The Godfather

Estonia’s first fly fisherman.

John Spoke and friend.

Seeing a woman go over the railing of the M/S Georg Ots, the ship’s purser, John Spoke, leapt after her into an icy sea. He had no idea that the woman he was about to save was Irina Mikhailovna Gorbacheva, the daughter of Mikael Gorbachev.

Irina Mikhailovna was the ultimate catch. John Spoke threw her back.

The year was 1987, and the death knell had not yet finally sounded for the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was still firmly enough in power to reward those who pleased him. He presented Spoke with a green Jaguar and a Hardy fly rod and reel. Gorbachev’s present made Spoke Estonia’s first fly fisherman, and he quickly became the Estonian Socialist Soviet Republic’s godfather of fly fishing.

Spoke wrestles a trout in Estonia’s Kartuli river.

In the Disney version of this story, Spoke married Irina Mikhailovna, moved to the Kremlin, had strong Soviet children who learned to fly cast on the legendary streams of the Russian tundra. But in reality the empire crumbled, Spoke never saw the girl again, and Gorbachev soon didn’t even have enough power to fix a parking ticket. But Spoke didn’t care. As an Estonian, he’d always hated the commies.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Spoke became an importer of fly rods, and preached the gospel of the fly. Today, there are nearly a thousand fly fishermen in Estonia. Most all of them are on a first name basis with Spoke, and a day rarely goes by when he doesn’t receive a dozen phone calls with fishing intel. He goes fishing with his friends, though he rarely picks up a rod. He’s content to lounge bankside in a camp chair, sip from a can of beer, and shout unsolicited advice.

When he’s not trout fishing, Spoke still goes to sea. He operates a charter boat out of Pirita Harbor that takes tourists whale watching. They don’t see too many whales, of course, but they seem happy enough when they spot a seal, of which there are many.

Spoke still sometimes wears the hat he wore the day he saved Gorbachev’s daughter. He is pictured here pointing out a whale for a tourist.

Spoke still has the Jaguar and the Hardy rig, though he doesn’t use either of them. He will occasionally don his old sailor’s hat, wander the neighborhood in a bathrobe, and bark at the children who play in the street.

“I wonder what Irina Mikhailovna is up to these days,” he recently remarked to a visiting journalist. “I hope she’s staying away from boats.”

Follow Fly Fishing in Estonia on Facebook and Instagram. All photography, unless otherwise noted, by Jacques-Alain Finkeltroc, ©2023, Tous droits réservés.