Fly of the month: Angry Worm

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Sorry that I’m writing about sea trout all the time! The thing is that I cant get them out of my head. Here we go again! In the middle of my war against the trout, the wind, waves, the sun and other tuff enemies, I have shaped a new, lethal weapon. It works very well, I have to say.

There are many different ways to tie worm-patterns. Until this one (not a new revolutionary pattern in any way), I never really had any success with any of them. Of course it might depend on other factors. Factors like fish in the water, fishing on the right spot and so on, but still, this one a killer! The secret weapon in the war against the trout!

Except from the fact that this is a very effective fly, it is long lasting, cheap and easy to cast. Make some and try, it would be fun to here about the result from other places than here!

Angry Worm

Hook: Streamer hook, size 6 to 12 (the smaller sizes works surprisingly well)

Tail: Soft hair from fox or rabbit fur

Thread: whatever I guess, I used fluorescent green.

Body: Bright and fine dubbing

Flash: Some fine angel hair mixed in the rabbit fur (before you put it in the loop).

Dubbing around the body: Fine fox or rabbit fur. Keep the thread tight when you make the outer layer, then the fly will last forever.

P.S Retrieve the line fast and it looks like a small fish, a little slower and you’ll have a leach or a worm. If you do snatch the tail of, it transforms to a very good gammarus pattern (the smaller sizes) /Fredrik

 

Home delivery!

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I just got a message from my wife. She is expecting a friend to visit, everything was in order at home and then someone knocked on the door. A big, ugly man with five huge boxes addressed to Jazz & Fly Fishing, asked her to sign. She tried to refuse and explain she has never heard of J&FF and they must have come to a wrong address etc etc. But the guy didn’t give up and now the dirty boxes fill our hallway. For some reason I’m quite excited!

 

Remember to pre-order the DVD before the 25th of May, we offer free shipping worldwide!

Dark Days At the X

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Happycat

Ever since we started Jazz & Fly Fishing, I´ve been teasing the other guys in the band with a place called the X.
I´ve told them that the X is probably the best place in Scandinavia for big trout and big arctic char.
From time to time, I´ve shown them blurry pictures of happy, non-J&FF fishing buddies of mine, posing in gorgeous wilderness surroundings with huge, stunningly beautiful fish in their arms and silly grins on their faces. Just to torment the guys.

But I´ve never told the other J&FF guys where this El Dorado of fishing is located. They´ve tried all the tricks in the book to make me reveal the secret: They´ve gotten me really drunk (not difficult to accomplish), they´ve tried to bribe me (also doable), and they´ve threatened me with lawsuits and violence. But no. I´ve kept my mouth shut.

Until now. Today, I have decided to share the dirty secret about the X. And not only with the guys in the band, but with the whole J&FF community. Here it goes: The X is not one single place – it´s a codeword for several different, secret places in the north of Scandinavia. Sorry Fredrik, Tapani and Joona, but that´s the truth. There is no such as thing as the X, just lots of Xs.

The last few days, I´ve been checking out online maps a lot, trying to pinpoint the best possible locations for this summer´s J&FF expeditions. And what strikes me every time I look at a map of northern Scandinavia is how many fantastic fishing spots that still exist up there. So many Xs. And the magical summer above the arctic circle is on our doorstep. Life is beautiful.

The pictures below are from a trip to one of these Xs in late August last year. Terje Storsten (a great bass player and J&FF friend who some of you might remember as the chef in this video), my cousin Dagfinn, and yours truly. One week of mountain fishing in a pristine wilderness area. Mostly very crappy weather, even for northern Scandinavia. Lots of gorgeous fish. One monster lost, leaving me with a bleeding cut in my leg after following it down the rapids. Lots of laughs. Cold and wet. Some big fish landed. Lots of mosquitos. Good food. Good times. Summer. Soon.

Guess what…

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Alright… this is what happened yesterday: (if you don’t know what I’m talking about – take a fast look at the previous blog)

The wind turned when I took my first steps in Malmö. The direction of the current switched direction at the same time, something that happens every now and then. In general, it will last only for a couple of hours or sometimes up to 24 hours until the current will switch again. This time it stayed wrong all the time!! The sea level sank at the same time, why am I not surprised. It is hard to describe what it feels like to fish, when you now you only have a certain amount of time, and that the fishing will be crap. Instead of trout, millions of horn fish invaded the area. If you want to catch sea trout, horn fish is your worst enemy.

After one whole day of cold fingers, no trout, 50 horn fish and 10.000 casts, the mental strength tend to go down a little bit. Right now I am very weak, sitting on the bus back to Gothenburg. I’m trying to hide behind the seat but it is hard when you have a guy next to you. Probably he is glancing on the text right now until he reads this sentence. I´m tempted to wright something ugly just to find out….

Anyway – I have a gig in Strömstad tonight, a small town up north along the west coast of Sweden. The gig place is situated in a very good (!) sea trout area. This means the war is not over yet. There is still hope! I wont back down that easy. Tomorrow morning I will post a very short blog including a beautiful trout that will be caught tonight between the sets. Do you believe I will catch?

