I have caught one salmon in my life: I was 7 years and got a 7kg salmon, I was stoked and I kept on fishing a lot, but I never got around to do any more salmon fishing after that. This year I said that one of my goals would be to at least have 1 day fishing for atlantic salmon in one of the rivers here in Norway. The season was really getting close to the end, but I found a river not too far from Oslo and last weekend I hired a car and set of at around 4am to drive down. I set up on this fly-only beat at around 7 and got ready to go out with my new Zpey 13.3″ #8 rod. The place was perfect for starting out: it was a easy wade out and the current wasn’t bad. A sunray shadow was put on and the feeling was great when I started fishing my way down the river.

It took only 5minutes before something was on! But: it was quite disappointing when it ended up being this little pike:

It was my first ever pike, but: not my target for the day. just 2minutes later a 3-4kg salmon was jumping clean off the water with the side towards me, just 10meters down river….. The pulse really got up a couple of clicks, but nothing was hooking on my sunray.

I spent the day fishing up and down this beat, making coffee, relaxing and spending time doing something that looks like spey-casting (I need to take some classes next year).

It turned out to be a good day on the river even though I didn’t catch any fish. I did  see 4 fish that was up and making a lot of noise, so there are plenty of fish around, but the water was low and nobody else that was on the same stretch got anything that day either.

Second half of the day I moved up to this place 2-3km up the river. Some good pools that should contain salmon, but up here I didn’t see anything moving.

I will head back here next year when the season starts in may and get some more days in this river that is only 100km from Oslo. Until then I’ll tie up some more for that season!