The Expert, The Inexperienced and the Executioner

Who is going to catch the first salmon of the Norwegian season?
NEIL PATTERSON journeyed to the Stjordal to find out

Steffan fishing the Main Pool of the River Stjordal.

"Welcome to Oh-so-slow airport," John spluttered, having just dragged a rod case the dimensions of a Greek Doric column along mile upon mile of unmarked, steel and laminated corridors of Norway's principal airport. Free trolleys there were.

"But free flippin' miles away - at the other end of the hall!" David was beginning to share the same frustrations as John.
Oh-so-slow airport was ever-so-messing the minds of two impatient fly-fishermen.

Oslo airport is not designed for men in transit with nothing else on their minds than to get to a river for the second week of the season - and the early June run where, at this time of year, no salmon leaves the sea smaller than 20lb.

When they hit a second check-in queue, the calming effect of the nuclear soup (a lager called Hansa) that they had sipped on landing (at £6 a pint) finally wore off.

As the only member of the party carrying nothing heavier than the floss in my soap bag, I tried to clear the air.

"You salmon experts carry too much gear."
No one was under any illusion about where I fitted into this ménage-a-trois. I was the one with no knowledge, no expertise - and no gear. And no worries: writ loud and clear in the brochure: all equipment is on offer, for-the-use-of. Rods, reels, lines, nylon, waders, jackets, waistcoats - everything, in every shape and size.

And flies. Oh yes, flies, flies, flies. Our Danish host, Jan Daugaard, is the largest supplier of ready-tied flies in Europe. So what to bring?
Well, I had nothing to declare other than my incompetence in salmon-shaped things. Something I dearly wanted to correct. Accompanied by two of UK's salmo supremos, me guessed I was well on the way to catching my largest Atlantic salmon from a European water, on fly. From the Stjordal which, along with the Namsen and Guala, is one of Norway's, nay Europe's, most eminent salmon rivers. A river that is treated with such sacred reference, the hackles on your flies fall on one knee and bow, on entry.
"Everyone looks so tanned, so blonde and so beautiful," I wagered, in an attempt to calm my crowd of two with thoughts of pretty things. "How do they manage it? Two weeks of sun a year - and they're black."
But not as black as the clouds hanging over the heads of my two-some audience. The sun was burning high in the sky. It had been for over a week.

And it was there, sitting waiting for the departure of Flight SK1530 to Trondheim, that I quickly learned my first lesson in salmon fishing. A little rainwater, good. A lot of sun, bad.

The Old Lady
At Trondheim, The Old Lady was standing waiting for us, bathed in sun. She had undergone a total makeover. Gone were the flies stuck into the drapes that hang loosely from her. No bottles of Aquavit, hidden away, clinking at her every move. No ash piled high on the floor all around her - from the inbuilt wood-burning stove. No, The Old Lady, Jan's Mobile Home, had been upgraded since I was last transported in her, five years earlier, when John, Jan and I were shooting The Take series, for Sky Sports.
It was good to be inside The Old Lady again. But for only 25 minutes. Jan's farmhouse, due east, in the village of Ingstad - a cornfield away from his mile of Stjordal fishing - is no distance away.

This was his 38th year here. In that time he had turned a rusty-red, pine-panelled farmhouse and the other rusty-red, pine-panelled barns that formed a quadrangle around a grass courtyard, into a summer fishing lodge and, for three weeks a year, a fly-fishing school. This was his summer work. In the winter, he shutters up and returns home, to Sweden.
Spiriting my bag, and John and David's cargo away, he sat us round a table and then disappeared into the farmhouse - for spirits.

I looked around. No need to check the Trades Descriptions Act. Chest waders and waistcoats in every conceivable size hung like curtains in the barn porches. Along the side of the walls, fully made-up rods stretched out, like wires at a telephone exchange.

"Whose is all this gear?" I asked Jan, returning with a tray.
"Yours," Jan said, handing out the nuclear soup.
I strolled over to the farmhouse. In the hall was a picture of a family standing in the farmhouse courtyard, taken in the 1880's. Little had changed.

"Welcome, gentlemen," Jan said, raising his glass. "Tonight, we have herring and elderflower schnapps, moose in blackberry and juniper berry sauce and fried potatoes. And tomorrow, whale."

Jan hadn't changed much, either. And he didn't want us to forget that as well as a champion salmon fisherman, once he used to cook for the Swedish king.

"Come see my fangst," he said, leading us back to the farmhouse. He pointed to a piece of cardboard pinned to a rusty red pine wall at the foot of the stairs. The fangst is where all fish must be recorded.

