Hi.

Is the season really finished already, man time flies! The last few days just flew past like a shooting head speeding out towards the other bank. Well, I did not have the time to write any reports during the last few days, and I have been travelling after the end of the season as well, thus it is now a few days into September before I managed to sit down and write down the happenings of the past few days.

I went up to the river on Tuesday afternoon during the last week, and I thought I was about to experience a great finish to my fishing as I already on the first round hooked a salmon around 7-8 kilos, this salmon began shaking its head with a force so strong I was sure it would register on the Richter’s scale, I actually thought the salmon would break my rod tip. This went on for several minutes before it fell off, and it had actually bent the hook, this is why I lost it this time around. The mood rose again as I moved to another pool, I was now using one of my favourite flies for autumn fishing, the Ally’s Shrimp. I was fishing the same run where Steffen and I had this big salmon run during our holiday. And at the exact same spot a salmon slowly pulled on the fly without getting properly hooked, and the same thing happened on the next cast, but somewhat more aggressive this time, man the excitement was soaring as the third cast went out across the river. But what happened now was that a pretty big salmon jumped straight out of the water, indicating a great deal of irritation from my visit in the pool, this time it did not touch the hook. The salmon would have been around 10 kilos, it was easy to see on this short distance. If I was excited before the third cast, I was even more so when the fourth cast descended on the river surface, and again I felt the same pull without the fish being hooked. This actually happened again on the next cast as well, but after that it went quiet again. Nonetheless, this created high expectations for the next few days of fishing, the salmon were in “striking mode” now, that was for sure.

But alas, what happened over the next few days, well it went completely quiet. We were 5-6 fishermen who fished pretty hard until Sunday, and only 1 salmon was landed. I received reports from further down the river, and the fishing was better there. People further downstream also saw a few fresh fish in their pools, so these guys had a great finish to their fishing. We also saw a few fish in our pools, but these fish should probably have used sun block judging by the “tan” they had developed, and these old guys aren’t always easy to fool – they have seen a few flies dancing through the current during the summer for sure.

With this I would like to thank you for your company on my salmon fishing trips during the 2009 Gaula season, I hope you have read my reports and enjoyed them.

Stay tuned on my web page throughout the autumn, there will be more articles plus other exciting news from Granbo Flyfishing.  

Thanks for this year!

 Jan Erik and Steffen.

Hi again.

Then the fishing holiday is over for this time, it is always a somewhat sad car trip back for the boy who is going to school again. But we have created many memories this summer; great trout fishing at Gjevsjøstrømmen in Duved, sea fishing and sea trout fishing at Averøya, and many exciting trips along our beloved Gaula. Of course we will fish more this season as well, and we’re most definitively fishing hard the last weekend of the season this year as well. I am also going to fish a bit next week. I drove Steffen home on Sunday, but I drove back up to meet Ståle from Steinkjer, Ståle works at MX_Sport Globus where he is responsible for purchasing fishing equipment. We have been working together for a long time, and now we were supposed to fish together for a couple of days, it’s nice with a trip every now and then when working this close together.

Ståle had heard a lot about Gaula and the fishing in Haltdalen, so I am sure he was quite excited as he drove here. I was a bit worried about the conditions as the weather is very uncertain in terms of rain and increased river levels. This doubt was not misplaced during the next few days as the river entered a “yo-yo” mode all the time. Tuesday morning saw the river rising so fast that we just gave up fishing. But we had no reason to be disappointed as we had been in contact with several salmon, plus I landed two salmon, one on Sunday, and one on Monday morning. The last one was a large salmon of around 7 kilos, this was taken yet again on the Rotenon tube fly. This happened close to a set of rapids, and this spot is usually quite good when the river is good, as the salmon running upstream will stop here with such conditions, and it was correct this time as well. I find these days of fishing to be pretty good actually, we see a lot of fish and the salmon is taking properly. So if the river would stop with this “yo-yo” behaviour the fishing would be very good. The river is flowing at 45 m3/s, which is quite high. Generally the river looked high throughout its length as both Bua and Sokna were high and as such topping up the main river.  

I would like to thank Ståle for a great trip, and for his good help as a photographer during the fight.

Jan Erik.

Hi.

