Fly Fishing – an Improviser’s Game

In interviews, we’ve often said that improvisation is one of the common denominators between fly fishing and jazz. In fly fishing as in jazz, you have to be able to adjust quickly to the ever-changing conditions and deal with unexpected challenges.

A recent example: Three days ago,  I went up to my cabin in the mountains with my little family.  Before we left, my mother-in-law had made a delicious dinner, and I must admit I ate a bit too much. Slightly intoxicated by the huge amount of food in my stomach, I managed to forget my hip-pack with all the flyboxes, leaders, tippets, etc. To make matters worse, the fish were really active up there, feeding on a good caddis hatch. Good-sized trout were jumping in the air, feasting on emerging caddis pupas.

I had no flies at all, just the rod, line and reel. What to do?

First, I did a thorough search of the cabin. No luck. The closest thing to fishing flies was my nephew’s bait hooks, size 12.

Hmmm. The hooks were about the right size… But no tying materials anywhere. If not… the carpet!

Badabing! I tied a couple of flies on the baithooks, just winding some loose threads from the carpet on to the hook shank.

Did it work? Yes it did. It really worked! Actually, I doubt that I would have caught any more fish with my “real” flies.

Now, what can we learn from this story?

Well, at least two things:

1. Don’t eat too much. It’s bad for you.

2. Trout aren’t always too picky when it comes to flies, as long as the general shape and size is OK. The way you present the fly to the fish is also very important.

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

Today: a Photo of a (fat) Fish

Fredrik, JFF´s own sea trout master, has been to one of his secret seatrout spots around Gothenburg again. He sent us this picture just to make us jealous. Guess what? It´s working, Fred!

And what a beautiful fish! Since he is an accomplished chef, I´m sure he´s already made a tasty meal out of it.

How did you catch it, Fred? What´s your secret? Tell us! Tell us now! Must now! Must…. aarrgghhh…

Fat Freddie

Strong evidence of seatrout near Copenhagen

Even though I’ve been living here in Copenhagen for about three months, I’ve yet to discover it’s fly fishing possibilities. I’ve heard rumours of big seatrout and I’m dying to find out if there is some nearby. Winter time is supposed to be the time for gathering the information and planning the trips…

…but there’s just a couple of obstacles:

1. There’s still ice on most places, so I cannot go and see for myself
2. I don’t know any fly fishers that either live here or have experience of fly fishing near Copenhagen (If you are reading this and identify yourself as one, please drop me a note!).
3. All my gear is still in Finland.
4. I would really need a personal interpreter for searching all that information on the internet since my Danish skills are still on a beginner’s level (At least the fisherman jargon).

To get out from the dark and get at least some information,  I watched the dvd “Havsöringens hemligheter” (The seatrouts sectrets), which is about fly fishing seatrout in Denmark.

According to the dvd (you can see a clip here) there is searout everywhere!!! They have underwater cameras showing big schools of fish streaming the coastline. And stretching my Danish skills to the extreme (and a bit of google translator), I was able to find this Danish fishing blog, which proves at least that the pike is here.

About touring and being sick

Hi!

I´ve been touring with several bands the last month, and had lots of fun. First I did a nice tour with a new band called Somethin´ Else. I went on to play a couple of gigs and record a new album in Stockholm with Jupiter & Jonas Kullhammar, and the recording went really well. I guess the record will come out next year some time. It was a lot of fun to get back with that group, because we´ve been touring a lot and released three albums, so it´s a pretty tight combo.

I´ve also been touring in Norway with the Håvard Stubø Quartet, and the music was really developing as we went along. Exhausting but fun – I guess that pretty much sums up the last month for me. On top of everything, there was at least one person sick with the god damn swine flu in every band all the time. For some reason, I didn´t catch the swine flu, but I managed to catch a nasty, longlasting case of diarrhea instead. Very practical when you´re touring…

The TLQ is working on next year´s plans – we´ve set dates for rehearsals and for recording of our debut full-length album. Actually, we´ll soon meet in Gothenburg to rehearse, and that´s going to be lots of fun, since I haven´t seen the guys since the summer tour ended! We´re also planning tour dates and fishing for next season. We´ll keep you guys posted!

This time, I might just take the guys to some of my really secret places… In return, Joona might show the rest of the band some of his insane curve casts, Fredrik might share some of his incredible seatrout skills, and Tapani might let us in on the deeper secrets of the Super Tinseli. Let´s see.

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