Planning a Finnish fishing trip with Hans van Klinken... (June, Flyfishing Gazette)

Planning a Finnish fishing trip with Hans van Klinken... (June, Flyfishing Gazette) 

There are many ways to travel to Finland by car but I chose for the most relaxing journey while driving the least number of kilometres. The choice was easy. We would make a short drive to Travemünde in Germany and then travel with Finnlines from Travemünde directly to Helsinki. We shared the costs for cabin and car that made all a really good price for us as well. Of course, it is a long trip with two nights on the boat (one way), which meant we needed at least to plan a week longer for our extra travelling. However, crossing the Baltic sea saved us lots of fuel and driving too. 

A of lot people will immediately think that the good fishing in Finland is too far away, but remember when I did my yearly trips to the Glomma river in Norway in the 1980s and 1990s it was much further, at least in road kilometres.

We had planned two main fishing locations for our holiday. Our first trip was going east to the Kuhmo area in the Kainuu region of Finland, the second one travelling to northwest Lapland and staying in Muonio and Kilpisjärvi where we had plans to explore the border river between Sweden and Finland. In our final part, we would be staying a few days in Tampere in the south of Finland to relax and meet some good friends before going home again.

The reason why we chose to travel first to the Kuhmo area is easy to explain. It is a wonderful and peaceful place, especially when you like fly fishing, nature and wildlife. The excellent wildlife spotting opportunities in eastern Kainuu are absolutely unique in Europe. The vast forest landscape offers an ideal shelter for the numerous wild animals that still are abundant in this unspoilt Nordic paradise.

In this pristine nature reserve, bears, wolves, foxes, wolverines, lynx, otters, moose, beavers, flying squirrels, large birds of prey and many game birds seem to have found here their undisturbed piece of nature. Previously hunted almost to extinction, the wild forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) now lives exclusively in the “Wild Taiga” and Russian Karelia. They are slightly bigger than normal reindeer and also have longer legs. Their population is estimated at about 2000 animals today.

Although all this sounds fantastic, the majority of fly fishermen are probably most interested in this region because the many beautiful trout and grayling waters. Beside trout and grayling there is an amazing fishery for pike, perch, zander and whitefish in the countless lakes as well. Healthy waters with a weighty insect life lead to good fish populations of exciting sizes. I have seen quite a few monster trout that were caught during the April Orange Events in Kuhmo in 2018, 2019, and 2022, and that means that the fly fishing prospects for the future is still looking very promising in this part of the world. I also fell under the spell of these enormous trout as well.

Every day that followed was more spectacular than the previous one and while guided by Antti we fished rivers like Pajakka and Lentua at several different locations. The water was still high from all the melting snow in the mountains and the fishing not easy. The challenge was enormous and trout and grayling catches were poor. Instead I caught dozens of bream at the well-known hot spots for trout and grayling which was absolutely not my intention and I had not expected either. The bream were spawning in the rapids and probably had pushed away trout and grayling from their feeding lies. Wrong place at the wrong time! On our third day, we finally landed quite a good number of grayling and a few small trout. My biggest grayling was around 45cm and I was very happy with it, but it was not the whopper I was hoping for. I caught her at one of my most favourite spots in the Lentua river that I only know from my winter fishing during my visits in the month of April for the April Orange Events in 2018, 2019 and 2022. However, fishing in summer time is much different.

Continue reading in Flyfishing Gazette, contact lydia@merlinunwin.co.uk to see the full article.