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Fly Fishing in Norway 2009
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| Valdres: everything a trout and trout fisherman needs. |
Land of the giants
TONY KING reckoned the Begna watershed to the north-east of Bergen should hold decent trout. He was right!
After many visits to Norway in pursuit of salmon, some of the brown trout by-catch I’d made had already convinced me that I should take along a trout rod on my next adventure. However, as it turned out, my next trip was to be to a Norwegian system which was connected to a vast lake rather than the sea, so there were obviously no migratory fish to be found there at all.
I didn’t need much persuading; I had heard that before the winter set in, the locals would net the region’s lakes and rivers for food. In the process some huge fish would turn up. In addition, the numbers and weights of the declared net catch stacked the evidence of a highly productive system.
I had landed a dream job: the idea was to fish the area with the support and guidance of local fly fishers to assess the potential as a trout fishing destination.
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| With the new netting restrictions, come new county laws which impose a quota on the number of fish Norwegian anglers can kill. |
The changing face of Norway’s salmon fishing
MARK BOWLER visited the Directorate of Nature Management in Trondheim to find out how, in 2008, new netting restrictions have led to more salmon accessing Norway’s rivers, and how it is moulding a different attitude and approach amongst its anglers.
The common perception of Norway’s salmon fishing from the British perspective might be seen as a fish-all, catch-all, kill-all policy. Limitless rods, fishing all methods, 24 hours a day in burly mountain rivers in an effort to extract and proudly display trophy sized fish by a roaring campfire in the midnight sun.
Norway, however, has seen a sea-change in its attitude to salmon recently: some of it forced, some of it due to policy, some as a result of conscience, and the rest of it through necessity.
A combination of two factors saw this manifest itself over the winter of 2007. The first was a natural factor, identified by all major salmon producing countries in the north Atlantic. Norwegian fish scientists were growing increasingly concerned over the rapid decline of its grilse run (one sea-winter fish). Recent data was showing that 60% of its catch (rod and net) was made up of two sea-winter fish. What, asked the scientists, was happening to Norway’s diminishing grilse run, which in the past had made up 90% of its total catch? With total salmon catches consistently 50% down on figures from the 1970’s and 80’s, an extremely poor grilse run in 2007 signalled Norway’s lowest salmon catch figure ever. In common with other nations, Norway’s scientists were looking at setting spawning targets on 180 of its 400 rivers in order to attain adequate conservation levels of stock.
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| Coming round nicely: fishing a run into a ‘fish trap’ at the top of the Verdal. |
Insde Norway
This June, MARK BOWLER was amongst the first of many anglers to fish Norway’s salmon rivers since the lifting of its coastal nets.
“You know”, Harald Oyen confided,”this pool frightens me”. As we stepped through the vibrant green ferns, fronds beseeching the 24-hour June light of Norway, following the small stream that flows down to Idgholen, I began to wonder how anyone that stands at least six feet six in stockinged shoes could possibly be frightened of a salmon pool.
Idgholen, on the Orkla, is certainly deep, and with a rocket of white water foaming under the footbridge at the neck, pretty impressive too. It sweeps round a big, right-angled bend with the smooth cornering power of Lewis Hamilton and then glides out over a collection of rocks at the tail.
Then, as Harald made a cast to the far ledge of the tail, where the big ones are supposed to lie, a porpoise lethargically head-and-tailed just off his rod tip. It took a couple of seconds for me to realise that this couldn’t possibly be a porpoise. We were miles from the sea and up in the hills above Trondheim. It was, in fact, the biggest salmon I have ever seen. I suddenly realised that the 15lb nylon I had been using – the nylon I alway use for my salmon fishing at home – was seriously inadequate for this pool. I realised that, to paraphrase the immortal line from Jaws, “We’re gonna need a bigger rod”.
One week later Harald sent me an email. In it was a picture of a man sitting on a rock as if it was a fighting chair on a big-game fishing boat. But wedged into his stomach he strained back with all his might and his rod bent so much the tip threatened to dip below his feet. He was connected to a massive fish in the Igdholen. 90 minutes later it got off. He never even saw the fish. Frightening.
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Putting the parasite into perspective
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| Norway’s Stinkjer river is treated for Gyrodactylus this autumn – the Rotonone kills all fish and invertebrates. |
Norway has been blighted by publicity surrounding Gyrodactylus, but it is not as widespread as some might think, says HARALD OYEN.
Norway is not only famous for its runs of big salmon. Due to justifiably intense publicity in the UK and Ireland, Norway is also labelled as the salmon nation that has been blighted by ‘Gs’ or Gyrodactylus salaris, to give this parasite its full name. As British anglers returning from the Nordic countries could possibly bring Gs into Great Britain, the importance of awareness is vital – and rightly so. Gs has been a curse of Norway – and still is – but only in what is now just a very small number of Norwegian rivers.
Norway has lived and coped with Gs for more than 30 years and it will probably take some years until Gs is totally eradicated from the small number of rivers that remain infected. However, Norway can still offer more than 420 clean and healthy salmon rivers to any angler from anywhere in the world.
Gs occurs naturally in the Baltic rivers of Sweden, Finland and Russia, and Baltic salmon are resistant to it.
Only Atlantic salmon are severely affected by this parasite, and salmon from Scottish rivers have also been proved to be susceptible to it.
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| Searching the Norwegian Sea for sea trout. |
Adrift in the Arctic Circle
MAGNUS ANGUS experiences some good vibrations fishing from a boat in Nordland.
I’m convinced fish don’t like people. It’s as if we move in, bringing noise and buildings, kids and mess … fish simply see the whole tone of the place set to decline and move out. Which makes Norway ideal: it’s slightly bigger than Great Britain, contains less than one tenth our population and has a massive coastline – allowing for the larger fjords, around 25,148km of shore.
The lure was sea trout and pollack, fishing around the coast somewhere in the north of Nordland well inside the Arctic Circle. The plan was to fish a few of the smaller rivers and do a little saltwater fly fishing. It turned out we did a lot of saltwater fishing and dabble in the rivers – the sea proved more productive and more fun.
The idea of wandering about the Norwegian Sea (it’s too far north to call it the North Sea) looking for sea trout seemed like lunacy. Leaving aside the challenge of finding small groups of fish in a rather large sea, I was thinking freezing water, icebergs, and towering waves washing Mike off the deck, which he deserved since he suggested the trip.
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Click here for salmon fishing contacts in Norway.
www.visitnorway.com - The offiicial travel guide to Norway
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