Actual se cambia a la dirección equivocada, el agua baja, pescado podrido, no haytruchas, no hay energía

Der Strom wird in die falsche Richtung, geringe Wasseraufnahme, faulem Fisch, keineForelle, keine Energie eingeschaltet

Le courant est passé à la mauvaise direction, l’eau, les poissons pourris, pas de truites, pas d’énergie/ Fredrik

 

Traveling south

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After a hectic week in Gothenburg I discovered that I had one day off. That day is tomorrow. The last week I’ve been playing as a maniac and hardly fished at all. Meanwhile, a friend has sent me a couple of pictures from his fishing sessions. The first photo came five days ago. While I was working, I received an mms. The photo showed a huge sea trout, between 4 and 5 kg. The day after same thing happened, this time three different shots on three different sea trout, weight between 2.5 and 3.5 kg. Yesterday it happened again, this time between 3 and 4 k!! The last picture was on the ugly fly he had been fishing with all the time. A fat little shrimp with rubber-legs. Tied some similar flies yesterday evening.

Tasty?

This friend, Per Oskar Nilsson, by the way an excellent guitar player, lives in Malmö in southern Sweden. I am, this moment, 21.18 in the evening, sitting on a buss with my computer in front of me. Guess where I’m going… to Malmö.

Tomorrow we’ll fish on the same spot where he caught the silver colored monsters earlier this week. Probably I won’t catch. It is to late. The weather will turn crap. I will get sick. Loose my glasses or break the rod. Maybe loose a rod and break my glasses instead. The car will probably smash also. It is always like that. Maybe not exactly like that but you get what I mean!? BUT… there is a chance! The fishing might be extremely good. For the first time of my life, I have no expectations. Lets see what happens! I will post a blog on the way up to Gothenburg on saturday. If I’ll loose my glasses, I can always ask someone on the bus to write a short blog. Talk to you later/wir sehen uns später/увидимся позже/à plus tard/回头见/te post/hasta luego! /Fredrik

Rider on the Storm

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Hi! Here´s a video from the reharsals for Sorga kler Elektra, the theatre play I´m part of right now.
In the video, we see Torbjørn Eriksen, who plays Orin Mannon, performing The Doors´ 1971 rock classic
Riders on the Storm, along with some random shots from the play. The video was made by someone from the theatre (I was playing the guitar when they made it, and didn´t even notice them filming).

The premiere was last saturday, and I´m happy to say that the rewiews have been totally overwhelming.
Norway´s major theatre critics (who are not an easily pleased bunch) wrote things like “sensationally good, personal theatre”, a “theatre-jazz-jam from hell”, that the experience was “like being sucked into a dark river”, that “this is theatre at an international level”, and that it is “elegant, innovative and disturbingly beautiful”. And so on.

Good times!

PS! Release of Season One is drawing closer. Stay tuned!

Sunday Jazz: At First

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Band: Gemmer-Toivanen-Fryland-Møllehøj
Title: ‘At First’

The working name for the band isn’t going to work in the long run 🙂 so if you can come up with something shorter, please post suggestions in the comments.

At First by Søren Gemmer

Gemmer-Toivanen-Fryland-Møllehøj

Søren Gemmer – Piano
Tapani Toivanen – Bass
Andreas Fryland – Drums
Per Møllehøj – Guitar

24/3/2012 Metronomen, Copenhagen

Elektra

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Hi!
Right now, I´m working my ass off in the theatre, where I´m part of a play that opens this saturday at
Det Norske Teatret in Oslo. The play is called Mourning Becomes Elektra (or Sorga kler Elektra in Norwegian), written by the American playwright Eugene O´Neill. It´s a rewrite of the oldest surviving play in the world, a Greek tragedy called The Oresteia, written by Aeschylus. He wrote it about 2.500 years ago, and the premiere was at the Festival of Dionysus in 458 BC. Pretty cool.

Starting off with a man and his son coming home from the war (King Agamemnon coming home from the Trojan War in the original play, and General Ezra Mannon coming home from the American Civil War in O´Neill´s updated version), the play features plenty of adultery, incestuous love, ice cold revenge and murder.

And in this staging, music is also a big part of the play. There´s a live jazz trio on stage, consisting of Steinar Nickelsen on B3 organ and analog synth, Erik Nylander on drums, and yours truly on the guitar. The reportoire is varied to say the least, spanning all the way from classic jazz ballads via The Doors and Deep Purple to freely improvised experimental soundscapes. It´s a lot of fun, but also very challenging: everything has to be totally in tune, everyone has to breathe the same rythm for the whole thing to work. The actors do the singing, but it´s nothing like a traditional Broadway musical.

Instead, we´re aiming for a seamless synthesis of music and text, sometimes performing dialogue, song and music simultaneously. Sound confusing? Yep. When we started rehearsing, it was really confusing. But we´re starting to get the hang of it now. It´s all about listening and being present in the moment: we musicians have to know the text well enough to understand what drives the actors and their characters, and they have to listen to the music and let us in. When we pull it off, it´s a magical experience. If you get the chance, come check it out. It´s something else.

Some snapshots from the rehearsals (you´ll find more and better photos if you click the links above):

PS! Saw the cover design for Season One today. Looking really sharp! Stay tuned for final release date…