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#1
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TR: Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Trip to Pearl River
It was the week after midsummer when I called a friend, Erik Holmlund, to ask if he felt like a two-day fishing trip would be a good idea. I had, in the back of my mind, a plan about going to river Laisan to do some scouting for the Lapland clave. Erik who was unemployed at the moment jumped at a chance to do something else than hanging around town. We had both at the moment gotten a preliminary offer to do some work in Canada, so it felt like we might as well try to get some fishing in before the possible trip to another continent. Erik being a beginner at fly-fishing although a long time spin fisherman has been fishing the mountain region for almost as long as me, and has one of Sweden's oldest fishing web sites. He is in all a likeable guy with a perfect interest. Driving towards river Laisan I told him that I'd been keen on visiting Pearl River in the municipality of Jokkmokk for quite some time. Ever since the age of fifteen when my grandfather's (and mentor's) younger brother talked about a visit made to the area some years after world war II. He had described a fishing so fantastic and colorful that I longed to go there. Once I grew older I had a couple of years when girls and cars tended to be of more interest than fishing, and the story about Pearl river had grown but a distant memory. Even though I've been fly fishing actively for more than 15 years since this period it was only until a year ago when I read an article in a Swedish fishing magazine about the area that the memories of that story came back to me. Erik being the friend he is said, - What the hell, you can go to Laisan another day, let's go to Pearl River instead. Said and done, we skipped the take off road towards Laisan and turned north. Jokkmokk is situated almost on the Arctic Circle and this time of year we knew we would have the ever-shining sun above our heads, something that I feel adds an extra spice to the whole experience. After 450 kilometers of driving we were finally in Jokkmokk. A quick visit to the liquor store, the grocery store and another visit to the local tackle shop for permits and we drove straight west towards the river. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl12.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl14.jpg On arrival we decided to try the 4,5 kilometer long fly-fishing only stretch first. Sadly this stretch did not live up to its expectations, mainly because they made a this stretch out of a stretch with a continuous riffle, without any pools or calmer stretches. Anyway we caught a number of decent sized graylings and a nice brownie, but then decided to move on. The first days fishing went really bad, it wasn't that we didn't catch any fish but they weren't of the size we had been told would exist in this river. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl09.jpg The daylight having the effect that we fished until we realized that midnight wasn't going to be the preferred time for dinner since we were starving. Jumping into the car and driving to a spot that we noticed would make a good camping site, we set up camp. This spot is located by another river, one that has Pearl River as a tributary, the Smaller Lule River. We set up camp at the Purrki Rapids, these rapids are fairly big so the fact that the water levels were low was appreciated. After a quick sandwich we decided to give the fishing in these rapids a try, something that would prove a good choice. All day we had been trying all sorts of flies, this had in turn shown us that heavily weighted nymphs was the thing that would provide dinner. Fishing started out wit several smaller fish and I gathered it was the hard current that made our nymphs fish to shallow. Walking up to a small pool at the top of the rapids I cast my line into the white water letting the currents press line and nymph down towards the bottom. What happened next was DINNER. In five casts I hooked four graylings at slightly more than a pound (0,5 kg) on the fifth cast I hooked an even larger fish behaving completely different from the graylings, a sizeable trout was on. And to quote Myron Buck aka riverman "Big fish on...big fish off". Myron, I feel that you would've enjoyed these rapids. Late that night we had made a fire over which we grilled grayling stuffed with red onion, salt a few grains of crushed pepper, lemon juice and olive oil in aluminum foil. Say what you want about life, NOTHING compares to the experience of the solitude and wilderness in such an area, and if you can sit by a campfire drinking beer, eating freshly caught grayling enjoying the company of a friend, what else is there to wish for. There was a funny episode about 2 o'clock in the night. Suddenly a car comes out of nowhere and a woman steps out, it proves she is from the Tourist administration board and she is out to meet fishermen to hear what they think about place and how we found information about the fishing. 2 o'clock in the night....talk about taking her work seriously. Her explanation being that it's hard to find the fishermen during the day since the area is so vast, so she visit the tent places that she knows and get her feedback there and then. Waking up the day after we packed our gear and set out to do 5 or 6 hours of fishing before returning home. MAGIC, absolutely magic, something had happened during the night and where there was no fish to be seen the day before there was suddenly an abundance of rising fish. To my perception nothing in the weather, water temperature and water levels was different and yet everything when it comes to the fish was different. We caught more fish, larger fish and in the places where you would expect them to be. One little episode, I was standing in the middle of a large calm stretch, having chosen to enter the river at that point while Erik moved upstream, and caught grayling after grayling surpassing lb1 (0,5kg). Actually I moved 15 meters over two hours catching close to 30 grayling, the biggest one weighing lb2 (0,9kg). During this two hour period I couldn't see what Erik was up to but I know now that he beat me in size catching a grayling over 1 kg. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl04.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl10.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl13.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl11.jpg I wonder, have you ever noticed how fishing has a tendency to get better when you know you must be getting home?? (All pictures, I'm sorry to say, have a bluish tone to them, this is due to a malfunctioning scanner) / Roger Daytime engineer Lifetime flyfisherman If you feel like it, visit http://biphome.spray.se/angler/ for info on flyfishing in northern Sweden, Lapland |
#2
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Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
I'm sorry for replying to my own post.
