Fly Fishing in Merikarvia, Finland

Fly Fishing (in short, F.F.), especially with dry flies, is one of favorites. I was in California when I was invited to my first F.F. That was 2004. Before starting F.F. I thought it was one of fishing and looked so bad and obsolete. After starting F.F. I realized it was a hiking in woods, rocks, and mountain streams, and also a shooting game.
This time, I had a chance to visit Turku, an old former capital of Finland, which is located 160km west to Helsinki for an academic conference.
Here is a question. Can I do F.F. in Finland? If so, where and how can I do it?
I didn’t have the answer before visiting Turku.
From the Internet, I found Merikarvia, 180km north to Turku, is the nearest place for F.F. (see http://www.fishmaster.fi/Merikarvia-english.htm) Then I visited a fishing shop, Turun Pyyntiväline Oy , in downtown Turku so that I could get advices from some of shop workers.
One of them kindly taught how to get Merikarvia and types of flies which were supposed to work there. He said “I’ve not been there quite a long time, maybe for 10 years. Nymph would work well. BTW, I’m going to 1,500km north to Norway for F.F. in water streams in mountains”


I got Peugeot 207 from Hertz and cruised 100km/hour exactly．

It was a nice drive without signals over 130km and stopped over Rauma for rest http://www.rauma.fi/english/immigrants/default.htm


I arrived Merikarvia some minutes past 1pm and bought a fishing license at only one Kiosk there. It took 16 euros for 4-hour fishing activity.
Lovely place it is.

Dry flies worked only for small tiny fishes. I got three or four with dry flies and switched to large nymph flies.
I got two trout larger than my hand. Is this a char? I’m not sure what this is….

I had another business, which was “drinking local beer,” in Turku down town at 8PM..
Then I left there 5:30PM.
One thing to note: I met by chance Olli Ojamo who is the sale director of a fishing tackle factory, http://www.eumer.com/ at a river side of Merikarvia. I parked my car accidentally at his private space.
He showed me his factory where they are producing their original flies, and gave me sample flies. Many thanks!

It was a nice summer day in Finland. I enjoyed local beer also that night till 10:30PM at Panimoravintola Koulu in Turku.


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