Long story short

We first tried salmon fishing at the river called Byske in Sweden. Our trip lasted well over week. Not much to tell. Our gears were way too light-weight. We stumbled on the riverside many times, reels and rods took some damage. River was full of salmons and we didn't catch any of them. Luckily graylings weren't so picky. We slept in the back of our van, washed ourselves in the river and made food by campfire. Days were so sunny we burned our skins and nights were so cold our water bottles froze (yeah, sure, "water" bottles...)

Every summer we returned to Byske

...and there was still not much to tell. Good times, we had fun. It was usually so dry and sunny, that even locals didn't bothered to fish. But we did. Whole week. Every year. More reels and rods were broken and more lines were cut. Couple of phones got lost. It was obvious we didn't need any kind of MacGyver stuff with duct tape, we simply needed more spare parts.

Years passed and we visited also rivers Kalix and Muonio. I finally caught my first salmon at Jockfall. Juha-Matti got his first salmon long before. He have caught many salmons, but not as big as I did. It was 114cm long. I broke my Vision reel when I was fighting with it. When I carried the salmon to our car, Juha-matti weighted that thing and said: "Very good, but it's 5 kilos too big!" His biggest salmon was about 9kg (hence the saying on one of our shirts: size matters).

I remember many mornings with swollen faces and bloodshot eyes, but not once was the weight of the world on our shoulders. Not on our fishing trip. Only thing that is hard, is the intensity of fishing. Cast after cast, repeatedly 24/7. Whole body is beaten up and tired.

And when I stumbled the third time in a row on some night, day or morning, I wet my shirt, wading trousers swallows gallons of water and my head was under water for a brief moment. What more could go wrong? How hard can this be?! And beside that, not a single fish bite my flies. Spey hard.

And then my wading trousers zipper brakes - trousers were bought week before - soon after I yank my fly line loose from the highest pine of the whole riverbank. It gets loose and shoots straight to my leg. Hook penetrates trousers and cuts in to my flesh. What a bloody mess.

At least we could choose our battlefield. Lets take this river.

For next summer I designed our first t-shirt

It felt like a proper thing to do. Something to remember. Like a landmark or street sign.