Making Movies: Fly Fishing Short Film Now Online!

Hi!

Since we’re going away now for some ten days fishing in the norwegian tundra, we decided to give you a special treat: A very exclusive fly fishing short movie titled Slow Walking Water.

Håvard Stubø from JFF goes for the big trout of Ransarån in swedish lapland. The movie tries to capture the mood and soundscape of the journey.

This was my first attempt to shoot a short film, and it was basically just a field test for the equipment (Canon 550d/T2i, Beyerdynamic MC 930 pair, JuicedLink, Edirol). I had to be quite heavy with the directing since Håvard was talking all the time and he is supposed to be the only one there in the film…

The soundtrack was done in Copenhagen with a great norwegian guitar player, Magnus Wiik. He first came up with the theme in solo and I built the rest of the sounds and instruments later on top of it.

So there you have it. Fly fishing short movie. No real plot for this time, only mood from the beautiful river.

Any comments and feedback is welcome.

Tapani Toivanen
Jazz & Fly Fishing

Fishing and Filming in Ransarån

Cheerio,

Here’s a quick photoblog from the Ransarån trip, which happened already two weeks ago. We made the trip with Håvard, Terje and myself aiming to catch some beautiful trout and of course, the arctic char.

Besides fishing, it was a very good opportunity to try out the capabilities of the new video gear that we had gotten. I attempted to shoot a short fishing movie with Håvard as the protagonist. It was a bit hard to make it look like he was the only one there, since he’s always talking… But I think I got a few good cinematic seconds here and there. Stay tuned, it will be posted here soon!

As a learning opportunity, the sight fishing there was excellent. We got one full night of incredible sight fishing. I didn’t catch anything, but had something like 15 opportunities on big cruising fish on around 1,5 to 2,5 kg range. Both trout and the arctic char. Håvard got the nice 1,45 kg arctic char in the end. Just looking at those beautiful fish is the best thing!

Here’s the photos from both the stills that we took, and the captures from the upcoming short film:

Restless in Ransarån

Tapani and I just came back from the legendary Ransarån. Terje Storsten, a great bass player/fly fisherman came with us on the trip. The objective of our little expedition was to hunt for the ultimate Nordic trophy fish – the big arctic char.

Ransarån offers excellent fishing for good-sized brown trout and arctic char, but what really sets it apart is the sight fishing conditions. To be able to see the fish in the water while you´re fishing for it makes things very exciting…

PS! Tapani filmed a lot with his Canon DSLR camera and hi-fi audio system on the trip, so you can expect some really cinematic stuff from Ransarån soon…

Finland here we come! Uusikadulla!!! Rajakala!!! Hevonk****!!!

Things happening – mostly Jazz and Fly Fishing

As you may have noticed, we added a Gallery tab to the JFF site. It’s still a bit under construction but there are already over 250 pictures covering last summer’s experiences! We’re also making the site more communicative to visitors and networkers.

These improvements will be just a small step on a way to total Jazz and Fly Fishing world domination. In a couple of weeks we’ll be recording an album in one of Sweden’s finest studios and we already scheduled most of summer for some prime fishing trips; This summer we’re going to fish in some of the most exotic remote locations where no jazz band has ever fished before.

Reading Håvards last post about fishing wild arctic char at Ransarån got me really thinking about fishing, summer and good times. Here’s some feelings from finnish midsummer from two years back:

Spring fishing in Ransarån

Vegard Veberg from the Norwegian magazine Jakt & Fiske came with me to the spectacular lower Ransarån in late May 2009. He wrote an excellent article about our adventures , and it was published in the latest issue of Jakt & Fiske. You can se a preview on their website: http://jaktogfiske.net/id/1804.0

PS! Tapani and yours truly are going there in early June this year, and I´m really looking forward to that trip! The fishing there is pretty tricky and very exciting – sight-fishing in crystal clear water with big arctic char and trout cruising along the banks. Poor Joona and Fredrik are busy with other stuff, and cannot make it. I guess they´re kind of jealous…  Mohahahahhahahahahah! Mohahahahah! Mohahahahhahaha!

Ransarån is just one of the interesting waters in the Kultsjödalen area. Satsån, Vojmån, Kultsjöån, Saxån and the Stekkenjokk plateau are other places where it´s well worth spending a week or two.

