Fishing Insight from Norway

God had a lot to do with my early fishing luck.

Apart from the leaking roof on our local church I knew that some things were better in other places. Take my Edinburgh neighbourhood, most of my friends found a way to move on from stealing the odd apple from back gardens in the wealthier area to stealing VHS recorders from the same premise.

Me, I had a Dad and Grandad who loved to fish and who encouraged me at an early age to get into it. Economically we were broke, but the sight of my first fishing rod on my 5th Christmas made me feel great. The holiday we took the next spring made me feel even better and especially when I lifted some sort of spiky fish from the sea at Ullapool.

Those early memories of that first trip had almost been forgotten in the last 35 years, until I came here to Norway. A mountain peak here reminded me of one in Ullapool and a whole pile of memories came back to me. One of these included a local thug who gave me a beating for not wanting to keep a lookout whilst he went in for the video recorder.

Years later he came to my door and asked if I could take him fishing as he had been in a cell for 6 months. Of course I obliged and learned a lot from his stories. I grew a bigger fear than ever of being shut away from the world, but part of me also thought about the fact that I was a thief like him, stealing out in all weathers and times to get that same hit he described about a pounding heart, the feeling of having beat something better than you. This to me was my freedom, my love and my fascination with fishing. I had just been lucky to have the peers to make it interesting and fun and I owe my honesty to those men and the sport that kept me interested and fulfilled in its pursuit.

I have tried nearly every kind of fishing (where there is sport involved) and I have seen a good many techniques for catching fish over the years. I cannot get enough of fishing and today and I am fortunate because I live in the best country in the world for almost all techniques from ice to sea, lake to river.

I came here with my Viking lady seven years ago and I have been enjoying the fishing around the area of Trondheim. The fjord offers all year round action and the local islands of Hitra and Frøya offer some of Europe’s best sea fishing. The lakes in summer offer large pike, nice char and trout and the salmon rivers are something I am not wealthy enough to relish yet.

Many of you reading will already know about the legendary fishing in Lofoten in the North of Norway. Cave paintings here depict post glacier settlers hunting by walking over the thick shoals until they could find a gap to sink in-between Then heaving the fish onto land, they…ok, sorry bout the BS, but by my reckoning, the Northland (Nordland) where Lofoten is situated, is probably the most famous fishing area in Norway and it’s hard to tell what is more powerful, the wildlife, the scenery or the fish?

Lofoten has just hooked a new attraction. Two islands to the south of this archipelago are called Værøy (Va-Roy) and Røst (as in Wrist) have become thee utopia for successfully hunting and catching big halibut.

These same islands puzzled early meteorologists because their average winter temperature is above freezing so they don’t have an official winter, even though they both bide inside the Arctic Circle.

This climate is influenced by the year round Gulfstream. Warm water, naturally enough means an abundant food supply and a cosy place to do some mating, but the added bonus around these two is the shallow waters, making it easier to find and faster to reach the fish.

The currents here are swift, so drifting with an eye on the depth finder you soon notice the average depth is around 30 metres with smaller pockets dropping away to no more than 100 metres. Depending where you are drifting between these, the depth shoots up to 3 metres-or less-and that’s caused more shipwrecks around these parts than the sirens.

In 1432, one of these tragedies washed a handful of survivors on to a small island outside Røst. Amongst them, an Italian noble and merchandiser Pietro Querini.

During his recuperation on Røst, Querini became fascinated with the stockfish that the islanders had been producing for centuries. Stockfish are migratory Cod (Skrei) that arrive around Lofoten to breed in the (ahem!) winter months. The Skrei`s arrival and subsequent harvest, coincides with the cooler dryer spring climate. Allowing the fish to be hanged up for 2- 3 months without the flies spoiling them.

Querini soon realized the protein packed lightweight stockfish would be enjoyed back home and the 576 years since his rescue, has led to the invention of more than 1000 Italian recipes with stockfish today.

Røst alone hangs circa 4000 tons of whitefish out to dry every year and 90% of this is exported to Italy.

Like Querini, my accidental discovery of Røst took a strange twist of fate when I was travelling to Lofoten to make a (Video On Demand) Vod-cast for a photographer friend. Before we set off, I did have one special place in mind that I wanted to spend at least a day fishing at.

The Norwegians prefer it to be called by its name Saltstraumen (Salt-straw-men). A 35 metre deep, 150 metres gap in the rock that is the gateway between the Skjerstad fjord and the sea.

Considering the last ice age was over 10,000 years ago, the Saltstraumen only started forming about 3000 years ago, after the gigantic ice domes had released their colossal weight from the land.

