When early in the morning we headed for the river, there was no doubt that fall was setting in. We went downstream on the largest undammed river in the world at a high speed. On our way we saw rising salmon and the odd sturgeon. When reaching the first fishing spot, our guide gave us some incredibly heavyweight rods. The sturgeon we were after must have incredible strength! We baited four rods, two rods with a local bait fish and the other two with little bags made of pantyhose loaded with salmon eggs.

The baits were placed in the middle of the stream and we waited excitedly…
The guide instructed us in how to hook the fish: the sturgeon has a fairly small and hard mouth, which requires a really forceful strike. In the corner of my eyes I saw one of the rods starting to shake, and I made a jump for it, thinking about what the guide had just told us. But the fish didn’t  get hooked, the strike was too weak. I thought I had really gone for it …

Hours went by and I started to get nervous: maybe I would have to go home without having caught a sturgeon? Fishing in Fraser River had lately been very bad. But then the other rod started shaking. I gripped it and used all my strength and weight making the strike, and it worked! However, the first few seconds it seemed to be a small sturgeon, but the fish woke up and the butt of the rod bored into my belly. The reel drag was set really tight, but it did not stop the fish! It’s strength was beyond imagination, my back ached and lactid acid started building up in my muscles.

Finally, the sturgeon glided towards the boat, not a monster, but quite ok size of about five feet and about 40kg. The sturgeon is a very fascinating fish, it looks like it has been handpicked from a book presenting primeval fish. Our guide warned us to stay clear of the spikes that the sturgeon brandished along its body. Small sturgeon spend more time out in the sea and the spikes are sharp as razor blades. When it comes to larger sturgeon , staying up-river, the spikes have been worn down by contact with sand.

We continued fishing and out of the blue there was a bite on Atle’s rod, but there was not doubt that this one was smaller, and out of the water came a tiny, deformed sturgeon without a nose.

It didn’t take long for one of my rods to bend again. This one also offered me an awesome fight. My back ached even more and my arms got weak … After a hard fight a somewhat bigger and thicker sturgeon appeared by the boat. Some fishing! Quite fantastic!

The day was almost over and it was time to get inside again. The next day we started by fishing for bait, the guide wanted fresh salmon eggs. We navigated our boat up a small subsidiary where we saw Chum salmon jumping everywhere. Here we fished with hand tied hair rigs under floats that went with the stream. My float disappeared on my first cast and a fat chum salmon jumped out of the water. This was really cool. I landed the salmon, the guide wanted a female salmon, so this one was released. When we got what we came for I had a hard time quitting. Fishing for bait had never been more fun.

The following day was Atle’s day: after his small sturgeon Eldorado the day before, it was his time to feel the strength of the sturgeon. After a short while his rod was bent towards the river and the reel was screaming. After a hard fight we could land a 6-foot sturgeon.

But the day was not over just yet, some hours later he hooked something really, really big that immediately broke the surface. A gigantic splash spread out on the river, this fish was bigger and stronger than any of the previous ones. The fight went on and the sturgeon would simply not give up, but Atle proved to be more persistent and the fish was conquered. This one was not longer, but a lot thicker.

We carefully towed the monster towards the bank in order to take photos, and I offered to help carrying it and could feel the weight, it must have weighed 70+kg! The sturgeon was allowed to swim back, as all the others we had caught on this trip. We were totally satisfied and tired, but we felt that we had to round it off by making a couple of more casts for the Chum salmon before we went home.

Hooks used: Mustad Ultra Point Big Gun, ref. 10829BN-NP

Long before sunrise we drive our car out to Biscayne Bay, here we are about to meet the renowned Captain Jorge. The plan for the day is to catch Bonefish, Permit and maybe a Tarpon…

On our way out through the canals and out to the flats, we are almost devoured by mosquitos. But finally the sun comes up and we start looking for fish. Fishing the flats is very special: you are supposed to look for fish and decide where you think they will swim, and then stealthily approach them within casting range, followed by a perfect cast in front of the nose of a fish… without spooking them.

This morning we spot an incredible number of Bonefish, real big ones. We cast in the direction of several of them, but some are spooked and others are apparently not hungry … But then Atle succeeds with a perfect cast in front of a hungry fish and within seconds we hear the classical Bonefish rushes.

