Knut Ekelund - Fly Line Wizard and Zpey Team Member
The last year and a half, the Zpey Team has been honoured by the presence of a new member. Fly fisher, fly caster
and fly line wizard Knut Ekelund found the Zpey Concept and the Zpey Team so interesting that he joined forces
with us at the end of 2008.
Knut is one these guys who, even in modern times, deserve the term gentleman. Well behaved, soft spoken
(up to a certain limit) and well liked by everybody. His fly casting style reflects his personality; Knut
is one of the most elegant casters there is. He never uses more power than needed and makes fly casting
seem a lot simpler than it really is.
Knut just turned 40 and admits that he’s getting more familiar with the term “grown up”. Being a fly
fisher thankfully means that one will never fully grow up, but Knut is closer than most (especially
closer than me), even though his “child within” is still there.
He has studied “economics” (or whatever it’s called) for years and is employed by his municipality
to control the flow of money. My own education was all about sports science and if my description of
Knut’s job situation sounds strange to all you money geeks, you still know what I’m talking about.
Knut started fishing when he was three, but for some reason, there were no fly rods involved until
he turned seventeen. For most of the next 23 years and for the unforeseeable future, it’s been and
will be, fly only. Before the age of 30, it was mostly single hand fly fishing for trout, but after
that he’s also included salmon, sea trout and double handed rods.
His first fly casting competition was the Norwegian National Championship in 2001 and he admits to
a slow start. He finished dead last and didn’t particularly like that. So he did what he had to do.
He started practising more and the results have been gradually improving. At the Norwegian National
Championship eight years later (in 2009), he came third in the single hand competition and he won both
the double hand competition and the over all competition.
A few years ago, his love for fly fishing and fly casting took a new and interesting turn. He wasn’t
satisfied with the quality of commercial fly lines for competitive fly casting and started experimenting.
Having been blessed with an analytical personality and a very functioning brain, he channelled all of
his systematic qualities towards his main goal: Designing the best competition fly lines in the world.
In the beginning he would cut up everything from cheap to rather expensive lines and then try to rejoin
them into better ones. Once again, practise made better, and after some time he had come up with pretty
good alternatives, but he realised that the very best lines will never be made through cut and paste
philosophies.
I was interested in lines myself, but lacked the already mentioned analytical single-mindedness that Knut
possessed in abundance. Having been sent on a mission by Zpey’s Head of Design and Development, Henrik
Mortensen, the objective was curiously concurrent with Knut’s personal goal (even though my mission also
included competition rods): Go out and make the best bloody competition fly lines and fly rods in the world.
Who was I to deny?
Understanding ones own limitations is, I believe, a rather important quality in a human being and if I
still haven’t understood all of my limitations, I did realise that I needed help; or more specifically, I
needed Knut. About a year and a half ago we started this project and as I’m writing these words (February
2010) we are just waiting for the finished lines to be produced and delivered. Through this very effective
team work, which also included important and continuous contributions from fellow competition caster
and fly line freak, Geir Hansen, we tested prototype after prototype and came gradually closer to the finished
product.
You can read more about this process under NEWS on this web site. Look for the title “Fantastic NEW Competition
Fly Lines from Zpey System”.
The same team has also, together with our Swedish team members, Jim and Chrille, been responsible for
designing the new and longer shooting heads called “Zpey Fusion Extended”. Three weight classes, five
densities in each class and a total of 15 different lines (look under NEWS on our web site and the title:
“New Zpey Fusion Extended”).
Together with team members Jarle Strandberg and Tor Grøthe (trout fishermen and competitive fly fishers of
international format) and based on an initial idea from Jarle, we have also designed a new long bellied WF
line with level steps and triangular cones in the front taper (to ensure effective turnover of even long
leaders). This line is named “Silence”, will be delivered in # 3, 4, 5 and 6, and you can read more on our web
site if you click on NEWS and look for the title “Zpey Silence – NEW Long Belly Line”.
Zpey has a great team and Knut definitely deserves a place among the rest of us. We look forward to
designing many more fantastic fly lines with him in the future.
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