Black Zulu Special

Here is a variation of an old classic, the Black Zulu. This fly is tied on heavy wire grubber hook with a bead. Orange yarn is used instead of standard wool tag. It hardly makes a difference; actually this fly works well even without the tag.

I use this fly as a searching pattern. It works for trout, grayling, and white fish.

Good morning

My cousin and I were fishing this morning. Just at a local river, just for about four hours. There were reasonably good number of fish feeding on surface, grayling and brown trout.



I had fair luck with grayling, but demonstrated some poor judgment on the leader department. When I rigged up, I noticed that the leader was full of small nicks, but lazy me just replaced the tippet section and started fishing. Two trout broke it easily before I replaced the leader with a new one.



Then I hooked a decent trout, around 50 cm or 20 inches, and it fought hard. I was just about to show him the net when it turned and threw the hook. Just like that. No mistakes were made but it got away. It happens, I know, it has happened before and will happen again. I took a moment; there was a rock to sit on and a cigar to smoke.

Life is good, or as Mike puts it: “Sometimes in fishing you realise that life doesn't really get any better.”

The view from a bridge

While others look forward a fisherman looks down.

Colors of the Fall

Kuusamo is a region in eastern Finland less than hundred kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. It has lot of wild life as this moose that crossed the road just before us when we were heading towards Kiutaköngäs. Luckily the road was bad and we were doing only 50 km/h (31 mph) so I had no problem stopping the car before this magnificent animal. It was big and had a very good rack, but we were too slow with the camera.

Kiutaköngäs is name of about hundred meter rapids/falls stretch of Oulankajoki. This river goes all the way down across the border to Lake Paanajärvi in Russia. Below is a picture of Pikkuköngäs (“Small Falls”) just above the Kiutaköngäs.



The Brown Trout of Paanajärvi is possibly most known trout variant in Finland. Paanajärvi Trout are big (2 to 5 kg or 4 to 11 lbs are most common) and jump thru Kiutaköngäs Falls to spawn in the upper stretches of Oulankajoki. Paanajärvi Trout is fished in rivers Oulankajoki, Kitkajoki and Kuusinkijoki. These fisheries are very popular and a subculture of Trout Fishing is formed to Kuusamo around these rivers and Paanäjärvi Trout.





Secret spot?

We had a week of family vacation, but Thursday afternoon was my time off – a time to go fishing. I had grayling in mind, and I had been planning to go to a small stream. I found out that I had done my homework poorly. When I talked to the manager of the fishery, he informed me that all streams in his region were closed until next summer. I had knew beforehand that the great rivers of Kuusamo (Oulankajoki, Kitkajoki and Kuusinkijoki) were closed but I was under impression that some of the small ones would be open for fishing.

After initial disapointment I crafted a plan B and headed towards Poussujoki. It is small upper fork of great Iijoki river system. Iijoki is flowing from Kuusamo to Gulf of Botnia, some 340 kilometers (211 miles) southwest.

Thursday morning was very cold. There was ice at the shores of small lakes. At midday my thermometer showed +5 degrees Celsius (41 F) for air temperature and the water was +7 degrees Celsius (44 F). There was no visible bug/fish activity to speak of, so it was a day for nymphing.



In the course of afternoon, I managed to land three graylings and failed to set the hook for about same number of other fish. All of the graylings were small, around 25 cm or 10 inches, and all of them accepted Red Tag pattern. It was not what I whould call a good day if you count the fish and the coldness, but I enjoyed every secod of it.



Friday morning we left Kuusamo and drove back home. There had been first snowfall south of Kuusamo and the land was covered in snow. It was really beatiful sign of coming winter.



Back home, about 400 km (250 mi) south of Kuusamo, the leaves are still more green than yellow. It is like a step back in time.

Right now I am busy checking the other blogs. It looks that Wyatt from Flytimes is in Yellowstone. Can’t wait to see the pictures from there!

Secret spot?

We are heading to Kuusamo next week. I have made inquiries at Finnish fly fishing forums and received replies and even private messages of few small streams over there. These are possibilities for excellent grayling fishing. Some say that there are 50 cm (20”) graylings there, while others say that majority of the fish are around more typical 30 cm (12").

I'll be happy if I get few small ones, but the possibility of big grayling is exciting.

Red Tag

We are going to Kuusamo after two weeks and I tied few grayling patterns just in case. One of the most famous grayling patterns of the world is the Red Tag.

Here is a variation of Red Tag by Finnish master fly-tier Veli Autti. This variation creates more caddis pupa shape for the fly and adds some weight.

Red Tag (variation by Veli Autti)
Thread: Brown
Hook: Grubber size 10, (here size 12 heavy wire grubber hook).
Tail: Fl. orange red wool (here fl. orange antron yarn).
Body: Peacock herl over lead wire, almost reverse tapered; caddis style.
Hackle: Partridge (here mottled grey Hen). Cut fibers from top.
Head: Working thread, this fly has a real head, so it is bit over-sized by mainstream fly tying standards.

Lead it deep

This morning I had chance to do some fly fishing with my cousin Niko. He is my regular fly fishing partner, but this was only the second time in this season that he was able to go fishing. This is because Niko - as well as his friend and our mutual fishing partner Mika - are building houses for their families. They both also have small children so with the building project, family and work, they just are running out of fishing time.

We had some nice conversations, but did not do very well in the actual fishing part. There was some mayfly and caddis fly activity, but only few raising fish. My start was good however as I pulled first grayling in first or second cast from spot where I usually get my first fish. Grayling was small, only about 25 cm or 10 inches. It accepted #14 Superpupa with green body - a fly pattern which is showing some promise. But after this first fish, I did not manage to hook any fish for few hours. Time was running out - we had a work day ahead of us. I was fishing under the bridge and decided to add few split shots to my rig of bead head nymph with a streamer dropper. I changed my technique from downstream swing to nymphing. I didn’t add any strike indicator but fished with a short tight line. With tight line technique I keep my stick not high - as in high stick nymphing - but very near the water surface.

After few minutes of serious fly fishing I felt a strong fish and to my surprise it was not a trout but a grayling. It took another few minutes before it was in my net. This grayling was about 38 cm or 15 inches. It happens at times that even I stop banging my head to the wall and do something right for a change.

Don’t I just look Good with my fit-over Polaroid’s?

Yellow may fly emergers

It has been quite a cold spring and early summer, but the temperature is finally rising here in eastern Finland. Yellow beadhead nymph pattern has worked well for weeks, but this morning I finally saw Yellow May Flies hatching and yellow #16 Sparkle Dun pattern was working like a dream.

Largest grayling that I catched was something like 35 centimeters long (about 14 inches). And I had three others that were more than 30 centimeters (12 inches) and few smaller ones as well.

A nice way to start a week.