TR: Sea-run charr (*super* long, w/ pictures)

_Participants_

Henkka
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...004/henkka.jpg

Joni
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000120.jpg

Tero
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...-2004/tero.jpg

Vesku
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...2004/vesku.jpg

Jarmo

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000110.jpg

_Place_

Janis Petkeselva, Norway (this isn't the real name of the river - if
you're a true roffian and interested in visiting the place, let me
know)

_Date_

10.-21.8.

_Going up_

I spent the week before this trip in the Swedish clave. I'm not going
to write long stories about that trip, but I'll summarize by saying
that the team was excellent and the river was gorgeous. It just might
be the case that we are already planning another trip there in the
very near future. :-) Here are some pictures from the Swedish clave:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...-2004/osmo.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...d-grayling.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...04/chopper.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...lave-river.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...2004/trout.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...004/thomas.jpg
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...-2004/erik.jpg

I had to visit home before leaving for the sea-run charr fishing
trip. The drive up north from southern Finland to the river was a
healthy stretch, something a bit over 1500km. We didn't really have a
rigid plan when we started our drive, and while we were on our way we
decided to fish a Swedish river for a couple of days. We didn't really
catch anything there (I guess the water was too warm), but we still
had some nice days:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000090.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000094.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000097.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000099.jpg

After the two days in Sweden we headed up north again, to river Teno,
which is by far the biggest salmon river in continental Europe. It
runs along the border of Finland and Norway, which is the only reason
why it is not harnessed yet. Teno is the most productive salmon river
(in terms of number of offspring produced) in continental Europe. This
river is definitely *the* source of Finnish fishing legends.

The number of fish entering Teno to spawn has a cycle of seven years
(IIRC), and this year we're at the bottom of this cycle. Fishing
reports from the river had been pretty depressive, but for some of us
(not me, I'm not really a salmon fisher) it is a place of pilgrimage,
and others (me) just went along. Anyway, we fished Teno for three days
and caught nothing. Here are some photos - as you may notice a
two-handed rod is not an overkill on this river:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000121.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000123.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000127.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000130.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000131.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000135.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000145.jpg

After they guys had had their religious experience of the year, we
headed for our final destination. That involved a bit more driving and
a hike on top of that. Upon our arrival, on Saturday evening, we set
up our camp:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000170.jpg

After we had pitched our tent it immediately started raining and we
headed to the river to find the fish.

_The first fish_

I had never fished for charr before, neither non-migratory nor
sea-run. (Well, I had tried to find some a couple of times but had
failed miserably.) Based upon the stories I had read and heard there
was supposed to be *a lot* of charr in this river, but I really didn't
know what to expect fishing-wise. We went into separate directions; I
walked down from our camp in a pretty heavy rain. The river seemed to
be fairly low - it had been a dry summer. We later heard that the
water level was 15cm below the average level for this time of the
summer.

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...2004/river.jpg

I found a stretch of calmer water, tied a small flashback nymph at the
end of the line, and fished it in a down and across -manner. A lot of
small fish were striking the fly, and I released a couple of salmon
parr. There were huge numbers of them in the shallow parts of the
river - talk about a healthy salmon population.

It still rained hard, and I stood there on the bank for a while just
looking at the river and wondering what to try next and
where. Suddenly I noticed a fish just cruising just next to the bank,
not more than one meter from me. What a gorgeous fish! I could see the
colors of the fish very well, its green back, sides of its red belly,
and the white edge of its fins. A charr, yes indeed, maybe 30cm, maybe
35. I cautiously cast my fly in front of the fish, but it wasn't
interested. I stayed in that same spot for a while, casting, but only
got strikes from those small parr. After exploring a bit of the river
downwards, with no results, I headed back to our camping place.

The rain ended, and it started to get darker. Not dark though, since
we were well into the land of the midnight sun. Even though it was
almost the end of August, there was enough light around 24 hours a
day. Well, unless you were wearing sunglasses during the darkest
hours, but I'll return to that later.

