Good eating and record breaker graylings

I decided to write a report of our trip to Könkämäeno last august and this is what I ended up with.

We've had a tradition with my father to go fishing in Lapland around my birthday (8th august) and 2012 was no exception. The trip was a bit different from the earlier ones, since we didn't hike in to the wild, but stayed near the roads and focused our fishing to Könkämäeno, the border river between Finland and Sweden. The reason for us not to go to our usual spots far away from civilization, was that my father had promised to his co-workers that he would go fishing with them, and one of them has an eye injury that prevents him to walk in harsh terrain. We rented a cabin near Karesuvanto that was on the river bank.

The trip started 3.8.2012 by packing our car with 1 week supply of fishing equipment, clothes, food and whiskey for 4 persons. My fathers spaceship of a car was absolutely full, and we still had to buy some more food from Tornio... The 1200km drive started in the early evening and we drove to Iijoki for a bit of sleep. In the morning we continued the remaining few hundred kilometers up north. We stopped only in Tornio/Haparanda for some more groceries and for fishing licenses in Sonkamuotka.

We finally arrived to Karesuvanto and to the river bank where we were supposed to get a boat ride to the cabin. We unpacked the car and just then we realized the amount of the stuff.
 

Still the "overhead compartment" to go...

The owner of the cabin arrived a few minutes after us and we immediately started loading the boat. We would have to make 2 trips since the boat could only hold 3 persons at a time. We left for the cabin and saw a big salmon leaping only about 20 meters from the boat. It was approximately 10-12kg fish. After arriving to the cabin, we sorted out our equipment and I started inflating my float tube. I wen't fishing for grayling in the "homepool". I saw a few rises but the current was a bit too strong to keep fishing steadily so I came out. I did some exploring on the river and found a nice stretch of rapids a few kilometers from the cabin. We decided to head there the next morning.

The spot was even better then I had seen in the dusk and we spread across the strech in search of grayling. We caught some small ones all over but nothing big. I headed upstream in search of some slower current and found the exact spot  I visited last night. I saw some grayling rises and waded in. I casted for a rising fish I thought was a bit bigger than the ones I had caught earlier. Oh, how wrong I was. It was a lot bigger! I had a size #12 elk hair caddis tied in my 5x tippet and the fish took it gently. Just a fraction of a second later I realized it was a record breaker and got a little excited. I only had a 3 weight rod and a reel with no drag at all so I would have to play the fish soft. Fortunately it tired itself out with a few jumps and some short runs and I was able to net it easily. I measured it against my rod and saw it was around 55cm. I took the fish to the others to photograph and to measure more accurately. We got 55,5cm as the final reading. I cleaned the fish and put some salt in. We were going to eat good that night! We continued fishing after a lunch break but didn't catch anything big enought to keep. I got one brown trout about 40cm with a caddis dry fly. We went back to the cabin and started preparing a fire to smoke the grayling. We had some potatoes with the fish, and it was delicious as always.

Ilkka casting

Coffee break

My record grayling. 55,5cm (~22inches)

Comparing my knife and the fish. It's a 25cm knife

Hot spot downstream

Hot spot upstream

Lovely day fishing but now it's time to head back.

Smoking the fish.

The next day we decided to search for a smaller river somewhere nearby. We rowed to the car and drove to a river we had looked up from the map. We fished the whole day but did not catch anything worth mentioning. The river looked good anyway and I think if we had been more patient, we could have seen a nice caddis hatch that evening that could have affected the fish behaviour. At the cabin we cooked some reindeer fillet and ate it with potato, lingonberries and a butter-onion sauce.

A nice pool with some deep water (2-3m)

Lots of small fish, but no sight of bigger ones here.

Lunch break

Juha casting for a sighted fish.

Me fishing in the midnight sun.

Garnish and some beverage.

Best meat I have ever eaten.

The day after, we decided to head way upstream by car and fish some spots we had read about that could hold some nice fish. Main target was grayling again. When we arrived at  the river, I saw a big fish rising on the far bank and rushed to the water. I fished my way to the middle of the river and then I had to stop because of a deeper channel. I casted as long as I could, but it wasn't nearly enough. The fly landed 5m short from the rises. I went back to get my two handed rod and tied a small Mickey Finn and a Red Tag to the leader since I wasn't sure if it was a grayling or a trout. Finally I was able to cast there easily, but did not get a single bite. The fish was feeding from the surface so I tried some dry flies but they didn't work either. I spent something around 2 hours trying to catch that single rising fish, but I just had to give up because it didn't accept my flies. Maybe it was biting on some really small midges or something.

