Finnmarksvidda Big Grayling Adventure

So, finally back after a trip to Sweden and Norway.
I was up to the Kalix (northen Sweden, actually on the boarder to Finland) to stay with my brother and his family. As usual, it has been a lot of fun to spend some time with them.
But there's one more reason why I was there, and it was due to our 'annual' fishing week (this is the second :) ). As last year, we went to Finnmark in northen Norway to fish for big grayling. As this is a big place, we of course didn't end up at the same.
My brother and a friend of mine went by helicopter to a place we just pointed out on a map, 22km from the nearest road, while I hiked on my own.
The reason was that the helicopter could only take a load of 300kg and as you can imagine three adults (guys!) and their packing pass that limit easily :)
The hike to the lake took 8.5 hours, and due to some silly delays (thunderstorm, helicopter driver with amnesia etc) I started at about 19.00 instead of 14.00. 
First 10km was pretty easy even though it went steadily up towards Finnmark plateau. After that I needed to follow a map, no paths or tracks of any kind. Not that easy to walk among small birch shrubs, and of course it was rather wet after thunderstorm. The shoes got soaked rather fast, which meant that I got blisters, even though I was proactive and had bandage on. Gladly I didn't notice them until I arrived at the tent.
After all I still feel it was worth it. Just the feeling of walking in the middle of the night and the sun is up still high up, amazing.
Just as a note, the hike back took only 6 hours :) as it was dry and I didn't spend that much time taking pics.

The fishing then.
While hiking I got a text from my brother saying that they so far had only catched small fish, which was a bit discouraging but I didn't have that much of a choice than continue :)
The luck changed the very next day, when we in another lake found the bigger fish of just below a kg. It would get even bigger, but this definitely helped to improve the mood.
During the first couple of days I tend to exploring the area, walk a lot to the lakes and streams, as you never know where the big fish is hiding. For example, my brother found his lifes best fishing spot in a stream between two lakes.
We hit our PB-records over and over again during those couple of days. There was so much fish that each time you would put a fly in, you would had a fish on, and it would probably be a 'the dream' grayling between 1-1.5kg.

The week was spent exploring the lakes and the streams, a lot of walking and each time we would move we found a better place. The weather was pretty good also throughout the week, with exception of some rain in the night and the following morning during one of the days. Still it was warm, and even through the area is known for its mosquitoes we were luck and had almost none!
Animal and bird life was pretty good too, with golden plover, skua, reindeer, golden eagle, buzzard, and some shorebirds. Unfortunately I neither saw nor heard arctic fox, maybe as the past three years has been poor vole years.

To sum it all up, we got around 120 graylings between 1 - 1.8kg (only kept 7 as dinner). This is probably once in a life time experience. The biggest fish was caught by my friend and was a grayling of 1.8kg, while myself and my brother got a grayling at 1.52kg which is still our personal best (might have been the same fish :) ).
In a month, it is time for a long trip again, but now to the United States, los angeles and then drive around to the various national parks like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion NP, Grand Teton and Yellowstone NP and more. I'm really looking forward for that trip :)