Salmon season 2021

Another salmon season is over. I visited Mandalselva, Orkla and Lierelva (2x). In total 12 days of fishing resulted in one salmon on Orkla and one seatrout on Lierelva. But most importantly, it was great time spent with my friends Ray, Tobias and KarlHeinz.  

Second weekend in June I drove to Mandalselva to start the season and meet Ray. 

Mandalselva (zone 2) is beautiful river and during two days we fished in many pools. Unfortunately, the water level was jumping up and down rapidly and the conditions were not good.   

Ray was the only one who saw a fish, because he visited a local salmonarium that exhibits some wild fish caught in the river.

Driving back to Oslo was long, but the scenery was rewarding. 

Finally back on Orkla (Svinsjøen), last week in June. Highlight of the season. We decided with Tobias to fish there the whole week, hoping to catch a big salmon.  Ambitious plan indeed! The biggest fish swim into the river first and June is good time to try to catch some. On the other hand it is not an easy task, as there are not so many of them in the river. And of course all depends on luck, timing and good conditions. 

Well, the conditions seemed OK and I got lucky already during our second day. The fish was standing behind that big stone in the middle of the stream. It took my spinner and I finally experienced a bigger fish on my rod. After not so long fight Tobias jumped into the water and grabbed the tail. 

It was 90cm female. Surprisingly it had only 6kg, which ranks as a "slim type" (normal type should have around 7kg). So we agreed it was a vegan salmon. Nevertheless I was super happy and I hoped that Tobias would get a salmon soon as well. 

Well, it took 5 days of hard work... Finally this 80cm beauty took his fly. Nicht falsch gefischt! During those five days, we had the whole 3km section almost exclusively for ourselves. It was amazing fishing without a fish:) and I became really good in casting my spinner. However, one week on one section was too much. But still, we were really lucky, because not so many fishermen got a fish during that week. 

some filleting work and it is time to celebrate a little bit. 

And the last day, KarlHeinz and his wife Margret joined us and I was really happy to see them again. We celebrated gently and I am looking forward to meeting them next year for longer time. 

me and the salamon

Later during the summer, I drove twice to that small river near Drammen and got one 0,5kg seatrout and lost probably a salmon. I am not sure If I will fish here again. It has strange rules - "catch and kill", almost everybody fish with worms and I have to say that the quality of meat was not very good compared to fresh fish from Orkla.