m very happy to report that I’ve stumbled upon quite a few hidden pearls… These pics are all from a fantastic little river (almost a creek, really) called “*********”.

Although it is located well above the arctic circle, it looks a bit like the famous chalk streams in Southern England – Itchen, Avon, Test – where the noble art of fly fishing was pioneered and developed by guys like Halford, Marryat, Skues, Sawyer and Kite (my heroes).

This wonderful little river, with its strong population of surprisingly big, wild brown trout (the biggest caught during my test fishing was 1,8 kg,  and way bigger fish have been caught by others recently),  is a well kept secret, known only to a few die-hard anglers.

Let’s just call it Upper Itchen for now;)

Fishing the Upper Itchen

The test fishing there has been consistently strong, and last friday the mayfly hatches were really starting to move along, and the fish were feeding heavily on newly hatched duns.These pictures were shot by R. B. on one of my first test fishing trips in early June, and the fish fell to small, black dry flies. The river looks even more appealing now – summer has come to the north during the last few days and brought sparkling green vegetation with lots of flowers along the banks – and, more importantly, lots of big mayflies! I’ll add some more recent photos soon.

Nice trout from Upper Itchen

Big fish rising in Upper Itchen

A typical trout from the Upper Itchen. Beautiful!

Into a good one

Trying a parachute cast for a difficult fish

I can’t wait to get going!

Joona and Fredrik have come up with a couple of cool tunes, so now I’m practising my butt off, trying to get prepped for the first gig.

See ya soon -

Håvard