I'm awestruck, looking down at my reel I see the backing pouring out
from it,
- this remote mountain stream obviously holds both surprises and other
secrets.

It is the second week of August and only less than an hour ago the last
helicopter landed and the two remaining members of the clave
disembarked and started unpacking their gear. Being in the first
helicopter, of three, and not too interested at starting to cook dinner
already, like some of the others, I just pitch my tent and then inflate
my float tube to try the flat water in front of where we set up camp.

The scenery is amazing, with no less than 6 glaciers and several
mountains close to 2000 meters in height in the vicinity. Vaughan Hurry
was to mention, later in the week, that we have had some luck with the
sceneries in picking places for the Swedish Lapland claves. We are way
north of the Arctic Circle by the way, something that is a first for
the Lapland clave.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/midnight.jpg

I desperately needed this week, with all the uncertainty surrounding my
job situation it has been a stressful spring and summer. Instead of
loosing my job, like so many others in the company that I work for, I
now work with other tasks but, alas, still for the same company.

The creek, and NO! I will not go public with the name since other
Swedes are bound to read this newsgroup, isn't all that big but it is
extremely deep in its pools and flat waters. The water is crystal clear
and somewhat greenish in colour, I guess the latter comes from the fact
that we are in an area with glaciers. Jerome Philipon figured that the
little stream must once have been part of a glacier itself, something
that might explain the almost unbelievable depth of some of the pools
and flat waters. There is little or no vegetation in the water and
mostly only mountain birch in the surroundings.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/first_pool.jpg

To walk the stream up to the lake where it starts takes little more
than an hour and to walk the stream down to the next lake, not counting
the flat waters, would take days. With a number of char lakes a couple
kilometres to the north, and 400 meters uphill, we had more fishing
water available than we could possibly fish in a weeks stay, even
considering that we have no real darkness during the nights this time
of year and this far north.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/lake_pool.jpg

The species that we were fishing for were Brown trout and Arctic char.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/lake.jpg

That first fish was to set the standard for the week to come. All in
all I'm guessing that the entire team caught approximately 50 fish at
18 inches and upward, reaching an all time high in the number of really
big fish caught during a Lapland clave. It also set the guidelines for
tippet size. I had, me alone, six tippet breaks with breaking strain at
lb14, and no! those were not knots that broke, they were clean breaks.
Although I'm guessing that the rocky bottom might have had some
negative impact on the tippets, there still were some amazingly big
fish in the creek. At least one of the fish that I lost I guess would
have surpassed lb8, Fredrik Östman, who was with me, stated "I would
have loved to see that fish". All I can say is that it felt more like
a salmon than a trout. As it was, the biggest char of the week,
Jean-Marie Malsacre's, was close to 22 inches and the biggest trout
approximately the same size, and with several reaching the almost same
size. Sadly, we just weren't able to land the really big ones. The
first fish also showed how incredibly deep the flat water was, with the
line going vertically downwards and the backing already out, it was
evidently very deep.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/rapid.jpg

Such was the behaviour of the big char, that they went straight for the
bottom, and although some of the trout behaved in a similar manner,
they tended to be more aggressive and moving sideways a lot more.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/Vaughan.jpg

What can I tell you more? Well we were only seven of us this year,
partly my fault as I didn't want to arrange anything big with the
ongoing turbulence in my own life. Participants came from England,
France, Finland and Sweden.
Jean-Marie (France) had brought a 40 year old Cognac with him and there
was also a fair sample of different single malts available. We had our
traditional fish dinner on the last night, and I'm happy that we
could keep that tradition. I think I may have influenced Jarmo Hurri to
get a splitcane rod, he liked my Garrison 212E replica and was
inquiring about price and where to get one. We had quite a lot of
insects going, Tanned caddis, black caddis, bwo, feather mosquitoes,
etc. Not many ordinary mosquitoes, but gnats and no-see-'ems to be
enough for ten trips.

http://www.imsoc.se/angler/roff/ptarmigan.jpg

Conclusion: We are going back next year ;-)
Sorry that I can't post more pictures. Don't want the place to become
too well known.

BR/ Roger Ohlund
For info on fly-fishing in northern Sweden, Lapland, please visit
http://www.imsoc.se/angler/