A HEAD FOR ADVENTURE

COMING FROM A STORIED SOUTH AFRICAN FLY FISHING FAMILY, YURI JANSSEN WAS NEVER GOING TO BE SHACKLED TO A DESK 24/7 AND HIS CV (LESOTHO, RUSSIA, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC) SHOWS AS MUCH. IN HIS CURRENT ROLE AS HEAD OF ADVENTURE AT THE GLENEAGLES HOTEL (GLENEAGLES.COM) IN SCOTLAND, HE TOOK A MOMENT OUT FROM CATCHING BROWN TROUT ON THE RIVER SPEY TO TELL US ABOUT HIS LIFE, GO-TO LIBATIONS, AND THE LOVE HE HAS FOR HOME.

The first fishing experience I remember was fishing for bluegills and red breasted tilapia in an irrigation dam near Stanger in KwaZulu-Natal. I was using a homemade bamboo fishing rod, float, split shot, and worm. My brother and I used to spend our summer holidays with our great aunt from Scotland who had access to several bass dams in the coffee plantations. Although I cannot remember it, I’ve been told my first fish was in a lagoon on the South Coast not far from Ramsgate.

I was born in Durban and grew up in Underberg where I spent most of my school years. Glenlivet on Speyside in Scotland is where I lived while I was at the University of Aberdeen. I lived in Hilton outside Pietermaritzburg during my guiding years with Tourette Fishing (now African Waters). While guiding on the Kola Peninsula I was based in Tribeca in Manhattan in my off time, and for the last five years I have lived near Comrie in Scotland, a small Perthshire village situated on the banks of a once famous, autumn-run salmon and sea trout river.

My first real job after leaving school was running a small hunting camp in Pilanesberg National Park up in the North West province. From there I moved on to the world-renowned Mala Mala Game Reserve, where I worked as a game ranger and camp manager for three years. I had a four-year interlude as a student in Aberdeen, followed by three seasons in Russia. I flew to the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia which was to become my seasonal base for the next three seasons, while spending my winters living in New York. After Russia, there was a brief pause from fishing while helping my family open a restaurant, coffee shop and deli in Cheshire. Then it was back to South Africa where I joined Keith Clover during the early days of Tourette Fishing, guiding in Tanzania, the Okavango, Lesotho, the Tugela at Zingela, the Pongola River, and Sterkfontein. The next several years were spent working throughout a large chunk of sub-Saharan Africa as a photographer and filmmaker, until 2017 when I returned to Scotland to join The Gleneagles Hotel running their outdoor and country pursuits.

After a scenic 20-minute drive along a rural backcountry road, often stopping to watch large herds of red deer, my days are split between the office, meetings, working on our newly formed adventure division, and hosting media, journalists, and guests in the field.

Although I now live on the River Earn, a small Scottish sea trout and autumn-run salmon river, I spend most of my time exploring highland streams and hill lochs for native brown trout. In South Africa, growing up, my backyard home waters included the uMzimkhulu, uMzimkhuluwana and Polela rivers in Underberg and several high-altitude streams up in southern Lesotho, not far from where we lived. In the late 80s, while attending a primary school fly fishing clinic, I met the renowned author and photographer Wolf Avni. Somehow, I managed to crack an open invitation to fish Goschen Lake (KwaZuluNatal) at Giants Cup, a picture-perfect trout paradise that most kids our age only ever dreamed about. The condition was that I helped Wolf in the trout hatchery each morning. After lunch I was free to fish to my heart’s content. While success was acknowledged, Wolf instilled in me the value of blank days, keen observation, and always remaining curious.

Although I love to fish lighter, slower-actioned rods, my favourite all-round- go-to rod is a Sage XP 9’ 5-weight built in the late 90s which, in my opinion, is one of the best rods Sage ever produced. When conditions permit, I’m a big fan of old-school bamboo rods, which are pure joy to cast and fish. If money was no object, I’d commission someone to build me a full armoury of bamboo rods.

The definition of home is an interesting one. I think home has little to do with your physical address and a lot more to do with a place and its people. I have been fortunate, having lived in many countries, each with its own culture and magic, but I find myself being drawn back to Africa, the people and our unique sense of humour. As a young person, you only truly learn the definition of home when you leave it. My understanding of the definition of home dawned on me after an eight-year stint away from South Africa. Not long off the plane, I was kindly invited by Keith Clover (who later became the best boss I ever had) on an exploratory fly fishing trip to a small Midlands stream, where we camped out for a few nights. I don’t remember much about the fishing, but the crack around the campfire that night will remain with me forever. The only way I can describe it, would be as a laughing ultramarathon. When the whisky had run dry and the raucous laughter had finally died down, a fiery-necked nightjar called out and right there and then I realised I was finally back home. So yes, Africa is certainly home for me.

The best advice I have ever been given is to always remain curious and never stop learning. Do what you love and you will find your flow. Finding flow is when you find something you are passionate about which has value. This is usually achieved when your mind or body is stretched beyond its comfort zone while striving to achieve something difficult but meaningful.

I am most proud of my wonderfully diverse group of friends (they all know who they are), which includes my lifelong fly fishing companion and younger brother Marcus.