Casting for the big one!

I headed downstream and saw a nice deep pool that just had to have some nice fish in it. I took the double handed rod and attached a sink tip to my skagit head and tied in a Supertinseli, a flashy streamer. It was hard to get the fly next to the far bank and not get it in the bushes, since they curved over the water. I think it was my 3rd cast that the fly got stuck in the bushes and I had to snap the leader. I tied a #8 Mickey Finn and caught a bunch of fish in that pool. The biggest one was a 40-45cm brown trout. I gave up on that pool and went up again with a single handed rod and a dry fly. I managed to hook approximately 20 small graylings and one good one. 43,5cm fish ended up coming with us to the cabin and feeding us for the evening. Also Juha caught 2 graylings that were big enough to keep but small enough to fit in the smoking pot.

A dinner sized grayling

Juha with a netted fish. Also a keeper.

Snap-T

Sunset over the river.

The next day we headed to a small stream a few kilometers from the road. We had been wondering if it would hold any fish since it seemed to flow next to some well known fishing spots. We arrived at the bank and I assembled my 1-weight and 3-weight rods and fitted them with dry flies, a smaller one for the #1 and a big caddis pattern for the #3. I caught a nice small brown trout on the first cast and that got us really excited. I fished a few kilometers up the river catching a lot of 20-30cm fish on the dry. I started heading downstream and noticed a tributary that just smelled fishy. I had to check it out and it was worth the try. I found a nice pool under some rapids that had a rising fish. I tied in a #12 Red Tag and casted it a few meters over the fish. As soon as the fly drifted to the spot the fish was rising, the fish took it. It was a really energetic fish and I had a lot of fun with it. It took me about 10 minutes with the 1-weight to bring it in because it ran to some rapids downstream and I had to follow it. I finally got it up and it was a nice 44,5cm grayling. In the beginning of the fight I had already judged it as a trout because it behaved like trouts up there usually do.
That fish was the biggest one for that day. We had a lunch break and after that it started raining quite heavily ( it had drizzled a bit before) so we decided to head back to the car and eventually to the cabin.

Pocket fishing

Nice fish for a 1-weight

Ilkka trying for bigger fish below the rapids.

Juha wading deep.

We had already been fishing in all the spots we had planned beforehand so we had to think of a new place to go. We found an interesting stretch of rapids in Könkämäeno that was quite close to the road and thought that it might be worth visiting. There were a few fishermen before us and we had to go downstream a bit. It turned out that the place was almost entirely heavy current and jsut a small spot where we could find grayling. We caught only small ones and also a few small brown trout and got bored of the spot quite soon. We didn't see any signs of bigger fish there but later on we heard that the top parts are fine for big grayling. Too bad that it was so crowded.

We only had one day left for fishing and had no trouble picking the spot to go. We headed back to the place where we caught the most fish. The same spot where I casted my spey rod. This time we had no such luck with the fish, but got a lot of smaller fish and good bites. I even managed to get a salmon to rise to my dry fly. It just missed it, but I think it was for the best, since I had a 3-weight rod in hand and there was a fast rapid where the fish could have run. We enjoyed the sunshine and ate some pineapple by the river. We quit fishing early and headed back for some good food and sauna. The trip was a bit of a dissapointment at the first since I did not like the thought of being so close to the roads all the time, but ended up being awesome instead. I caught my record grayling and probably all of us got a new record on the amount of hooked fish in a week. Size doesn't always matter.

Pineapple by the river.

Skagit with a sink tip to get deep.

Sight fishing

Slicing up the pineapple and taking some after fishing beverages

 The next day we headed back home and waved goodbye to the amazing cabin and the good old Könkämäeno river. I had only 2 nights to sleep at home before leaving for Varanger peninsula in Finnmark Norway. That was one hell of a fishing trip even though I caught only 1 fish in a week...

-Niilo