The Mountains Of Northern Sweden - Season 2012

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/6.5, 1/160s, Iso 100

Long and cold winter was finally over and summer had arrived also to Lapland..
..or at least it should have arrived! Fishing conditions were poor.

The weather was really cold and water was flooding all over. But we had reserved this week for our trip to north, so we wanted to stick to our plans.

In the morning we started to drive towards north with father in law and Aleksi. Weather was rainy and cold as we arrived to Kiruna.

We had booked a copter flight to mountains. For all of us this was the first helicopter flight ever, cool!
We were wrestling and fighting for the seat to front, to enjoy the great views along flight. After a moment I climbed to the front seat ;)

A dangerous combination?

As I was getting cozy with the seat, suddenly my heart skipped a beat. I noticed that we had a WOMAN pilot. So I suggested to her if I could drive us to the destination.. For some reason she didn't give me permission to do that. Gladly she was an experienced pilot and we got to our destination smoothly.

We arrived to our destination. It was raining and there were millions of moskitos in the air. Well, this is what we had paid for! We quickly found a nice camp and we put up our tents. In this point me and Aleksi were both in hurry to get to fish... In our minds we could already see big graylings rushing to middle stream.

Alexandra and fish on!

Because Aleksi was a first timer in the mountains, he got the chance to start the fishing. Water was extremely high, easily over a meter. It felt quite stupid to stand in middle of trees and fish spots where usually you would be walking. Pro fisher Aleksi knew the tricks and in no time he had the first fish of the trip on!

Pro fisher

Canon 5D MK II, 70mm, f/3.5, 1/250s, Iso 100
Alexandra's grayling

The first day was heading to its end and night was upon us and after few drinks boys were all ready to go sleep in tents. Even thought the weather wasn't as we had wished, it was really nice to get to relax in the mountains. This was the most important reason why we even came here, to relax.

- Our top chef - 

In the morning our top chef was ready with his breakfast, trout and grayling, not bad at all!
Weather was looking great, sun was shining and it was looking clear, promising morning.

R. D. Taylor Bamboo Fly Rod  &  Mohlin Of Sweden Reel

For long I had been dreaming of the moment, when I got to battle fishes with my new bamboo rod. I got a matching reel for it and what would be more beautiful than Mohlin of Sweden?

"Probably the finest hand made reels in the world"

Check Mohlin's home page HERE.

Also graylings love bamboo rods!

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/9, 1/60s, Iso 100

We fished four full days in the mountains and we got to experience great moments. Distances to different places were long and we walked everyday about 10km. Fishing was really challenging because of the big flood, but we managed to get beautiful graylings, trouts and whitefishes, biggest of them being around 48cm.

We enjoyed the best moments on the days, when we hiked to a lake. We fished, swam and ate in magnificent views, far away from colonization. Our dream was to hook a big arctic char, but unfortunately this time we weren't able to hook any. Here is few photos from our trip, enjoy!

The lake

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/ 7.1, 1/125s, Iso 100
Aleksandra and the view

Father in law, Juhani

Jokkeri

Canon 5D MK II, 24mm, f/ 7.1, 1/125s, Iso 100
Joni and the view

Eat, sleep and fish!

Thank you Juhani, Jouko and Aleksi for the fun trip to wilderness!

Next year new tricks and trips await for us.
Remember to fishing and keep the fly lines tight ;)

- J. Inkinen -