"We ended last season with 166," Jan said. Staring blankly at the cardboard's blankness, the fangst revealed itself to be nothing more intimidating than cereal pack opened out, and reversed.

This was the second week - and none had been caught yet. Was the run late? Whatever the reason, on the fangst, Jan had left plenty of room for us. And, apparently, plenty of cereal.

"Breakfast is at eight. But you can fish all night, if you like. There's always a fire and coffee by the river - and the guides will serve you as much food as you like."

Three weary travellers stood staring one another blearily, with eyes that had first opened that morning at 4am. Without a word spoken, we followed one another up a rusty-red staircase the same colour as our eyes - to bed.

The Czar
David had been up bright and early to scout. Over a breakfast table - yawning with tubs of berry jam, cold meats, yoghurts and herrings - he delivered his report.

"The river is low. But a good height for a Scottish river."
Jan's right hand guide, Jorgen, a young Swede - and my guide for the day - shook his head. His silence spoke volumes. As the beginner, I got Jorgen, the best guide - and the best beat, at the top end where 90% of the season's salmon are taken.

I may not have the casting and salmon-seeking skills but I had the fly. A huge gold hook, on a 2/0, a yellow calf hair wing and two jungle cock cheeks. The Czar Fly - sublime in its simplicity. And a favourite on the Varzina, so I have been informed, for I have only trout-fished in Russia.
I tied it up for the trip, because I love the look of it. Not a philosophy I take with me to a trout stream, but certainly one I take with me salmon fishing. If nothing else happens, a fly you like can guarantee happiness.
I held it out to Jorgen on the palm of my hand for his approval. He looked at it enviously. Handing me a 13' and a slow-sink shooting-head, he looked down at it once again. His nod spoke volumes.

The water on the Top Beat was too thin to fish. We fished a hundred yard stretch of fast water below it, roiling and rolling over rocks the size of small cars. Letting the Czar hold a while in front of each boulder, then allowing it to parade ceremoniously round the side and swing into the ballroom at the back, where I let it dance a while, that morning, not an inch of river was spared a Royal visit.
After two hours, I returned to Jorgen sitting on a stone, carving a piece of wood.
"Not a fin," I told the Swede.

Not alone
Back at the farmhouse, I discovered I wasn't the only one who had not caught, touched, risen – or even seen any sight of one of these guaranteed 20-pounders.

Jan smiled and reminded us that if you are a true salmon fisherman, even on the finest salmon beats - at the prime time - catching one is a bonus. Everyone agreed. One salmon taken from the Tweed at end of a week's hard slog, beats a salmon every five minutes at a Russian camp.

I remember fishing with Orri Vigfusson in Iceland. I caught one salmon. He caught nothing. "That's why I keep salmon fishing," he told me. "No," I said. "That's why you're called The Saviour of the Salmon!"
"It's women who catch all the salmon. And the biggest," said David.
"No, it's trout fishermen, like Neil, that just get lucky."

"Well, that's the end of me," I said, feeling any good fortune that I may have possessed drip down the side of my leg and seep into the grass in the courtyard.

Then it suddenly occurred: "If this is so, why bother becoming an expert?"

Learning curve
After a second salmon-free day, and a third, it rained on the fourth night. A little, but not enough. I had spent the morning fishing an area the size of a ground sheet, a bald, flat slither of water on the far side of a fast shallow that roared past with the sound of a train. It almost had me over twice, wading at ankle depth.

This was the Golden Triangle. If you could get a fly to swim, drag-free through this deep, slow pothole, you raised your chances of catching a salmon, anywhere on the river, by a huge percentage.

I rose nothing all morning and returned early to the Gabahuk - the log fishing hut with a bird's-eye view of the biggest salmon pool on the beat.
Jan's two other guides, Steffan and Morten, both students from a Swedish Guide School - and Danes - were poking at the embers under a boiling, tar-coated kettle.

"There's a salmon in the pool. We saw it salmon jump an hour ago," Steffan told me as I clambered up from the river.

"The salmon," Morten said, laughing. Steffan was more serious.
"All 20 silver pounds of it, rolling just …" He pointed to the back of the pool with his poker, "… there. Have a go."

"No," I thought to myself. To be honest, I was scared. I didn't know how to even start fishing this huge, swirling pool, so big it had a postcode. And, heaven forbid, I might just catch it. What then?