No-one had caught any fish at this point. We stood around our camp for
a while, speculating and also exchanging some ideas with two Finnish
fishermen who had already been there for a couple of days. They said
that they had caught fish during the nights, even a 4.5kg salmon. They
didn't really brag about their charr catch. The older guy seemed very
nice - btw, he fished a two-handed bamboo rod he had gotten as a
birthday present.

After the speculation session Joni was feeling very tired so he went
to sleep, Tero headed somewhere upstream and three of us stayed near
the camp at a spot where there was also a fairly big deeper pool. We
were fishing the locations near the camp somewhat lazily, when at some
point things started happening at the pool. I don't really remember
who got the first fish - I *think* it was me. In any case, it now
became obvious that there in fact were a lot of charr in the river, as
expected.

The charr fight back with all they've got. They fight hard, and they
just don't give up. I mean, after you think that you've been able to
fight a fish to exhaustion, bring it close for a landing or a release,
and he starts running all over the place again. Even the smaller
fish. They also jump a lot. During this first night I think I lost my
biggest fish because immediately after taking the fly it jumped twice
and broke my 2x leader, probably by taking it over a sharp rock.

There were a large number of charr in the pool, and we were hungry. At
one point there was even a bit of disagreement over who got to fish
where, and I was involved in this - I was the incumbent, not the
competitor - which I am shamed to admit. After we all found good
positions, the three of us were catching a lot of charr. There were
several occasions when all of us had a charr at the other end of the
line.

What a bonanza, could perhaps have even been a bit too much at some
point, but we had been waiting for this for a *long* time. The fish
were mostly of size 25-40cm, not big, but not too bad either. In fact,
quite nice on the 4wt I was using. The fish took wets and nymphs on
the swing. The limit was 35cm, and the daily bag quota was something
ridiculous, 10 or 15 fish per person. We took five fish for breakfast:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000153.jpg

At one point we tried to wake up Joni so that he could share the
experience, but he was too tired.

After a couple of hours we stopped fishing although we were still
catching fish. I guess it was somewhere around 4am. We cleaned the
five fish and went to sleep. We were at once in the right daily
rhythm.

_The bigger fish_

The next day started with a mouth-watering breakfast:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi.../breakfast.jpg

Fried charr, what a delicacy! Many people consider charr to be the
best food fish there is, and I sure don't disagree strongly. We
enjoyed the breakfast and discussed last night. We found out that
Tero, despite of having fished the whole night, had not landed any
fish. The other two Finnish fishermen had caught one small salmon.

The weather was very nice. Some clouds in the sky but still
warm. Actually, the weather stayed pretty much remained dry during our
stay. This was a nice surprise - weather conditions can be terrible
and change quickly when you're this close to the Arctic ocean.

The water in the river was crystal clear, but during the first evening
we had been unable to see underwater, first because of the rain and
then because of the night. But now the clear and sunny weather gave us
a chance to take a look under the surface. And it was quite a sight.

From the cliffs above the river, we were able to see lots of fish in
the water, both salmon and charr. Near our camp, the salmon were
resting in a deep pool below a small waterfall, waiting for a suitable
time to head upwards again. There were maybe half a dozen salmon in
this pool. Tero, who was the most experienced salmon fisherman in our
group, estimated that the size of the biggest fish was something like
10-12kg. Naturally the guys offered every possible fly to this fish,
but to no avail.

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...ht-fishing.jpg

Above this pool was another deep pool with a back eddy. This was
populated by a large number of charr, something like 50 fish. The
biggest ones were deep and closest to the main stream (thinking in
terms of the current created by the eddy, their positions were
farthest downstream). I later found that this spot was too difficult
to fish for me.

