Hello.
There was not much writing in the diary of fish this season, many people have been "complaining" on this also. And that is something I see as positive, because it shows that people are reading my reports and I like that very much. So I apologize again that this summer, as it were, and I can tell you that I am quite sorry for this too. Because there was so little fishing myself, I had not so much to write about either. The job took a lot of time this season, but I was also put out of action for 3 weeks when my old back injury came back in August.
The Haltdalen course was very good this year too. We actually beat the old record with the number of caught salmon, and that the tradition of the course participants set a personal record of salmon during the course actually happened this year too. It was Sten Øderud that during the course stay put personal best of 2 times, so he was very pleased. He has been booked for participation at next year's course as well. I was ill during the course. Steffen took responsibility and kept the course going with both casting and guiding. He got very good feedback on the job he did. It was also lost some salmon at this year's course. Among other things, lost Sten Øderud a giant salmon on one of course pools, he said the longest run was well over 100 meters before the salmon stopped. The salmon was really ready for landing after a while, but it was a miscalculation in this phase so that the dream salmon to Sten fell off. The disappointment was certainly big in the moment, but the memories are there forever.
Me and Steffen had a holiday week where we were fishing in Gaula, this week started very well with that Steffen hooked a salmon that was so great that it was frightening. What was tough was that he had tied the tube fly in the tent before we went to the  river. Not long after he had started to fish, tightened it to the line. This flattened the rod all the way out and stood in a horizontal position during the entire fight - he could simply not raise the rod in the best position. This fish took the fly and ran off downstream as soon as it took the fly. The salmon went over 100 meters in this race and disappeared out of the pool and thus it was gone, there was nothing the boy could do, the salmon was just too brutal for him. I was almost speechless as well. There are not many times I've seen a fly reel to rotate in so fast and so long as during this fight. We touched some salmon for the first 2 days, without that we could land them. The rest of the week was miserable as it was powerful thunderstorms each day provided that the river got this yo-yo effect, and these are factors that are not good for fishing.
Major floods that came in the middle of August, did too, that there were some days that was not fish-friendly afterwards. We were very unfortunate even when our caravan was taken by the flood so there were lots of extra work with this. Pools were indeed changed after the flood so it was like starting again to find out where the salmon was, not to mention there were new places to take the fish. I got a nice 10-kilos salmon a week after the flood in one of the pools, but this was a female. Therefore, it was reverently set out again.
We put our trust in the last weekend. This weekend normally use to be good for us, but we were very excited when it was still raining in this period so that the river was up and down in the water level really throughout August. But in the first part of the weekend so was the weather with us and we were fishing in our pools under steady water level in a beautiful autumn weather. It was Steffen, Ole Kristian and I fished together and the one that got fish, yes it was not us adults. Believe it or not, the boy was the only one who took the salmon of all 3 of us. And again it happened after he had tied a new fly before we started fishing. This time it was a new Riffling tube he had tied. This was a project he had this summer, he had decided that he would develop Riffling fishing. And what can one say that he succeeded, for on Saturday night he took a salmon of 5.8 kg of 9 cubic meters of water and with a class five rod. This was a great fight to be watched, and I was well proud of the boy that night, yes. I think it was really cool that he was the only one who got the fish and the adults were really impressed right through, because we had not touched a single fish all this weekend.
I went up and fished a few hours the last afternoon, I saw a few fish in the pools and hooked a small salmon. I ran into this a few minutes before it fell off, but I was very pleased to have this experience. So it was with a sad feeling in the body that I thanked Gaula for this season, although this was my worst season ever, what number of salmon and the number of fishing trips concerned it does not mean much. New tours coming, and it was then some nice memories to think about this season too. They were mostly created by the boy. But then they are extra nice too.
I'll write more next season, so I hope that you’ll follow me in the fishing diary on. On my website there will be many articles about flies this fall. First comes the traditional article in the year's best salmon flies for us. After this comes a series where I interviewed both known and unknown anglers about their favorite flies, so stay tuned. There are lots of exciting to read about in the fall also.
Thank you for this year!

Jan Erik and Steffen.

Hello.

It has unfortunately not been many reports in the diary this season.
The reason for this is that I have fished a lot less than what I normally do in a season. It has been so much work that I have not been able to travel to the river for my own fishing simply, I have not had the opportunity to write when I have been on the trip. Therefore, everything was different this season - I hope for your understanding. But I will come back stronger next season.

I've had 4 salmon so far, and last weekend I was actually in the upper Gaula fishing all weekend. I got 2 medium sized salmon, one on the float / sink 5 and Rotenone tube, and one on Riffling Hitch. The Riffling salmon was mega strong. For a long time, I was absolutely sure that this was a large salmon. I was therefore pretty impressed when I land a salmon in 6-kilos class. This fight took over 20 minutes, so this was a salmon of the really strong kind. We had many contacts with salmon and a couple that we also lost after a short time. It was just so incredibly nice to be in the river to just think about fishing, river and salmon. It was of course a little fun in the tent too - it must be done to digest all the wonderful impressions as Gaula give to a “hungry” salmon fisherman.

It's a lot of salmon in the river in those days, it is medium size salmon that dominate the stands. Then it is really tough with a single hand rod and Riffling Hitch tube. My goodness how tough it is when you see the fish at the surface before taking the tube, a bit of a moment there, yes. The fishing has been quite difficult since Sunday. This is due to low water levels, but also the natural cleansing process started. The fishing is always slow, if this comes when there is low water levels. This is an ancient natural phenomenon, it is not easy to understand, but it affects all life in nature, fish, animals and plants. In the river there will be lots of greenery and poorer water quality, so that the salmon are affected by this, and even worse is when the river is low during the time this comes up. But now there are reports of some rain this weekend and then this process will accelerate so that it cleanes up faster if the river rises a bit. And if this coincides with the river falling again about 1 week after the cleansing process was, I think there may be “life” in the salmon again. It will be exciting to keep up with the trend, yes.

It is unfortunately not so many reports in the future either. But I'm going to fish some more in August, so I hope to write something in the diary then.

Continued good summer.

Jan Erik.

Hi,

This weekend we started to fish in Stordalselva in Åfjord. We fished there from Friday to Saturday. We saw some salmon and had contact with a salmon each but they were not landed. There seemed to be pretty quiet on this river, too. The reports says the same thing from several different rivers in this period. Because of this, we took off from salmon fishing on Saturday, and went instead to try the trout in Nidelva. When we arrived there we were shocked because the river was so big that it did not go to fish at the usual places. The water went far into the woods. Yet we managed to catch a small trout, a place where we managed to get some casts.

On Sunday we went up to Haltdalen to try in our favorite pools. Although I know it's too early up there this season, it was with some excitement that we fished us through the pools. You can never know! But as expected there was no catch up there now. We saw no fish either. It started raining on Sunday morning as it is long since I've seen. The river responded immediately. It rose from 36 cubic meters to 120 cubic meters of Eggafossen in a few hours. Gaulfossen had risen to 600 cubic meters last night, but I have not been able to check in today because of that NVE's website does not work. We decided to go home and take evening cosiness in the living room at home. We fished not today either, had not really feeling under these conditions.

I'm not fishing in Gaula before next weekend because of a job traveling to Møre. So do not come before the next report on Saturday. Mosand course also starts next Sunday and that I'm looking forward to really.

Good luck!

Jan Erik