I cannot think of any standout party trick, however, I do have a rather funny story that occurred at Kharlovka Lodge out in Russia, involving a group of Norwegian and Canadian fly fishermen who both liked a party. There were three fishing lodge rules: 1) Fish hard, 2) party hard, and 3) never be late for the chopper! New arrivals tended to overindulge on their first night, but this group of fly fishers redefined first-night bonding. At midnight, the 30-minute warning for lights out was given, which was met with a roar of disapproval. A half-hour extension was granted on the proviso that everyone was in bed by 1am. Night duty staff reported back to the manager that help was needed in the lodge. Manager begrudgingly left his cabin to find 12 naked guests playing the burning toilet paper game whereby a two-foot section of toilet paper is lodged between the butt cheeks of two participants. A third person lights the toilet paper in the middle and a double shot of vodka is issued to the first person to flinch. We all had a good laugh, and everyone agreed to head straight to their cabins. The following morning, when no one turned up for breakfast, we sent staff to knock on everyone’s doors, only to be told no one could be found. After a search party was sent out, all 12 fly fishermen were found naked in the home pool, taking mock grip and grinstyle photographs with a mounted wooden carving of a 47lb salmon nicked from the fishing lodge mantelpiece. First night excitement taken to a new level!

Being a creative, free-spirited person, working and fitting into the corporate world has challenged me to dig deep. My greatest joy comes from inspiring and helping others to discover the joy of the natural world, which seems to come naturally to me.

My go-to drinks depend on where I am. Fishing the tropics – Mojito. Fishing cold climate – any single malt except the peaty ones from Islay. Bush parties in Africa –Rum & Coke. On Safari – a cold beer.

One place, never again: living in New York City. My New York adventure, living in a Manhattan high-rise, was one of the greatest adventures of my life. I urge everyone to live in a big city at least once, but I hope never to have to do it again.

One place I have to return to is South Island, New Zealand. One could spend an entire lifetime fishing out there and only scrape the surface.

I think there are a few instances when fishermen should be forgiven for lying. While I’m all for making fly fishing more accessible, sharing tips, and giving advice, I feel that disclosing sensitive fishing locations is certainly one example when it’s OK to tell a white lie, especially when your guide has specifically asked for the location to remain a secret.

The handiest survival skill I have is being able to sleep anywhere.

A skill I would like to master is fly tying. Although I would call myself a competent fly tyer, it is a skill I would like to refine and master one day. Particularly dry flies.

The most satisfying fish I ever caught was a 9lb 8oz New Zealand South Island brown caught in a very tricky situation. It was only landed by incredible teamwork between my brother Marcus, who spotted the take, and our salt-ofthe-earth fly fishing guide, Ian Cole, who expertly netted it as the hook straightened and the fish rolled about in the shallows. Marcus and I had talked about hunting big South Island browns together when we were little boys and so it was an incredibly emotional moment. You can see every bit of it in the photograph.

The biggest adventure I’ve ever been on happened when, after spending a few weeks fishing in Cuba, I had to get to a job in the southern part of the Central African Republic. My itinerary involved four days of flying, including a leg from Juventud, to Havana, to Paris, to Joburg, down to Pietermaritzburg to collect camera gear, back to Joburg and then onto Nairobi to meet the client’s aircraft, north to Bangui in the middle of a civil war. We had French Foreign Legion spaced out down the entire length of the airstrip.

After clearing customs, we took a smaller aircraft south towards the rainforest region, where we landed on a small makeshift bush strip. From the bush strip it took another four hours in Land Cruisers to reach camp. I then spent the following seven nights on a tiny makeshift platform high up in the forest canopy looking for a species of antelope called bongo. The only respite from clouds of mosquitoes was during the violent tropical storms which, ironically, was the only time we managed to sleep.

Fears remain unchanged if you don’t address them. Most of what we fear is in our minds and when you finally decide to deal with them, you realise that more often than not, the fear was based more on fiction than reality.

Before I die I would love to live self-sufficiently offgrid close to a small trout stream. I believe Western modern-day living, including eating ultra-processed foods, uncontrolled use of pesticides, and irresponsible use of social media is becoming detrimental to society. The happiest and healthiest people I have ever met have always lived simple lives.

What I get out of fly fishing has certainly changed over the years. Many years ago, I was invited to fish some of the very best waters in British Columbia where the fishing lived up to its hard-to-believe reputation and I had an amazing time but, since then, I have never booked a serious fishing trip alone. Nowadays it’s all about the company I share on the water and my favourite parts are the end-of-day stories around the dinner table or campfire.

If I could change one thing in fly fishing, it would be that we need to become more conservation minded and think about future generations. If everyone adopted [founder of Patagonia] Yvon Chouinard’s approach, the future of fly fishing would certainly look a lot brighter.

Something I have changed my mind about is that I used to think high modulus, fast-actioned rods were all the rage but, in hindsight, I realise that the joy of fly casting was lost. There is certainly a call for this type of technology for certain applications in fly fishing but certainly not in my preferred world of hunting trout on small lakes and streams.

A spirited brown trout on dry fly was the last fish I caught between this sentence and writing the paragraph above. I am currently sitting in a fishing hut on the River Spey. I meant to diligently work my way down the home pool with a 13-foot double-hander, but I simply couldn’t ignore all the head-and-tailing action all around me so I swapped the Spey rod for my 5-weight.

Check out Yuri’s interview with Patrick Tillard on the excellent podcast, My Kind of River (instagram.com/ mykindofriver).