After helping the guys make a sufficient number of desperate attempts
at the big salmon - by observing where the fly went and what the
salmon did - I started to look for some charr action again. I walked
downstream, to the same places I had visited on the previous night,
only to confirm that over there it was probably too shallow and the
current was too slow. I returned back to the nice pools near our
camp. I actually fished almost exclusively these pools for the rest of
our trip. The guys wandered upstream and downstream, in search of good
salmon runs and active salmon, but after their explorations we
concluded that the best charr pools were probably right where our camp
was. And I had decided to focus on charr.

There was no surface action, so I started the fishing with similar
nymphs as on the previous night. I caught some fish in the same spots
as on the previous night

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...-2004/spot.jpg

but the fish were fairly small and there weren't so many of
them. After a while I decided to try nymph fishing with a sink-tip
line. I was standing next to a longer medium-deep pool, where I could
see a lot of small charr and an occasional bigger one cruising by. The
charr did not seem particularly interested in what I had to offer.

I had just changed a #10 bead-headed Red Tag at the end of my line
when I noticed that a larger, brighter fish swam up to the spot where
I was standing and stopped no more than 5 feet from me. I cast the fly
a bit upstream, waited until it was in front of the fish, and made a
lift à la Leisenring. Bam, fish on! My first thought "hey, this is
cool" was quickly replaced by "hey, I'm in trouble", since a) I had
just changed to a Loop Nymph reel, which has no drag b) the fish could
have easily swam downstream to the next pool and c) I could not have
moved after him.

The fight started better than I had expected. This was my first bigger
fish on this reel; the reel seemed to work just fine. The spool
overrun avoidance mechanism offered a bit of resistance, and palming
did the rest. However, after a quick battle I felt a "ping", and the
fly hang empty in the air. Not properly hooked, I guess. The fish was
probably a small salmon or a sea trout. It was interesting to note
that while the other salmon in the pool were uninterested in anything
we had offered them, this active fish, which had just moved into the
pool, had immediately taken a fly. Was it perhaps establishing a
territory for itself? The rest of the day I fished on and off, hooking
a small charr every now and then, but mostly started saving energy for
the night.

In the evening four of us - all excluding Tero, who was focusing on
salmon - gathered around the same pool where we had had the bonanza on
the previous night. But the action did not really start this time; we
only caught a couple of smaller charr. After a while the other guys
headed to other spots in search of salmon. I decided to stay and wait
if the charr would turn up later.

I took the spot where I had caught my biggest fish on the previous
night. From this spot I was able to cast to the tail of the pool
(which you can see in the previous picture above). At around 1:30am
things started happening. The fish were feeding exactly at the tail,
just on the neck of the rapids. I released a large number of fish, and
landed a few, already thinking of another breakfast in the next
morning. My flashback nymphs had been eaten to shreds by now, and I
started using pheasant tails nymphs instead. They seemed to work just
as well.

After something like 45 minutes of really nice fishing I saw a bigger
swirl in the middle of the neck. In hope of a bigger fish I started
casting my 4wt DT line there. I hooked a couple of standard-sized
charr first, hoping that one of these was not "the bigger fish", and
that landing them had not scared anyone away from the pool. After
something like a dozen casts I had a more substantial strike. This was
the larger fish. I knew that there were 2-3kg charr in this river.

I was using a 4wt rod, a Loop Evotec LW 4seven reel, and my tippet was
2x. The Evotec LW has a nice and smooth drag; when I bought it, I
was thinking of the possibility of using the gear to land an
occasional smaller salmon.

The fish started running around the pool. I would not have been able
to salvage the situation if I had let the fish down the rapids, so
since I used relatively strong tippet I set the drag fairly tight and
kept the rod at a low angle (fought the fish with the lower section of
the rod with a shorter leverage, thereby providing a larger
force). This strategy worked well, and I was able to keep the fish in
the pool. After something like 7-8 minutes of fighting (it's a bit
difficult to estimate the time), I was feeling that I could land the
fish.