After a hard fight we can land a big Bonefish of 8.5lbs. We continue trying to catch fish, but they fool us time after time. However, suddenly it’s like there’s a big wave heading towards us, and in the beginning we have no clue as to what it is, but then we see hundreds of Jack Trevallies around us. This time I change my shrimp for a jig and the bend of the rod tells me that this is a good choice. The Jack puts up an awesome fight and it takes some time until I can land it.

The day continues, the sun rises higher and higher and it seems that it becomes more and more difficult to catch a fish, but then we spot a ray gliding over the flats followed by a permit. I make a straight cast and the fish turns around towards my bait, my heart is hammering away. It circles around my bait a couple of times, but decides to let it go. The hotter it gets and the shyer the fish get, we lose enthusiasm and decide to call it a day.

The following day we get up with the sun again, but this time we are going fishing in a location that is quite different from the flats the day before, we are going out on Miami Bay and then into the narrow canals of the city. Our guide, Alan, has reported about Tarpon. We are very excited because Tarpon is a fish that both of us have dreamt about for a long time.

As soon as we enter one of the canals, we see rising Tarpon. This time we fish with live bait. We cast towards several rising fish, only to see them rising at another spot. Then I’m lucky with one of my casts and hit a rising Tarpon in the middle of its head. The fish takes the bait and starts jumping acrobatically all over the canal, which is exactly why Tarpon is so difficult to catch, a fish with an incredibly hard mouth that can make a number of high jumps. The hook comes loose and I feel very disappointed. We continue fishing and I hook another Tarpon, but it ends just like the first one. Alan, our guide, hooks something very strong. After several rushes and a couple of rounds around the boat we land a nice Snook. With bad weather approaching and no success in catching anything more, we call it a day. After all I got to fight a Tarpon.

That evening some friends of ours called us and invited us to go to Ft Lauderdale to go trolling for a variety of species. We go onboard the big trolling vessel, where everything is rigged and ready. The guide informs us that there are a lot of Dorado in these waters. I’m getting instantly excited; Dorado is another species I have dreamt of catching for a long time.

After having sailed through big waves on our way out on the sea, we can finally get our baits into the water. It doesn’t take long before one of the reels start screaming. Some distance behind the boat I can see something with almost fluorescent colours jumping in the frothy wake of the boat, a Dorado! We boat Dorado after Dorado .. no very big ones, but Dorado all the same. After getting tired from the big waves we head back to shore. What a weekend and what fishing you can experience during three days in Miami.

I got hold of a fishing license, equipment and a description of how to get there in no time, and when I finally arrived at my destination I was in for the strangest fishing experience of my life. The river was literally crowded with salmon and people, heavy salmon monsters jumped out of the water every second! Initially I was quite skeptical, could there be a chance for the salmon to bite in such a chaos?

But the urge got stronger and I prepared my rod and tackle and threw out the small net with salmon eggs that had been recommended to me. The tackle had hardly hit the surface before my rod was bent like a bow and the reel screaming. The fish was unstoppable. I started worrying that the salmon would go down the river and run over everybody else’s lines, so I tried to stop it… But this naturally ended with the line breaking like a straw.

With shaking hands I retied my tackle and double checked the lines, getting more and more doubtful whether it would be able to withstand such powerful fish. The day continued with brutal fights with really big salmon, but ended with the same result: my lines breaking. The day came to an end and I had to return home. But I decided not to let the Salmon River beat me! The next trip was planned and my bag was loaded with thicker lines.

A couple of days later I could hardly sit still in the car on my way to the river, and I could feel it in my bones that I would land some salmon that day. We arrived at the river and got almost scared by all the people there … After all it was a Saturday. We soon realized that there are no rules about the number of fishermen and no specified lots. We settled in the first and best spot, where we were surrounded by other fishermen, who every fifth minute cast across our lines, creating tangles, etc. But we just had to cope.

My husband, Atle, succeeded in landing the first fish, a male salmon of about 6 kg, a real beauty. But it seemed that my lack of luck had stayed with me … I lost fish after fish, either the hooks got loose or the fish rushed out around other fishermen and the lines broke ….