Man, it got to Monday before I managed to write the rest from the weekend fishing. We were very keen when we began fishing this Saturday, not so strange perhaps given the good fishing the day before. There was quite a bit of action in the river, we saw several salmon and the reports from the river were good even though not that many people fish now in August. I have never understood this, people do not fish a lot in August, there are actually many land owners with available fishing after the end of the holidays. My experience is that there is a constant top-up of fresh salmon from the ocean throughout August here in the Gaula. Now you can fish the entire length of the river and regardless where you go you will have a good chance to hook up with a fresh and large salmon.  

It is a bit sad to see so many people not respecting the rules for the fishing on the Gaula, we repeatedly see fishermen using lures, and also worms and heavy sinkers, and I suspect that many people do not adhere to the quotas either. I think this is a shame, we can not take the wild salmon stocks for granted, even though it has, traditionally, been stable and good fishing here in Trøndelag, it is not very reassuring on a countrywide scale. My son would very much like to fish a spinner as he very much enjoys this, but I say to him that it is not allowed, and therefore he finds it quite strange when we get to a pool where there are adults blatantly breaking the rules using lures and worms.

Well, this is just what occurred on Saturday, so we went to a different pool, we lost a bit of the excitement by watching this illegal fishing. Already on the first round down this pool Steffen yelled “Got it!”, and don’t you think he was attached to a fish on the fly rod. He was using a Sunray Shadow with a muddler head this time, the Rotenon fly was to be “rested” until the evening fishing. So this was obviously a sound fly choice, we pretty quickly realised that this was not a big salmon, but this grilse was both angry and strong. After 7-10 minutes the grilse was ready for landing, Steffen wanted to release this fish as he did not want to finish fishing this early in the day. The fish was a silvery grilse of around 3 kilos, and everything was in order for the release. Steffen has done this a few times now, so he knows what to do. The tube hook was unhooked, the fish was released, and the kid smiled from ear to ear as he said “this was fun”. He impresses me quite a lot, one thing is that he is good at fighting salmon that I hook, but every now and then he also hook some salmon himself, and he most definitively reveals that there is a very good fishermen brewing as the years go by, he picks lines and flies himself, and is very clear with regards to varying the fishing strategy so we have pretty exciting dialogues at the river bank.

It is looking very good for the last part of the season I think, we had more rain again on Sunday so that the river increased to around 25 m3/s, we see a ot of fish and also a lot of fresh salmon in the pools. On Sunday evening I caught a silvery grilse which I subsequently released, and I also had two serious pulls on the fly later that night, so this is looking very good. A few land owners have available fishing now, contact (among others) Nils Joar Lien at Lundamo, Trond Kirkevold at Singsås, John Kjelden at Kotsøy, I also know that the land owner at Fjeset beat has available fishing, Fjeset is also located at Singsås.

See Steffen releasing his grilse.

