Fishing was not allowed in the near vicinity of the damp of Taivalkoski in the old times. And so it is today, too. Although, a lot of other boys and I used to fish regularly downstream the damp. It was all so exciting that everything else was forgotten by the surge of the rapids.
To the smooth water areas under the damp and underneath big rocks run all kinds of fish from the lower streams. In addition to graylings there were sometimes bream and great ides. I was enthralled chiefly by graylings, among whose swam some handsomely sized ones.
As a boy I fished exclusively with a long bamboo rod. The rod endured only for a certain time and when it went to pieces, I took my bicycle and drove to the shop of Jalava. Choosing a bamboo rod was an art of its own. Not just any rod was good for me. The quality of rods varied. I picked my rod after I had taken some time to look at the crowns of the rods. At that time I was in the mind that a rod with a weak point won't hold the fighting of greater graylings.
My bamboo rod wasn't equipped with a reel or any rod rings. I tied a 0,25 millimeter line to the point of the rod and cut the line a little shorter than the rod. I bought the flies from the watchmaker of the village. To his collection belonged March Brown, my favourite fly at that time.
I usually travelled those few kilometers to the damp with my bicycle. Before I left I tied the bamboo rod to my bike. After I had arrived to the damp I took the rod and released the line that was around it and already had my favourite fly tied.
I walked to the rocks under the damp, threw my fly to suitable streams and let the fly bounce in the same place for a long time. Then suddenly a grayling rose from the river bottom and snapped the fly to its mouth. By fishing like this I caught many graylings during one trip. The graylings weren't catching always. Often they just teased me by jumping to the fly or by making quite big leaps around the it.
The summer days passed slowly and a still went fishing underneath the damp. There were sometimes other boys fishing and then the best sites were so manned that I settled for following the situation from the riverbank. But there were also times when I got to fish the graylings that had ran underneath the damp without anyone disturbing me.
But then the winds changed around the damp. I was fishing with my friend under the damp one summer day. We were so absorbed by the fly-fishing that we weren't aware of what was happening around us.
"Get out of there lads at once! You can't fish here!" Came a voice from somewhere around the damp bridge. We looked up and there was a peevish looking, big man on the damp bridge. He seemed to be serious so we got our rods and started to cycle away.
Some time passed and we decided to go to the damp bridge again. We were in the hope that the man wouldn't come back again, so we once again took our bikes down the hill to the damp. But how wrong were we. We didn't have a chance to fish for a long time when the same man came to the damp with his bicycle. He was very upset about what we were doing and scolded us with his loud voice and told us to go away quickly.
We were more fatheaded boys than usual, and since we had a tendency for forgetting things we soon noticed that we were again heading towards the damp for fly-fishing. But we knew where the man would come and we were going to be cautious.
Now our fishing methods were other than before. We were careful not to rise the points of our rods so high that the man living upstream on the other side of the river would have noticed them. We ensured our peace by watching the man's house once in a while.
Boys will always be boys. I won't tell you which one of us made the mistake. Anyway, when the other was watching, the other could see the metal of the bike to flash. Someone was riding very fast along the village road to the damp. Suddenly we were in a hurry. We gathered our things together in a rush and cycled very fast all the way to the little shop.
We laughed excitedly and calmed down only after we had bought some kongo-candy from the shop and thrown ourselves to the grass to eat them.
We were always yearning to go to the damp. Last happenings hadn't made us any wiser so we once again found ourselves fishing under the damp. This time we went farther, but we were still in the forbidden area. Well, it happened again. Afted we had fished for some time the same grumpy man appeared from somewhere to the opposite bank and would probably have eaten us if he could have.
"I'll give you five minutes to disappear, and if you don't do it, I'll sue you!" The grouchy man was serious and we went away. That was enough for me and I quit fly-fishing around that site for good - but not in other places!
A lot of water has flowed in the Taivalkoski rapids since my boyhood times. The damp is still in its place (There's pictures about the damp in the Tales of The Scales -page). The tar-smelling wooden bridge (in the picture) had to make way for the new one.
The rocks that were moved to the shore because of the log floating have been moved again. This was not restoring the rapids to what it used to be before the floating but it was done for the river rapids paddling center that was recently built.
Fly-fishing has been my hobby for nearly thirty years now. In that time I have experienced a lot and had many funny adventures, beautiful summer evenings and cool autumn weathers. My life as a fly-fisher goes on - the streams are always there!
