Over the last week, we have had Scandinavian trio Markus Lemke, Hรฅvard Stubรธ and Rolf Nylinder in Cape Town, visiting South Africa to fish (obviously), and to show off a film and speak about the fly fishing they experience back home.
On the fishing front, they went up Western Cape brown and rainbow trout streams. They also fished for indigenous species like Clanwilliam yellowfish and sawfin with great success I might add (more on that later).
They are currently in Lesotho, fishing the Bokong river and staying at African Waters’ Makhangoa Community Camp before ending their trip in Johannesburg with a final event.
Joburg, don’t miss out!
There is one more show coming up in Johannesburg this Sunday the 26th. If you live in Gauteng, I strongly recommend you make a plan to be there.
Come for the film, stay for the chat.
The highlight of the last few days for me though (because I was not around to join them for the fishing), happened between the walls of the Fresnaye Sports Club in Cape Town at the Monday night screening hosted by Pierre Joubert at Stream and Sea. Rolf showed us his previously un-released film, A Not Too Steady Flow of Mayflies. Then for another hour he and Hรฅvard stood up and basically shot the shit with the 50+ people in the room.
Competition, envy, failure, and even a bit of release
I expected the film to be good and it was. Rolf’s films and his general story-telling skills are by now legendary in fly fishing circles. This new hour-long film is no different. At a base level, it follows Rolf, Markus and Hรฅvard as they fish in Swedish Lapland for trophy mayfly-sipping brown trout. But, in Rolf’s usual manner, it’s about so much more than that. Competition, envy, failure, and even a bit of release, all laced with dry ice humour and clouds of mosquitoes.
What surprised me most about the evening was how absolutely enthralling the post-film chat was. Hรฅvard and Rolf stood up front and simply fielded questions from the audience. Anything went, from details on the fishing, to life in the Arctic Circle, to the impacts of climate change, their impressions of fishing in South Africa, how they know each other, their business (Lemmel Kaffee) and their creative process.
Itโs kind of strange – the drive to do things. Of course, like everybody else, you stumble upon thoughts like, โI want to make money and be famousโ, but that is not what powers you to make or do something. At least not for me. Being out on these rivers, I have no intention of making a movie but then I see this plant, I donโt know this leaf, itโs pretty fucking cool and I film it. Then I ask what it is and Leonard says it is rooibos and I am like, what?!
Rolf Nylinder
Part stand-up routine (though clearly shooting straight from the hip as there was nothing rehearsed about it), part Reddit AMA, it was a fascinating, frank and extremely funny engagement between fly anglers from different worlds with so much in common and also some fundamental differences.
It is so fantastic to be here because everything soooort of resembles what we have in Northern Europe, but it is different which is what makes it magical. You can understand it and understand how nature works, but itโs a little different, which makes it so interesting.
Hรฅvard Stubรธ
Perhaps most refreshing was that despite being backed by Swedish Lapland Tourism to do this tour, they really were not trying any kind of hard “sell”. And that made it all the more interesting and engaging. If this was fly fishing geo-politics, it was an exhibition of soft power at its finest. But it wasn’t. It was just three fly fishing-obsessed friends sharing a slice of their lives with a crowd of like-minded fans in South Africa.
Itโs not about making money. If we can go traveling with the movie, that’s great. Itโs like the coffee. We can do whatever we want with the company and have fun while we work and thatโs for me personally really important.
Markus Lemke
If the skop-skiet-and-donner vibes of many fly fishing films leave you a bit flat, perhaps this is the antidote. It is a very different kind of evening. A special one that in my case will stay with me a long time.
Your turn, Joburg
There is one more show coming up in Johannesburg this Sunday the 26th. If you live in Gauteng, I strongly recommend you make a plan to be there.
Come for the film, stay for the chat.
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Itโs so much more than your usual fishing circles. Really enjoying these reads, super pics and insight from genuinely humble great people.