As far as I have learned at this point, there was a 3-metre height difference between the fjord and the sea during the Viking era. Today it is only 1 metre and rising. To witness the effects of almost 400 million cubic metres of water squeeze pressing through this gap is something to behold and that’s before you cast a lure in the water.

This oxygen rich water is a Mecca for fish and wildlife. At certain times of the year, the whirlpools or vortices at Saltstraumen have been recorded at 15 metres in diameter, 6 metres deep and flow at 22 knots per hour. The currents frequently eject deep water fish to the surface where they die of decompression sickness.

In places, this turbulence makes it kind of difficult to get any depth on the small lures that most holidaymakers use. I used a 6-inch rubber jig of 63 grams with a beach caster and soon began ripping out 5-10kg coalies and cod. This was only if I cleared the 50 metres of heavier turbulence between the shore and I.

Everyone fishing beside me caught regular small fish in this water and within an hour various nationalities of holidaymakers gathered round to watch and cheer as I landed them. It was quite a spectacle dispersed only by a monsoon like summer rain shower.

As a Scot, grown used to this normality in summer weather, this didn’t deter me and I continued getting some great action with good fish and the great sizes as they were a little larger than the Coalies and Cod in the south. One of my Norwegian friends had once told me ”The further north you go, the better the fishing gets”.

My best fish for the day at Saltsraumen was 11kg. Not bad from the shore. The world record for a rod caught Coalie was landed here. It was 22.7kgs.

The next day we headed to take the Ferry to Lofoten at Bodø, 30 kms east of Saltstraumen.

The monsoon from the day before had kicked into a storm and delayed our ferry by a few hours so I was pondering what to do in a wet and windy car park whilst we waited. As if God had heard me, a cigar toting Hemmingway lookalike, climbed out of an X5 in the ferry queue. He was with friend and both were sporting Pro staff caps from a well-known Finnish wobblers manufacturer.

They opened the SUV and I could clearly see some multiplier reels that dwarfed anything I had with me. Curios to learn what species they were after (and where) I was quickly introducing myself to my new Finnish friends Nypy and Jussi who explained that their love for fishing in this part of Norway had a lot to do with the species, sizes and even the salt the Baltic sea doesn’t have.

They had come back here to hunt at a new fishing camp on Røst… The camp only opened the year before (2005) but already it had set a record of 89kg halibut with regular fish coming up between 50-80kg. Was I dreaming? Was I surprised that the camp was called Wildwater?

Nypy has his own wobblers colours specially made for his Finnish team called Ruijan Pallas that translates as Halibut in Finnish. The sizes of these wobblers put the hair on the back of my neck up, as they were all a foot long. They also pulled out the first Dendo Maru A in Europe and demonstrated how the reel used a car battery to pull 10-15kg fish up to the surface at 160 metres / min, to which I asked

”Wouldn’t that be boring?”

Nypy replied very casually.

"We don’t want to have the small ones on the line”

Laughter, intrigue and the information about the island followed along with a few drams and Cohibas. Unfortunately, I couldn’t travel with Nypy and his friend Jussi there and then, but we organized ourselves and a year later returned to Røst.

Camp Wildwater is run by a well-known saltwater angler and professional guide, Kristian Keskitalo, and is producing more wildwater than ever. They have extended their camp to new premises on the island of Væroy and recently landed a New World record for a rod caught halibut.

There is fierce rivalry between the top guides at the camps and another well-known guide working at Wildwater, Per Jonasson helped Søren Beck to haul this new World record of 202 kg early in the 2008 season. Kristian helped his man to this 122 kg fish around the same time. The fish-ti-cuffs between them are going on as you read and I expect by the advanced technologies they are using, (periscope cameras under their boats, GPS and tag and release research) they will hook even more record-breaking glory again and again.

I never expected to see this kind of saltwater fishing action in a lifetime. I also got the biggest surprise and hit of adrenalin EVER on a fishing trip when a few of the local ladies turned up.

When most women swim past naked, you cannot help but take a wee peek, but when they are black and white, almost six tons each, you can’t avoid them. In this case I was completely blown away. I later discovered that around 7000 Orcas congregate in Lofoten during the herring season in the winter. They are a common sight in these parts if the weather conditions are good.

I have come a long way from using pliers on sheet lead (from the church roof) to make weights for sea fishing and as I said earlier some things are better in other places. I feel much happier living in Norway with the fishing and living comforts that exist here. There is much more of a way of life about fishing in Norway and it has to be tried to be believed.

My week on Røst in July last year with everything from midnight sun, great fishing and a ton of laughter would probably turn this feature into the length of the Rings trilogy, so I will just add that I had my broadcast equipment with me and this adventure is in post production for TV.