Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 14 June 2019
Long waited guiding day was on Tuesday. Shemeikan kalakerho is again around. This time there was four of them. When I say long waited, I think it is both sides. For me it is always great day to guide them. They are great company and I can fish also little bit. We are always checking new waters with them. For them I think it is kind of start of their week in Kuusamo and real beginning of the ”competition”. Longest fish will win and winner will buy dinner in restaurant to other members of club.
Monday we had short chat about fishing and some details figured out, basicly when and where we start. We knew that it might be chilly day because after hot weekend when we had +32 celsius and bigger fish started to be active the forecast was that it will cool down and be around + 5 celsius with wind from north.
Tuesday morning when I packed the gears it was dropping some hail, snow and water. Air temperature was + 2 celsius. I knew it will be chilly day but I put my hope to sun. Just to have a little sun in some point and game would change. We met at 10 am and drove about 30 minutes (not 45 minutes which is normally time to get somewhere in here). When we arrived to river it was cold and heavy wind from north and some water drops. So everyone put some extra clothes and got ready for fishing.
Guys started to fish and right away they got some graylings around 25 cm which are small ones as you know. We talked about circumstance and all of us knew that bigger ones will behind hard work if at all in that weather. We had long stretch to fish and we were only ones in there. Guys were using nymphs and larva (or is it larvae in english). We went upstream and we found some nice spots were fisherman could get 5-8 graylings in same spot but all of them were around 30 cm. And we were after at least 35 cm which is mininum size for their competition.
In some point I returned to car to pick up my gears and doping (competition drinks, beer etc) for guys. I tied dry fly and started to fish also. I got some graylings quite easily but bigger ones were still missing. We fished slow water, calm water, fast water and everyhting but no sign from bigger ones. Sun came and gone, rain come and gone, only thing which remain was heavy cold wind from north. We decided to return to fireplace and car so I could make lunch for them and we could warm up little bit.
After lunch, which was naanbread filled with reindeer suovas and some vegetables we continued fishing. We were basicly watching when two were fishing and others were laughing about that during the day we had so lot smaller graylings that if someone get strike from bigger one he will probably shit in his waders. And then it happened, during this joking we saw how bigger fish took fly, fisherman got suprised, he holded the fish like it is small one, one jump and it was gone. Tippet was 0.16 mm and we estimated that fish was not huge but nice size grayling around 40 cm. Our joking came true like so many times before. It was time to finish the day, it was 5 pm and in the warmest point it was +6 celsius so club decided to go back to lodge and warm sauna.
During the day we talk lot about how their fishing was 6 years ago when I guided them first time and how they approached fishing on that time. One of club members said that he couldn’t understand why I was talking about releasing graylings over 45 cm or rather over 40 cm. And that they should took only ones they gonna eat when being on the area. In the first years their released fishes with me but when doing by themselves they took everything which were sizeable. Now they take maybe 2-3 fish during the week as using interim measure which is from 35 cm to 42 cm. Bigger ones they are releasing for future. They have seen what it means for rivers when taking care of them. It will reward you. It is not fast solution but during the years it will really reward. We have been fishing smaller rivers with them which are not so much fished by others and they have seen what it means when you keep bigger ones alive.
During that cold chilly day that chat and those thoughts really warmed my heart. Beside guiding this is one of the best things in my ”job”. For them it is not only one day fishing with me, because I give tips and ideas where to fish on coming days. On Wednesday they went on one of those waters which paid off, graylings 45 cm and 46 cm.
Have a nice weekend and take care of your waters
Mika from Finland
