River Laerdal 2020 – High Water and More Fish

After three days in Bolstad we drove to Laerdal and checked in at Öje. Great to meet Marianne and Ola Petter again, and to start off with a great meal and fresh strawberries at what could be one of the coziest porch in Norway.

The river just dropped back from being tremendously big. 500 M3/s in Laerdal is more what than it’s been for many years! We started off good. The first take came in Bruhölen on a big Green Samurai. I played it 15-20 min before it came off. Hmm… maybe a bit to hard. Irritating, I wanted that fish that we estimated to 10-12 or maybe even 15 kilos. The first evening gave me 2 good fish, and for the group another 4. All being 2 sea winter fish between 4-6 kilos. Good to see that last years good grilse run was followed by more medium sized fish than we seen for some years.

I fished a deep water express and a Zone Nextcast 5-7 body with a 15 foot 6-7 tip. The heat wave that hit us had no mercy 28-32 degrees and not a cloud to see. We fished evenings and nights. To sum it all up, despite very tricky conditions I managed to land 5 good fish and in total 10 for the group. My best fish gave one hell of a fight in the high water. Clean out of the air three times and more than 100 m of line, the new SALAR Reel was pure joy. Bruhölen (Bridge Pool) was the most productive pool, but I also had one and lost another one in Chaplin. The gorgeous pool at the end of the Öje beat.

I got all stuff in the car and drove to Oslo – now the big Alta adventure was about to start. 2 weeks prime time on the best big fish river in the world! I still pinch myself... is this really going to happened. Well well… I am on my way!