Ok, so now that it’s been a while already and all the impressions have begun to sink in, I guess I owe the forum a trip report. Not the least due to all the great advice I got in my planning thread! Please bear with me – this is the longest trip I’ve ever done, and I took more pictures than I ever did, so please forgive me if I overwhelm the report with.. well, text and pics!
Part I – Shaking off Work
So, this is the story of how I was airlifted by helicopter out into trail-less country, where no humans venture and you are no longer the apex predator, with no greater goal than the thrill of feeling the tug on a line with a fish on the end of it. I had never caught a char before, so my idea was to go up north where roads are no more, to hunt for the Greta Garbo of the North as they are called.
I had had to work basically until midnight to finish everything up before my big trip, since I would be completely out of touch for a week. Getting up at 02:30 hrs to catch the 04:45 flight from Tbilisi that would take me to Warsaw and the connection to Stockholm wasn’t the easiest, especially since my head was still spinning with work stuff. Luckily I had packed two days before though. Once I’d checked in my backpack I felt more at ease, especially since it turned out every leg was delayed, including the onward flight from Stockholm to Kiruna..
Delays aren’t all evil though. They do allow for contemplation.
I landed in Kiruna about 45 mins behind schedule, and standing in the arrival hall was a young guy with a paper that had my name on it. We got in their minibus and drove into town, where I bought some groceries and stopped by the liquor store. I brought 14 little friends with me, and half of a Scotsman as well - figured they're always good-humoured. When I was done I sat in the sun waiting for the bus to come back. The summer sun in Scandinavia is something very special, and has to be experienced to understand what it means (although I acknowledge that it probably mostly feels that way because there's precious little of it in a year..). This was my first time this far north, but still in the afternoon it felt much like back home. It’s a slow-cooking sun, and you can spend waaay too much time in it before noticing that you’ve spent waaay too much time in it..
A couple of days before I’d arrived, the region had been encapsulated in a heat wave thanks to a high pressure that had parked itself over the Kola peninsula. This meant upwards of 30 degrees, together with that midnight sun. Sitting there waiting, I enjoyed its warmth and just soaked up all the rays I could. Little did I think about the fact that there are other life forms that thrive in these kinds of conditions though…
Once at the lodge, I re-packed a few things that I had in the hand luggage, and after shaking hands with the people I’d corresponded over email with, the young guy brought me to a helipad from where I was departing into the wild. By the description of the those people the site I was going to was not the most remote in the world, but the terrain was rough enough that nobody was stupid enough to walk there.. “You’re more likely to run into bears up there than people..” one of them said with the wry accent of northernmost Swedes.. It took him about thirty seconds of silence to add "but they're more afraid of us than we are of them". Out at the helipad, the chopper arrived carrying a group of guys almost from my neck of the woods, and by the looks of it they’d had a great time. Everything was looking more promising by the minute, except for the small fact that chars really don’t like warmth. Let alone heat.. I put that aside as I prepared myself for the ride, and when we took off I thought of little else but the landscape that spread out in front, to the sides, and behind of us. Everywhere one turned there were just miles upon miles of forest, hills, rivers and lakes..
My ride
After what seemed like a much too short ride, the chopper landed next to a lake which would be “my” lake for a week. He was looking around for a spot, and asked “do you think you’ll be able to pitch a tent there?” and obviously my response was “Don’t worry about that – I sleep in a hammock, all I need is two trees!” Not sure how he deemed the site suitable for landing, because there was nothing but moss, rocks and vegetation around. But he seated it firmly and got out to help me unload. In a matter of seconds, the chopper was off again, its flap-flap-flapping disappearing just as fast as the image of it in the distance. Then silence.
I looked around me, and found it hard to believe that a few hours ago, I had submitted the last draft of a report that I would be able to touch for at least a week. And now I was here. Absolutely nowhere. The only sign of people was a couple of set fireplaces near the lake. Otherwise only silence. Deafening silence. Until all at once, I noticed it actually sounded like I was sitting next to the Autobahn ring around Berlin in the afternoon rush hour. Desperately digging out my bug net, I had only now noticed the cloud of mosquitoes and black flies that were humming around my head. I recalled that the guys at the lodge had also said that the heat wave brought with it a massive hatch of these little critters..
