Week 34, First Darkness

This week is the owner’s week, with friends joining us who have been coming to the lodge for many years. It is always a special week, with familiar faces returning and plenty of good memories to look back on—and hopefully plenty of new ones to be created.

As forecasted, the rain arrived and the river started to rise at the beginning of the week. This resulted in the river not fishing as well and put the fish off for a couple of days. But when the river settled and became more stable, the fish once again became active.

And Jesper, a Danish angler who has been coming to Olderø Fly Fishing Lodge for many years, finally got his chance. After many battles with different fish over the years without quite succeeding, this time he connected with a salmon that wanted to stay on. The fish took Jesper’s fly instantly as it landed, and the fight was on. A short but strong fight in a tight spot made things very interesting, but Jesper eventually saw his salmon safely landed by his guide. The fish was a beautiful 87 cm, 7.8 kg female salmon.

The fishing over the next few days remained a little tough, with some grilse caught and a good number of smaller sea trout starting to show in the river.But finally, one of the bigger salmon woke up and decided to take one of our guests’ flies. Stein Erik has been looking for his luck on a Lakselv salmon for many years, and finally he would get the chance to see one of them being landed. Fishing a medium-sized Collie Dog over a well-known pool, Stein Erik suddenly felt his line tighten and his rod bend to its full potential. The fish gave Stein Erik a very, very strong fight, but luckily stayed in the pool. With every passing minute, the chances of seeing it safely into the net grew bigger and bigger. It was only a matter of time before the fish would be safely landed, but at the very end, the fish had one last trick up its sleeve. A strong head shake in the shallow water was enough to cut the nylon leader, and the salmon was gone. The fresh, silver fish was estimated to weigh around 12 kilos. It was a tough pill to swallow, but Stein Erik remained positive throughout the whole experience, even though he never got to see the fish up close.

Towards the end of the week, Roy found himself fishing one of the main holding pools in Zone 2, where another salmon would give one of our guests the fight of a lifetime. The fish stayed strong in the deep pool, refusing to leave it, which eventually resulted in this beautiful female salmon being landed safely in the guide’s net. A beautiful 99 cm, 9.4 kg salmon, was landed to the great joy of Roy and his wife, Emma. A great way to end another somewhat tough week on Lakselv, with some big fish lost along the way.

After the rain this week, the river peaked at 25 cubics. Conditions are looking good for next week, when we should again see the river drop below 20 cubics, most likely settling around a medium flow of approximately 17 cubics.