But now came the hard part, which was 9/10 interesting and 1/10
ridiculous. Let's clean the ridiculous part off the table first: it
was pretty dark, but I was still wearing sunglasses - Blues Brothers
style. You may wonder why. Let's just say that the reasons are related
to the fact that I like to save my money for fishing purposes (now
there's a puzzle). So I wasn't able to see very well. But the
interesting part was that it was unable to beach the fish at this
spot, and while fighting the fish by keeping the rod at a low angle
went fine, I had to raise the rod tip high to get the fish close
enough for netting.

This is my only question in this TR: how on earth is a fisherman
supposed to net a bigger fish in such a situation? I mean, with any
current at all - and there was a current here - even if the fish had
been *dead* it would still have provided a considerable
resistance. Now I have been involved in measurements of the forces you
can generate with the rod. If there is straight angle between the line
and the butt of a 9' rod, even with a 9wt rod the maximum force any
person in our club could generate was well below 1kg (something like
800gr). Well, to be exact that's not a force but a mass, but you know
what I mean. Anyway, after that your wrist can't handle it. So, when
you bring the fish close, you have to raise the tip. Then the strain
on your wrist increases steeply, and any resistance by the fish or the
current will take the fish away from you again. And it doesn't feel
too healthy for your rod either, having to strain it with all you've
got.

So this was the dilemma I was battling with. I tried to bring the fish
close, but every time it started to be close enough the force that I
was able to generate became too small, and the fish could easily swim
further from me.

After my fourth try to land the fish I was almost certain that I would
lose this fish. I decided to try more aggressively, so I pulled the
fish closer, and applied as much power as my wrist could take. The
fish was in the net. Hooray! And to Hans, who made fun of my big net
during the clave, I can tell that the fish could barely fit into the
net. :-) To my surprise the fish was not a charr, it was a grilse: a
salmon which had spent one winter in the sea:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...004/fish-1.jpg

My first salmon in a couple of years, actually. That *was* nice. I
called it a night and headed back to our camp to clean the breakfast
fish. Before going to bed the other guys came back; one of them had
hooked a salmon, but had not been able to land it. That was all.

_The third night_

The next day I spent pretty much as the day befo first I ate a huge
fish breakfast, then I fished occasionally but did not catch anything
substantial. I also tried to fish eddy in the deep pool with lots of
charr, but with the steep cliffs surrounding the place it turned out
to be too difficult for me. There was one funny happening. At one
point I was fishing near our camp when I suddenly heard a big splash
from upstream. I thought that someone had fallen into the river, but
didn't see anyone in the stream or hear any screaming. After a minute
Tero came to me and told me that he had hooked the big salmon, after
which the salmon had darted to the other bank, jumped into the air,
and the hook had come off.

In the evening the guys went upstream to fish the same place where
Tero had hooked the salmon on the previous night. There were visible
salmon in the pool. I joined the guys shortly there and was able to
see Vesku land a grilse

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...04/fish-on.jpg

the one you could see in his picture at the beginning of this post
(the same link here):

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...2004/vesku.jpg

This was his first salmon in many years, and he was just ecstatic.

When I started to become dark I left the guys upstream and returned to
fish the charr pool again. After catching a good number of charr,
including the biggest one of the trip

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...004/fish-2.jpg

I again hooked a bigger fish, which turned out to be another grilse. I
measured this one, it was 60cm (24 inches):

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hurri/fi...004/fish-3.jpg
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000200.jpg

This time netting went more smoothly than on the previous night, but I
have no idea how I did it. :-)

_Drive home_

The next morning we started heading back towards home. The weather was
still nice, as was the Arctic ocean

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000217.jpg

The drive back was quite a chore, especially since we had two cars and
four drivers (one guy flew back). BTW, for feats like this I strongly
recommend the same system as that being used by pilots: one hour of
driving, one hour of rest. We tried it for the first time, and it
works very well.