I gathered my composure, and started eyeing the location for trees. Turns out, this would be one of the more challenging parts of the trip. I was pretty much in the middle of a birch forest, but up here the birch grow small and twisted, and every tree I saw was less than a dm thick. I found a couple of trees that had perfect distance, but as I strung the hammock up, they just bent right over from the weight. I went bushwhacking trying to locate some more suitable, but of course I was picky too – I had imagined hanging in the hammock and seeing the fish hunt for whatever bugs was on the menu, and getting up with my rod to do some hunting of my own.. After a couple of tries, I found two trees that at least wouldn’t bend, but that were somewhat devoid of a view.
Well.. devoid.. how picky can you get?!
It was already getting fairly late, and I hadn’t eaten anything proper since the burger at Stockholm airport. At the supermarket in town, I’d bought some kebab sticks for grilling that first night, so I went about and made a fire and grilled them.
As I wolfed them down, I looked at my watch – 23:00.. and it was bright daylight. I had had no idea how long it had taken to set up camp, and my original plan of “flying out, setting up, having dinner and a nap, then fish” had kind of gotten spoiled. Back at the lodge I’d discussed the heat with the guys, and they said that fishermen in these conditions face a dilemma: the best time for fishing is also the only time it’s possible to get any sleep, since the tents heat up like saunas in the sun. I had with not a little satisfaction pointed out the fact that in my hammock, I am bound to face no such dilemmas, but can easily spend the golden hours of fishing doing just that – fishing! With food in my stomach, I was about ready to do what I’d travelled 4,150 km for. Yeah, you guessed it – FISHING!
From my vantage point, I didn’t see much surface activity, so I tried some nymphs and even a streamer. I thought that given the conditions, this might be a bit tricky. Then I heard the splashes. They were fairly concentrated in one location of the lake. I made my way over there, and homed in on the area of activity. It was a little cove where a peninsula stretched out, so I made my way out that peninsula and from there I was able to cover the whole hot spot. A couple of bushes were growing, but most of it was rock and moss, so perfect casting conditions too. Not even I would fail here! Until I did.. Mosquito pupae, hare’s ear nymphs, streamers.. totally uninteresting to the fish that was clearly eating something. Then I figured, there’s no wind. They’re feeding on something in the surface, albeit sporadically. Why not try one of the more spectacular ways of fly fishing: streaking caddis! I saw some moderately-sized caddis that were pretty dark brown, and the best match in my fly box was a Goddard Caddis that I’d tied myself in the beginning of my fly fishing career. And it looked accordingly.. but as I dragged it in the surface and had it make a little plow in the water, clearly someone got interested, because I suddenly saw a head come up and a sharp tug on the line! I missed setting the hook though, but cursing I also figured that I found out what worked, so now it should be only a matter of time.. and indeed it was. Only a couple of casts later, another trout went up and feasted on that caddis imitation, and this time the hook set! Oh, what a fight! It went to and fro, and the rod was bending from its tugs, and when I got it closer I saw it was a char! My first ever! Then I got nervous that I would lose it. He had a few rushes left in him, but after a couple more minutes I was able to bring him into shallow water and pick him up. Since it had a decent size, and it was my first, I decided to keep it for dinner next day.
Usually when I catch a fish after a loooong break from fishing, it feels like such a success that I’m sort of overwhelmed and feel so satisfied with life that I don’t fish much more. Especially since I had already accomplished what I set out to do I got the same feeling this time, but decided to go on as I after all was on a fishing trip that would last a week.. It didn’t take very long until I had another strike. This one made one powerful rush into the rocks, almost tearing the rod out of my hands, and then I was standing there with a sloppy line and dumb look on my face. The leader had been torn off against the rock, and that fish was obviously at LEAST twice the size! :-D I mended the leader and tied another Goddard Caddis on to try to see if the Big One would take again. After a while I had a take, and after ten minutes of real fighting, I could land a larger fish than the first one. I decided to keep this one as well, as I wanted to properly document what almost could be a trophy fish. It would turn out to be a mistake, but unknowingly I headed back to the hammock with two fish and a huge grin on my face.
I’d been travelling since 02:30 the day before, and now it was around 04:00, and it had all seemed like one long day. Actually a short day, because of all that had happened. But now I was finally heading to my trusty hammock for some shut-eye. It was bright daylight, and around 25 degrees, but I figured my organism was ready for it. I woke about six hours later, turned around and fell asleep again.
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before they have fun without you 
Originally Posted by Floridahanger
I'm very glad you enjoy it. I did try my hands at some video, but I'm not sure any of it came out 'publishing-worthy'. I have to look at it more closely though. 
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