Hi again. After losing this salmon we had a break, but it did not take long before the urge was so big we just had to go into the river again. We wanted to visit the “Boy run” before the actual evening fishing, and again the theory for choosing a beat seemed sound. As I fished a small Rotenon fly through the hot spot a salmon smashed the fly, a small mid-sized salmon wanted to show off for the other salmon in the pool, but it probably regretted this as soon as it felt the hook, as it came off as it made an impressive jump. Well, it was great that a salmon again took my fly, but deep down somewhere a few negative thoughts appeared, “why can’t they just stay on the hook so I can land them?”. Thus there were some mixed feelings as we were on our way to the run where we lost the big one earlier today. But as we got down to the run and saw it draped in most beautiful evening sunlight imaginable, the mood once again improved. On the first round a salmon smashed the fly, in the one end was a big Rotenon tube fly and in the other end a shivering salmon fisherman from Trøndelag who could not quite believe that big salmon number 2 for the day was bending the rod so much one could be scared by less. Now, after a short while, it was like being in that Easter crime novel where I wrote of “a salmon fisherman’s nightmare” because this salmon came unstuck after a jump so big that the ripples hit the bank on the other side of the river, I could not believe it, I refuse to believe it! I actually lost this salmon too, this was salmon number 6 or 7 this season that I have lost, can’t remember the amount exactly. Was wondering whether to see a salmon shrink, but realized that they probably did not work this late on a Friday night, was also very uncertain whether such a shrink actually exists. As I waded towards the bank to calm down with a cup of coffee, I heard a voice in the evening; “next time, yes next time it’ll stay on the hook dad!”. Yes there was a salmon psychologist, and it was one I believed in I’ll tell you. A bit further down in the pool Steffen had seen a big salmon, this was holding in a hot spot I knew of from before. The “Straight at the target” theory was put into practice, and this time too with a bent rod as a result, big salmon number 3 for the day had put me to work. I fought it really hard at the start of the fight, it was quite dark now, and the rod was as per agreement to be handed over to Steffen. Strange as it was, the feeling now was really good, Steffen got the rod after just a few minutes, it was easy to see that Team Granbo now was fired up and well coordinated. I almost did not need to make any comments during the fight now, Steffen fought the salmon like a pro even though it consisted of numerous long runs. He fought the salmon a bit harder now, which is important as we’re fishing so close to the rapids below. After around 25 minutes the salmon was ready for landing, Steffen wanted to do everything himself, and of course he could, how else would he learn this? As he lifted the salmon onto the bank he was breathing loudly, the salmon was heavy to land for such a small fisherman (11 years old), but he managed very well. We took this salmon home, as this was a perfect salmon for smoking. We took all the necessary pictures before we went back to the campervan to celebrate the fish. This was a perfect end to the evening, but we both fell asleep midways in a cartoon we began watching before we were going to sleep. This movie was supposed to be part of the celebration of a great and exciting day along the Gaula, but the movie was much less exciting than the excitement we had experienced in person during this day of fishing. The salmon weighed 7,5 kilos, and it created big expectations for Saturday’s fishing. Stay tuned for Part 3 of this story, as even more happened at the end of the fly rod.

Hi.

Sitting in the campervan drinking my morning coffee and today I feel that it is very good to be a Gaula fisherman. Steffen and I went up to the river again on Thursday, and already on Friday morning exciting things started happening.

The river was stabilised and dropping slowly, the colour had also improved. This was of course motivated. We were going to fish a run further down the valley which we had a good feeling for at this water level, and not long after we realised that this was indeed the right place. Already on the first round I had a violent take on a Rotenon fly, this salmon took as properly as I want every salmon to take. I used a 8-9 weight 13,7 feet LeCie, and the salmon bent the rod all the way down to the handle straight away, and this was the position of the rod for the rest of the fight. I felt that this was a bloody large fish, and as this realisation came about at the same time as I heard a child’s voice yell through the wind “give me the rod, give me the rod”, I understood that this would be a memory I would never forget regardless of how the fight would end. The kid was jumping up and down, ready to take the rod, at this time I could perhaps wish that our agreement was somewhat more flexible, even after a new mobile phone was purchased there were no renegotiations on the table.

So then all I could do was to hand the rod over to the youngest Granbo salmon fisher. I now had seen the salmon a couple of times and it was close to 15 kilo, so this would be the biggest salmon Steffen had ever fought. As the kid was in fighting position with a big grin on his face I was once again the photographer, but Steffen had also snapped a couple of pictures of me first, this I actually managed to negotiate around Christmas, when he was about to tell me what he wanted for his Christmas present, it was actually easier to negotiate with him at that time. Perhaps a bit mean of me to bring that up at that time, but oh well. To be honest, we did not stand a chance with this salmon, man the strength it showed us! 60-70 metres below the run we fished there were rapids and the salmon was only a few metres away from the edge throughout the fight, so we fought the salmon on between 50-70 metres of line, we never had it any closer. The salmon jumped several times, so we saw it several times, man it was huge! A couple of other big salmon jumped in the pool as well, so there were more salmon entering the pool. What a life, what an experience, and so incredible to watch my dear son fight such a strong and beautiful creature representing the most impressive thing in our Norwegian nature. The salmon got off the hook during run number... well, I don’t know how many 50 metre runs this fish had, but it never displayed any signs of weakness, Steffen now had an arm cramp. I quickly realised that we would lose this fish, Steffen made no mistakes, he knows this now. I would have lost it too, the salmon was just too clever and strong. But we thank it for the experience.  

A lot more happened this Friday, so read part 2 of the report for August 15^th later today.

Jan Erik.