You can check out Ransarån and the Kultsjödalen area here: www.kultsjogarden.se/index.php

Ransarån

Bodybuilding

Yes!

We´re  working hard on the plans for 2010/2011 at the moment.

Jazzwise, we have several interesting projects going on. Firstly, the recording of our first full-length album is coming up pretty soon. We´ve changed the reportoire a bit, and added some strong, new tunes by Fred and J-man. We´re also planning some tours at the moment – more on that later.

Fishingwise, we´re planning a trip to the spectacular lower Ransarån in early June. This river has some of the best road-near sightfishing for arctic char and brown trout in Scandinavia, and being a tailwater, the fishing starts early for a Lapland water, sometimes as early as late March (probably not this year, though – it´s been too damn cold).  We´re also planning a return to the beautiful Finnish koskis in June, and I´m really looking forward to that one – the style of fishing there is different from anything I´ve tried before: fast pocket-waters with surprisingly big trout – fishing with tiny dries in the middle of the night.  We´re also planning a serious wilderness trip somewhere above the arctic circle this summer. Only problem is that there are so many exciting waters to visit, and so little time… Life is definitely too short – and the sub-arctic summers are definitely way too short!

I´ve also joined a gym recently. Twice a week, you´ll find me sweating my ass off in a crammed, smelly bunker – and paying good money for it, too! The civilized world is a strange place…

Anyway – 2010 and 2011 is gonna be exciting, and we´ll keep you guys posted!

Catch you later -

H.

The JFF High Life

The tent woke us up automatically after the temperature in the morning sunshine reached 55C. It was good to take a morning swim in the river although the water was way too cold. Finally, we had the time to do some serious fishing without too much hurry. Did we catch anything? Yes we did.

On the last days eve in the tundra we had a concert and a fish feast at the base camp. We weren’t expecting any audience, but something nice happened, you’ll hear about it later.

Ransarån

This area holds some beautiful fishing waters that all have more or less the same name: Ransan, Ransaran, Ransarån, Ransaren…  We took the boat at lower Ransarån  to get across the lake Ransan. Our target was to go to the river-mouth of the upper Ransarån and hike upstream to find a good camping spot.

Taking the easy way across the lake

It was a very nice hike by the reindeer trail. Looking at the pools and streams our anticipation for the fishing was quickly building. Fredrik took the time to pick up some mushrooms. We ate them.

Håvard doing the Bear Song

The border of Sweden and Norway is amazing when it comes to scenic views and good fishing. The upper Ransarån is a versatile river in a bigger water system. The wildlife here is still very abundant, and during the boat trip I heard some stories of encounters with the bear. Since the area is one of the most densely populated bear territories in northern scandinavia, the stories were not hard for me to believe. But we weren’t here for the bear. I had a feeling we could easily spend two weeks exploring these waters and finding the best holding spots for the trout.

Fredrik's trout

As the sun went down, we were ready. And when it comes to fishing, night is the time when things really start cooking.

Saxnäs, Sweden

We arrived in Saxnäs. Before heading off to the Ransarån river we had a special gig in a fishing shop. The fishing shop in Kultsjögården was a real treat after a long drive. They served excellent coffee and food right next to the fishing gear.

Relaxin'

The concert was soon to start when we realized that we would have to do some improvising; we didn’t have neither a drum set or a working guitar amp. Håvard used an acoustic guitar and Fredrik made the drum kit using Trangia pots and parts of the furniture. Still, we felt at home. Probably because we have had so much practice with odd setups while jamming in the car. The audience seemed to like it after-all.

Jazzin'

After the concert it was once again time to blow up the contents of the JFF-car on the parking lot and re-packing most of it in our backpacks for the next day’s hike. With the amount of equipment, personal clothing and all the food, it usually takes 3-4 hours to get it done. I wouldn’t call it exactly army style, but somehow we managed to divide 160kg of stuff between the four of us. The rain that started in the middle of it didn’t help at all, but since the forecast for the next day’s expedition was looking good, we maintained a “cautiously optimistic” mood.

Packin'

Flyin'

More coming soon§

Here are some very exclusive pics from our latest wilderness adventure. We are now pretty beaten and in a hurry to  the next gig. More text and pictures about what REALLY happened are coming soon.