Over lunch, David described how he might try it from all angles. Even getting Steffan to row him across to the other side to try from there. Then, as if it delivered down to him from on high, he decided upon the exact spot where the salmon would be lying – and from where he would cast.
"Right there," he said biting into his fish paste sandwich with a vengeance and pointing to a lucky lupin that had managed to find a crack in the rock face with enough earth to accommodate its tender roots.
"That's where he'll take."
David had studied that pool with a knowledge I didn't understand. With the clinical skill of an ophthalmic surgeon, selecting a microscopic vein to inject.

"I'd Dick-it, David," was John's contribution. John had been sorting through his fly-box marking down the fly for the job with the same degree of expertise that Dave had been applying to marking the spot.
John lifted out a Red Francis (known as Dick, after the author Dick Francis), tied on a copper tube, with whiskers the length of a she-tiger.
"Need any help lifting that, John," I asked.
"Keep your hands of it, mate."
"No problem. It looked like it might bite me. Even worse, it might drop on my foot."
"What does that do?, " I asked John, pointing at the stripped hackle stems sticking out at all angles. "Tickle the salmon to submission?"
"It's your turn, Neil," David turned and told me. "Go get your rod. If anyone's going to catch it, it'll be you."
Believe me, I tried to resist.

Now I know when I'm not going to catch a fish. It's when I push my luck too far. In this case, my beginner's luck. But I decided to give it a try.
I didn't cast my Czar, I flicked it. I fished as feebly as I could, hoping that the salmon would sense my inexperience and grab it. Just to keep a tradition going.
Not feeling at all comfortable with this, I tried Tactic No 2. I thought of Mrs Ballantine and her 64lb salmon from the Tay, Mrs Morison's 61lb salmon from the Deverton and Doreen Dovey's 59lb from the Wye and I started to cast how a woman might cast, to try and make the salmon think I was a girlie.
I was searching my mind, not for tactics, but for tricks. I remember meeting one man on the riverbank who salmon fished wearing his wife's knickers. "They can smell a woman," he told me.
I considered an under-arm.
"Stop poncing about, Neil. Give John a shot."
I've never been so relieved to be relieved.
John declined. "It's yours, David. I have the fly, but you know the lie," he said, helping David lift the Francis from his fly-box and wind it on his line.
Back at the Gabahuk, I sat back with a fish egg and smoked salmon sandwich to watch how the experts do it. But I wasn't there for long. Second cast, David's rod bent over.

The reel screamed. Or was it Jorgen? Everyone was screaming! The reel, the guides, the seagulls - and the salmon, screaming down out of the pool with David hot on its heels.

Twenty minutes later, I discovered what all the fuss is about with salmon fishing. One minute silver, the next lilac, David's 18lb hen fish, 48-hours from the sea, still crawling with lice, now lay in rest in the lupins, flashing its motionless beauty in the sun. My jaw dropped.

The Hardy Jameson Flask was taken down from a nail in the Gabahuk to toast David, the season's first cereal killer. Jan's fangst was no longer blank.

Challenges
Thinking back, that salmon we took wasn't caught, it was executed.
I say 'we', because, in a sense - and David would be the first to agree - we all played a part. It wasn't a fishing expedition, it was a trial. A trial by jury. A jury of three.
Myself, representing the never-to-be-underrated traditional 'luck' element. John, with his enviable salmon sense, representing the need for exactly the correct fly selection. Finally David, and his almost mystical understanding of where the salmon would lie, how the fly should travel and how it should behave, representing the executor of the plan - and, as a direct result, of the fish also.
But the thing that made the week so interesting, was the fact that there weren't scores of salmon in the river to be caught. It was the fact that there was only one - on that most unusual, and freak early June week on the Stjordal. That was the challenge. And we got it.
Of course, the day after we left, the heavens opened and the river was filled with the fish we had rushed to catch. Fish that were there that first week. Only further down the river, waiting in the fjord.
But a tale such as this may all be a thing of the past. Orri Vigfusson tells me that the River owners of the Stjordal, the Gaula, the Orkla and the Verdal along with the NASF are organising a five-year pilot scheme to buy out the in-fjord nets, so days like we had, when one salmon was enough to feed the imaginations, talents, good fortune and memory cells of three anglers, may be gone, forever.

Well, almost. Not even Orri, with all his energies and influence, can make The Big G turn the rain taps on and off by request.
So did I learn anything from my trip?
Well, I can now throw a half-decent Spey, and I think I've got a better understanding of where salmon might lie - and, more importantly, where they might take.

But even though I believe that there are two kinds of experts - those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know - I am now convinced that you catch a salmon because you know how to catch a salmon. In short, you learn to catch a salmon. You don't just go to Russia and fish them out.

Expertise - and the help of those who know about it - is required. With every now and again, a little luck and lingerie thrown in.