If time permits, we'll probably be heading into the same river for
more charr next year. A lovely place.

Jarmo
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000204.jpg
(Yep, the nights were freezing cold.)

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .

On 12/17/04 3:35 PM, in article ,
"Jarmo Hurri" wrote:

snnnnnnnip!

Whoa! Very nice, Jarmo, text and pictures alike. Makes Friday afternoon
here a bit easier to get through.

What a bonanza, could perhaps have even been a bit too much at some
point, but we had been waiting for this for a *long* time. The fish
were mostly of size 25-40cm, not big, but not too bad either. In fact,
quite nice on the 4wt I was using. The fish took wets and nymphs on
the swing. The limit was 35cm, and the daily bag quota was something
ridiculous, 10 or 15 fish per person. We took five fish for breakfast:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000153.jpg

I can see why brook trout are members of the char family- you can see the
resemblance in this picture.

Thanks for the TR!
Bill

On 12/17/04 3:35 PM, in article ,
"Jarmo Hurri" wrote:

snnnnnnnip!

Whoa! Very nice, Jarmo, text and pictures alike. Makes Friday afternoon
here a bit easier to get through.

What a bonanza, could perhaps have even been a bit too much at some
point, but we had been waiting for this for a *long* time. The fish
were mostly of size 25-40cm, not big, but not too bad either. In fact,
quite nice on the 4wt I was using. The fish took wets and nymphs on
the swing. The limit was 35cm, and the daily bag quota was something
ridiculous, 10 or 15 fish per person. We took five fish for breakfast:

http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000153.jpg

I can see why brook trout are members of the char family- you can see the
resemblance in this picture.

Thanks for the TR!
Bill

Jarmo Hurri writes:

great trip report snipped

Wow, sounds like you had a great August. Those were very nice fish and some
beautiful water. I am surprised that you would use 2x tippet, but apparently
these fish aren't the least bit tippet shy.

Nice job on the TR, Jarmo.

Dave

Jarmo Hurri writes:

great trip report snipped

Wow, sounds like you had a great August. Those were very nice fish and some
beautiful water. I am surprised that you would use 2x tippet, but apparently
these fish aren't the least bit tippet shy.

Nice job on the TR, Jarmo.

Dave

"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
...

_Participants_

Fan_****in'_tastic!

The best TR I have ever read/viewed on ROFF.

Thanks Jarmo.

Mark

"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
...

_Participants_

Fan_****in'_tastic!

The best TR I have ever read/viewed on ROFF.

Thanks Jarmo.

Mark

Jarmo Hurri wrote:

This is my only question in this TR: how on earth is a fisherman
supposed to net a bigger fish in such a situation? I mean, with any
current at all - and there was a current here - even if the fish had
been *dead* it would still have provided a considerable
resistance.

After the fish is played out (meaning it won't make another run), get
downstream from it and wait for it to drift to you. Then,\ either tail
it or net it. Doesn't that sound easy? :-)

Great TR.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Jarmo Hurri wrote:

This is my only question in this TR: how on earth is a fisherman
supposed to net a bigger fish in such a situation? I mean, with any
current at all - and there was a current here - even if the fish had
been *dead* it would still have provided a considerable
resistance.

After the fish is played out (meaning it won't make another run), get
downstream from it and wait for it to drift to you. Then,\ either tail
it or net it. Doesn't that sound easy? :-)

Great TR.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
...

***Clipped most excellant trip report. ***
Jarmo
http://www.perhokalastajat.org/tour_...s/p1000204.jpg
(Yep, the nights were freezing cold.)

Commercial email countermeasures included in header email
address. Remove all garbage from header email address when replying,
or just use .


You have raised the standards for trip reports to a new high. Have you
considered publishing this as a magazine artical? I think you could do at
least two from this report. I don't know if it pays anything but you
might get some free stuff from a manufacturer.
BTW -where did you get the tent?