For those of you that doesn't feel like clicking away on the pictures there's a web version of the TR at the address below. -- / Roger Daytime engineer Lifetime flyfisherman If you feel like it, visit http://biphome.spray.se/angler/ for info on flyfishing in northern Sweden, Lapland |
#3
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TR: Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Nice. I also read the Ransaran trip reports from your web site (they were no longer available on my server). What a place! A can only join your chanting: "Next year..." -- Jarmo Hurri Spam countermeasures included. Use as email address or apply rot13 to header email address. |
#4
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TR: Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
... Nice. I also read the Ransaran trip reports from your web site (they were no longer available on my server). What a place! A can only join your chanting: "Next year..." Jarmo, I'm looking at the possibilty that we might go there last week in June -04. You, me, Vaughan and some friends of which Vaughan already met with two. I asked some of the others and it seems that the last week of June is a time where most are free. Much may change before that though. I'm also guessing that this creek may be apart of the world fly-fishing championship waters, which mean that there might be other regulations for the area come next year. /Roger |
#5
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Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
"Roger Ohlund" wrote... Trip to Pearl River snip Late that night we had made a fire over which we grilled grayling stuffed with red onion, salt a few grains of crushed pepper, lemon juice and olive oil in aluminum foil. Say what you want about life, NOTHING compares to the experience of the solitude and wilderness in such an area, and if you can sit by a campfire drinking beer, eating freshly caught grayling enjoying the company of a friend, what else is there to wish for. Ahhhhh, the essence of fly fishing. ;-) Nice, Roger. -- TL, Tim ------------------------ http://css.sbcma.com/timj |
#6
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Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
"bruiser" wrote in message ... Very nice Roger. Beautiful place. Hopefully you told the lady that the fishing sucked and that they should promote other areas with better fishing ;-) That's what RW and Willi would do... I'm a slow learner but I've picked up quite a bit from those guys. LOL! Actually that is what we did, since the first day's fishing wasn't all that good. I don't think she believed us though. /Roger |
#7
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Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Very nice Roger. Beautiful place.
Hopefully you told the lady that the fishing sucked and that they should promote other areas with better fishing ;-) That's what RW and Willi would do... I'm a slow learner but I've picked up quite a bit from those guys. bruce h |
#8
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Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Great TR, Roger! It was a good trip and it was nice fishing with you and
Fred. The TR doesn't leave much for me to fill in. I definately share your impression of the chars behaviour in Ransarån. It was something out of the ordinary and I've never seen chars rising so wildly. Amazing. I know one thing for sure. I will return to Ransarån. In addition there are other interesting creeks in the area around Saxnas to explore. I'd say the area has clave-potential Regards Erik Holmlund, Skellefteå http://hem.passagen.se/alvsajtn "Roger Ohlund" skrev i meddelandet ... Trip to Pearl River It was the week after midsummer when I called a friend, Erik Holmlund, to ask if he felt like a two-day fishing trip would be a good idea. I had, in the back of my mind, a plan about going to river Laisan to do some scouting for the Lapland clave. Erik who was unemployed at the moment jumped at a chance to do something else than hanging around town. We had both at the moment gotten a preliminary offer to do some work in Canada, so it felt like we might as well try to get some fishing in before the possible trip to another continent. Erik being a beginner at fly-fishing although a long time spin fisherman has been fishing the mountain region for almost as long as me, and has one of Sweden's oldest fishing web sites. He is in all a likeable guy with a perfect interest. Driving towards river Laisan I told him that I'd been keen on visiting Pearl River in the municipality of Jokkmokk for quite some time. Ever since the age of fifteen when my grandfather's (and mentor's) younger brother talked about a visit made to the area some years after world war II. He had described a fishing so fantastic and colorful that I longed to go there. Once I grew older I had a couple of years when girls and cars tended to be of more interest than fishing, and the story about Pearl river had grown but a distant memory. Even though I've been fly fishing actively for more than 15 years since this period it was only until a year ago when I read an article in a Swedish fishing magazine about the area that the memories of that story came back to me. Erik being the friend he is said, - What the hell, you can go to Laisan another day, let's go to Pearl River instead. Said and done, we skipped the take off road towards Laisan and turned north. Jokkmokk is situated almost on the Arctic Circle and this time of year we knew we would have the ever-shining sun above our heads, something that I feel adds an extra spice to the whole experience. After 450 kilometers of driving we were finally in Jokkmokk. A quick visit to the liquor store, the grocery store and another visit to the local tackle shop for permits and we drove straight west towards the river. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl12.