Joel Rautiainen


Dear fellow fly-fishermen!

For some reason people call me Joel Rautiainen, but I’m okay with it. I live in Eastern Finland in a small town called Savonlinna. You may have heard of the famous Savonlinna Opera Festivals, but I always get sleepy when thinking it, opera…zzzzz…. Okay, back to the essential. I’m a real beginner in fly-fishing. I’ve fished about 15 years (by the way, I was born in February 17th 1990), but I got my first fly-rod in June 2006. Luckily my first fly-fishing trip took place in the river Lemmenjoki, which is a famous river in Lappland. It didn’t took much to get hooked on fly-fishing in a surroundings like that. My first fish from there was a beautifully coloured, strong-fighting 15 cm grayling.

In January 2007 I got my own fly-tying vice. Of course, the flies I tied were hideous, but you can’t improve your skills just by reading the books. Okay, I wouldn’t say that my present time creations are astonishing masterpieces either. TAOFT has had a great influence on me and it still has a major part when it comes to developing my fly-tying skills. I like tying challenging patterns, unfortunately with bad results, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I just love tying. I started my experiments with realistic patterns and now I’ve taken along more classical patterns also. I don’t have any intentions to participate in a fly-tying contest. Surely some tiers get an extra kick when tying for competitions, but I find it equally exciting to tie flies for my own use.

Along fly-tying, I’m also very interested in different casting styles. I’m not a much of a caster right now, but I’m going to invest my time to achieve a casting style, which makes fishing more fun and exciting. Sadly, there aren’t many rivers near my hometown. The distances are something like 60 km so I can only dream of riding a bicycle to a riverside. Though on a coming summer, when I have my driving license, there’s no doubt where I’m going to spend my vacation. Nowadays I have to get to Lapland at least once a year. For coming summer I’ve planned a trip to the Swedish parts of Lapland. I hope it’s going to happen.

I’d love to keep writing this presentation, but I think it’s time to tie some flies…

Shall the trout be with you!

Joel / Jopeli

Caddis Pupa

Anthony Hopkins - Spider

Nymph

Cased Caddis

Hair-winged fly