Ahrex Hooks Podcast

"Just one more snack"

You know the feeling. The table was well laid, courses were numerous and plentiful and the company civilized and educated. Leaning back in your chair you realize that you are more than full. But then again, there’s always room for one little delicious extra snack.

That was how this sea trout was feeling. It started when the sun stuck it’s crowbar in and turned winter in to early spring. The trout began hunting herring in deep water. A diet of those fat little glittering fish helped it get in perfect shape after a long winter. Like a trophy it shined silvery in the water. The next course was served in low water.

Lugworm came out of their holes to breed and the trout downed so many of them that its tummy was hard as a drums skin. But more wants more. Sand eels started swimming around just after the worms disappeared and they didn’t have a chance when the high-speed hunter carved like a radiant sabre through their schools.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

"Holy mackerel"

When the Humpback Whale turned sixty he changed his life and the lives of the rest of us. Our more than complicated tax system gave him a refund from tax he paid around forty years before. It’s not something you can understand you just accept it. Bottom line was that he suddenly had money to spend so he bought a boat.

The Humpback Whale had spent a good part of his youth in southern Greenland. Life was simple; sleep, eat, work, hunt, fish and sail. Since there are no roads there and most of the coastline is one big archipelago, you sail in the big fjords and around the islands.

There are three reasons to sail up there. You’re going to visit somebody, on a hunting trip or, most important, on your way to go fishing. The two latter are not only for the fun of it. There’s always room in the freezer for another reindeer or a bunch of arctic char. When you’re on your way in a boat in Greenland, wind in the hair and sailing in the breathtaking scenery, you’ve got two feelings. The first is the sense of being very small. It makes you humble. The other is freedom and it’s filling your soul. The Humpback Whale had been missing that feeling since he went back to the Baltic, now he could get it back.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

"Doctor's orders"

“Can you say that again, please?” I looked at my physiotherapist with all the hope I could establish. The reason why I paid him a visit was, if not grim, no fun at all. For years I’ve been having heavy headaches combined with the muscles in my neck and shoulders getting stuck. The worst days can put me on the sofa horizontally unable to do anything but sleep.

Pain is one thing, but feeling dizzy is actually the most uncomfortable part of it. My doctor did send me to the hospital to get a scan in one of those tubes, which looks like the cabin you hibernate in on your way to Mars.

The nurse gave me a headset and told me that I would be able to listen to music while I was getting the scan.

“Is it pop music?” She nodded and I asked her to find some talk radio instead. So she did, but not only that. In my ears was the noise of the scanner and not one, but two radio stations. The cacophony of talk radio, pop music and the scanner was a bit over the edge. I had to zone out, so I started casting in my mind. The trout you can catch that way is beyond beauty.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

"Murphy took a day off"

You have to admire people that work. And not only work, but do it day in and day out without weekends, holidays, leave of absence or other of mankind’s inventions, laws and regulations.

Mr. Murphy is one of the very few. I can’t believe that he has never ever taken a day off or even packed sunscreen and bathing trunks and escaped to the beach. That would never happen. Mr. Murphy is a guy with incredible high work ethics, he has a law to uphold. No doubt about that.

I went to my beloved channel with the sometimes pretty strong tidal current. The evening before I was sitting tying very small critters. Well for saltwater they were small. Deep down at the bottom of a drawer I had found three short double hooks size ten. Those are the meanest hooks I have ever laid hands on. That’s not the right expression. Don’t ever lay hands on them. If you touch them the wrong way, you’ll need surgery to get them out of your finger.

The Bricklayer, calls them Velcro made of steel. They stick to everything they get close to. With all the care I could establish I created three gammarus in my vice. Not the most complicated flies to tie and the hooks only scratched my fingers a few times. In other words they cost me very little sweat and a bit more blood.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

"Shine a light under me"

Summer nights are full of light here in southern Scandinavia, it doesn’t really get dark. At the end of April we start fishing in the evening and long into the night. It can be hard to take care of family and job when you are pretty wasted from too little sleep, or having a ”fishing hangover”, as the Bricklayer has named it.

In the middle of July we have to abandon our favourite spot in the tidal current. The kelp starts dying, floats on the surface and makes it impossible to fish. You get tired of hooking one ”island” of seaweed after the other. Especially at rising tide it gets annoying, when the water picks up the dry weed on the shore and transport it with the current.

At the same time the trout get harder to find. In warm summers I think they are lying under a bush of kelp covered with sunscreen in their swimming trunks, but that’s of course only a suspicion.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

”Two to tango”

“I can’t see anything.”  The windscreen was lightning up as if I was staring straight into a galaxy at close range. “Don’t worry”, said the anthropologist beside me. “Neither can I.”

We had just passed a curve when the sun hit us from the north. That wouldn’t normally make sense, but when you are north of the Arctic Circle at midnight in the middle of summer it does.

I had to hit the brake of my trusty old Land Cruiser, get out and clean the windscreen. It was totally covered with bugs and mosquitoes. On the road again we turned on the radio and listened to the last minutes of a breathtaking world cup final in football. That year’s tournament was our blessing. Sweden finished third and every match day the roads were empty.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

”The scent of a lady”

“I’ve seen some bears there lately.” My friend, The Baker, blinked to his partner in crime, we laughed but he had planted a seed of doubt about the wisdom in camping the place we had just told him about.

My fellow countryman moved up here north of the Arctic Circle many years ago because he’s so fund of fishing and hunting. He got so well integrated that he even won some competitions in cross-country skiing. The locals looked in disbelief at a winner that comes from a basically flat and even in the coldest winter often-snowless country, he loves to tell the story.                   

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson

”The black dog”

The valley is settled between high mountains that shield it from the morning sun. That gives the strange blue light I was walking around in, taking careful steps making sure to stay on the path.

The reason was obvious, I could see several makeshift red flags standing in the field not far from the small group of tents. Each flag marked a spot where a landmine had triggered, a mean weapon that keeps on killing and wounding years after whatever conflict it was put there for.

The herders tried to lead their goats in front of themselves to make the mines go off, but the mechanism inside the hidden assassins is so devilishly made that it takes the weight of a grown up human to trigger them.

It has since been my image of utter desperation, when you willing to sacrifice your goats witch only source of income rather than being blown up yourself.

• This podcast is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby and voiced by Patrick Johnson