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Jockfall – Kalix River 🇸🇪

Jockfall is on the mighty Kalix river and is located in Swedish Lapland, its famous amongst salmon anglers as being a premier destination for targeting large Baltic salmon and home to one of the best salmon pools in Europe.

I joined team some LOOP team members Euan Miller and Eoin Fairgrieve to enjoy a short fishing trip towards the end of the season to experience the fishing here. We were hosted by LOOP team member Ronnie Landin and Robin Landin, two brothers that have spent their entire lives fishing this magical river system. Ronny and Robin operate a fantastic venue at Jockfall where they have stunning elegant cabins right on the river bank along with a restaurant, bar, sauna and fishing tackle shop.  It provides a luxury base with everything you could need for a trip exploring the mighty Kalix system and catch Baltic salmon.

We enjoyed some excellent autumn fishing, hooking into large baltic salmon each day. The pools are colossal and certainly not for the faint hearted, everyday there are fish jumping completely out of fly casting distance yet also fish showing very close in. The quantity of fish in the pools was incredible seeing these huge fish frequently jumping throughout the pool really gets your adrenaline flowing.

Our primary set up was fishing the 10150 7X, Cross ST and NXT with a range of Skagit heads and T tips along with some full sinking GDC lines from S3/4 to S5/6. Ronny gave us some sterling advice on the first day… “Cast as far as you can and then add some distance” followed by, “find the bottom with your fly relative to the flow and then come up around 2 feet.” Then means you are often casting at your maximum capable distance and casting sinking lines which can take some getting used to. Armed with the right tackle and expert advice from the Landin brothers we enjoyed some very memorable days fishing.

What was really surprising was the variety of species available to fish for. The primary target was of course Baltic Salmon, but the river also hosts a healthy grayling population, nice brown trout and even pike in both the river system and near by lakes. We were fortunate to head out on to one of the local lakes to target Pike for an afternoon, it was a stunning location and we had a few follows from some large double figured pike and managed to land some smaller ones.

For me the real highlight of fishing in Swedish Lapland is the campfire culture, the environment is completely wild and there is an ethos in lapland that through the summer months you should spend as much time as possible in the outdoors. Perhaps it makes up for the long dark winters even so the locals embrace this outdoor lifestyle extremely well! Visiting each salmon pool you will often find an area to light fires, boiling coffee and cooking food in the outdoors is a way of life and very enlightening for visiting anglers.

We were extremely fortunate to be hosted by Ronnie and Robin who have fished at Jockfall for the past 30 years. There is nothing in this area and the river that they do not know, they were both exceptional hosts and provided us a superb lapland experience that we will not forget.