Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 4 June 2021
I had great plan for this week and as usual it didn’t go like that. So I had to skip test fishing session with friend. Instead I was picking up guests and doing some shopping with them. No complains it was great to be back in ”business” after winter. Besides I do love to guide guests who are staying longer, we can get to know little better and it easier to guide and give tips. (and I can give tough love)
It is Friday morning and I’m going right after when this is ready to pick them, fishing day number two is about to start. Tomorrow we will have my favourite spots in Kitka river, going down with raft boat and fishing. Water level is high so rafting part will be fun and weather is looking great so fishing part should good also.
Yesterday was kind of risk taking for me, I decided to go lower part of Kuusinki, next to Russian border. Why risk, well I haven’t be fishing there or guided for maybe 3 or 4 years on that area. So I was not sure about how it will be, also all the small rivers are coming before that to main and there is more water and faster than in the upper part. Why I haven’t be fishing that area, reason is simple. Road was under repairing and there was lot of tyres broken during that, it is long drive and when you have to go slow it will take ages to go fishing. So now when road is good, start of the season in week which means that it will be empty from other fishermen it was risk to take. I knew that it is good for grayling and it is easy water to wade. If that spot would be closer to reach I would use it a lot for guiding purpose.
So we headed with my 5 guests to lower part of Kuusinki, 4 total beginners and one with some experience ( (host)he has own gears and he is okay fisherman). Host is kind of helping had for me in this case because when I’m cooking he can look after and help beginners. So in the start I gave short lesson about casting and basic fishing techniques. After that I showed spot to Ville, host, that he can enjoy fishing by himself in peace. It is great side stream in high water and often you can see huge graylings there. (huge in this context means almost 50 cm).
I stayed with others in easy area where I can easily guide and it is also good for grayling. We saw some fishes allready and so it was time to start fishing. There was maybe one bite during two hours and I was little bit confused, was the risk turning to wrong end. I went to see how Ville is doing and I was relieved when I heard that he got one 40 cm grayling. It was time to have a lunch so I went to make that and Ville went to with others.
When all of them came back to have lunch I heard that there was some bites and others had two graylings and missed some more. So it was not great but it was something, I was not happy about result but guests were having great time and they were happy about how interesting it was.
After lunch I showed new spots, cleaned the fireplace and headed to work. Guests had two bigger graylings up and everything was looking little better. I walked around and gave some tips and moved them in better spots. They start catch some graylings, it was not like a firework but they were happy.
It was hot day, +25 and sunshine, so my guests had short extra break with drinks and I decided to try also few cast. I saw that graylings came to my feet so I tried to my ”grayling dance” –technique, 5 dance 3 graylings. I did it in the front of audience (guests) so they didn’t want have break anymore but go fishing.
That was gamechanger for the day. They really understood nymphing and with some small tips started to nymph, not with grayling dance but as you normally do. It was awesome hour, everybody got some graylings and there was lot of good size fishes amongst. The best spot was that every ohter cast he got fish. All of them where fishing abou 50 m area so they could chat at the same time.
It was great start for season and now there are hooked on fly fishing, this day will be harder, I will take them in the area where they have figure out where the fish could be. That will make them ready for tomorrow.
Have a nice weekend
Mika the Legend
Ps. They got totally 26 graylings, 7 of those were over 35 cm biggest was 40 cm. It is good for first timers when there was totally maybe 4 hours of fishing