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl14.jpg On arrival we decided to try the 4,5 kilometer long fly-fishing only stretch first. Sadly this stretch did not live up to its expectations, mainly because they made a this stretch out of a stretch with a continuous riffle, without any pools or calmer stretches. Anyway we caught a number of decent sized graylings and a nice brownie, but then decided to move on. The first days fishing went really bad, it wasn't that we didn't catch any fish but they weren't of the size we had been told would exist in this river. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl09.jpg The daylight having the effect that we fished until we realized that midnight wasn't going to be the preferred time for dinner since we were starving. Jumping into the car and driving to a spot that we noticed would make a good camping site, we set up camp. This spot is located by another river, one that has Pearl River as a tributary, the Smaller Lule River. We set up camp at the Purrki Rapids, these rapids are fairly big so the fact that the water levels were low was appreciated. After a quick sandwich we decided to give the fishing in these rapids a try, something that would prove a good choice. All day we had been trying all sorts of flies, this had in turn shown us that heavily weighted nymphs was the thing that would provide dinner. Fishing started out wit several smaller fish and I gathered it was the hard current that made our nymphs fish to shallow. Walking up to a small pool at the top of the rapids I cast my line into the white water letting the currents press line and nymph down towards the bottom. What happened next was DINNER. In five casts I hooked four graylings at slightly more than a pound (0,5 kg) on the fifth cast I hooked an even larger fish behaving completely different from the graylings, a sizeable trout was on. And to quote Myron Buck aka riverman "Big fish on...big fish off". Myron, I feel that you would've enjoyed these rapids. Late that night we had made a fire over which we grilled grayling stuffed with red onion, salt a few grains of crushed pepper, lemon juice and olive oil in aluminum foil. Say what you want about life, NOTHING compares to the experience of the solitude and wilderness in such an area, and if you can sit by a campfire drinking beer, eating freshly caught grayling enjoying the company of a friend, what else is there to wish for. There was a funny episode about 2 o'clock in the night. Suddenly a car comes out of nowhere and a woman steps out, it proves she is from the Tourist administration board and she is out to meet fishermen to hear what they think about place and how we found information about the fishing. 2 o'clock in the night....talk about taking her work seriously. Her explanation being that it's hard to find the fishermen during the day since the area is so vast, so she visit the tent places that she knows and get her feedback there and then. Waking up the day after we packed our gear and set out to do 5 or 6 hours of fishing before returning home. MAGIC, absolutely magic, something had happened during the night and where there was no fish to be seen the day before there was suddenly an abundance of rising fish. To my perception nothing in the weather, water temperature and water levels was different and yet everything when it comes to the fish was different. We caught more fish, larger fish and in the places where you would expect them to be. One little episode, I was standing in the middle of a large calm stretch, having chosen to enter the river at that point while Erik moved upstream, and caught grayling after grayling surpassing lb1 (0,5kg). Actually I moved 15 meters over two hours catching close to 30 grayling, the biggest one weighing lb2 (0,9kg). During this two hour period I couldn't see what Erik was up to but I know now that he beat me in size catching a grayling over 1 kg. http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl04.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl10.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl13.jpg http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl11.jpg I wonder, have you ever noticed how fishing has a tendency to get better when you know you must be getting home?? (All pictures, I'm sorry to say, have a bluish tone to them, this is due to a malfunctioning scanner) / Roger Daytime engineer Lifetime flyfisherman If you feel like it, visit http://biphome.spray.se/angler/ for info on flyfishing in northern Sweden, Lapland |
#9
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TR: Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Roger I'm looking at the possibilty that we might go there last week Roger in June -04. You, me, Vaughan and some friends of which Roger Vaughan already met with two. I asked some of the others and Roger it seems that the last week of June is a time where most are Roger free. Last week of June is fine by me at the moment. I just marked it preliminarily reserved for this trip in my calendar. Roger Much may change before that though. I'm also guessing that Roger this creek may be apart of the world fly-fishing championship Roger waters, which mean that there might be other regulations for Roger the area come next year. Damn. Didn't you have the championships just a couple of years ago, was it in 2001? You've got to start being worse hosts. Or maybe they will have the mosquito experience next time. No, with all the fish, that wouldn't compensate, I'm afraid. -- Jarmo Hurri Spam countermeasures included. Use as email address or apply rot13 to header email address. |
#10
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TR: Pearl River, north of the Arctic Circle
Roger Ohlund wrote:
Trip to Pearl River ........ Terrific report. Surpised, though, that you should find women coming to your fishing camp at 2am an odd occurance. Happens all the time in the States........ JR |
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