But then I made a cast into the midstream, and I paid close attention in order to feel every little bite and THEN it was there. This time I was more focused with thicker lines, so that I could fight the fish pretty close to the bank. The salmon started to give up and I could finally land a big male fish. The jaws of the fish were enormous and we estimated the weight to be around 9 kg. After this breakthrough I landed many more salmon, but finally we had had enough of the hassle and entanglement with other fishermen’s lines, so we decided to be satisfied with the day and return home.

This concludes what were a couple of crazy fishing trips, which we will never ever see the like of in Scandinavia.

Hook: Mustad 92567R Size 1

-Catskill Flytier Harry Darbee with Mac Francis

While visiting the British fly-fair a couple of years ago I bought a book by Harry Darbee – Catskill Flytier. Harry Darbee is one of those guys responsible for the reason we have today, something called the Catskill style dry flies.

In his book he has a list of flies “Darbees deadly dozen”, among these we find some Deer hair bodied dry flies which were one of Harry’s and Elsie’s trademarks. I have tried to tie the Rat faced Mc Dougal before in my early days, not very successful though, it was before I got the proper materials, etc. Last week I finally got my hands on one of those Deer hair packers, so now it was time to give it a spin!

As with all old flies, there is a story, I love those. In this case, how this fly got its name, from the book of course. “As I was tying up an order of Bastards late one evening in the summer of 1939, Percy Jennings an amateur flytier from Cold Spring Harbor. Known among anglers at the time, he caught a 3.5 pound brown on a back cast, came by our house. He looked down at my vice and asked why I didn’t tie the same fly on a smaller hook. He thought it would work better for the local trout population. I said, “why don’t you do it.” So he did, and it was while Percy was tying one of these that a young friend of his daughter, Mary Dimock came by. She saw the fly and said “Boy that’s got personality.” Percy, knowing that the fly had a troublesome name among our more gentle fly-casting friends, rose to the chance and challenged Mary to give it a name. She was up to the challenge, saying, “I think it’s a Rat Faced Mc Dougal.” And so the fly was dubbed.”

Rat Faced Mc Dougal -Original pattern

Hook: Mustad R50 (94840) Tail: Ginger Cock Hackle fibers Body: Clipped tannish-grey deer hair Wings: Cream grizzly hackle tips Hackle: Ginger cock hackle

This is one of those flies you don’t want to lose in your first back cast, it takes a while to get it right. I start with tying in the tail, then the body in two portions. Then I start the clipping, which takes a while, and don’t forget to watch that tail, you don’t want to clip that off. Well, I´m quite satisfied with this one. Now let’s see if Percy Jennings was right about it’s “troutability”.

Hook: Mustad R50 (94840) Thread: Black Tail: Deer hair Wings: Deer hair Body: Natural and white spun deer hair Hackle: Grizzle

Now it’s time again, the migratory birds have left a very wet Norway, heading back to warmer parts of the world, and due to a very bad summer, they may not dare to come back the next “summer”

The fishing season has started up in Kenya and I will travel down to Watamu 24 October and prepare the battleship and I then I will go  up to Lamu (90 nautical miles) the 31. The latest rapports tell about few fishermen, but a lot of fish, especially the Yellow Fin is getting caught in great numbers in the range from 20- 50 kg, and close by there are (sashimi) eating big Black Marlin. Last week two Blacks were tagged turning the 300 kg range.

The trade winds is turning from south vest to north east during October November and the summer starts with calm weather and clean water. The baitfish is coming closer to shore and the Sailfish season is kicking  in during this period, in company with almost all the other species, but the Marlin slows down a little bit, but comes back in great numbers in January. November is also normally a very good time for the big GTs on popper and we hope to continue where we ended last year with this monster size GT.

Most of my clients in November has been fishing with me before and know what to do, and it’s easy for me and the fishing gets more effective. A goal for me this season is to learn the kite fishing well and solve the problems concerning live bait on the spot. I will organize bait cages close to the mooring and be able to pick up mullet, etc. in the morning and go straight out and start up fishing, we spend too much time hunting for bait.

As usually I have Bo Hall with me on the team and  we will mount a new depth sounder on the boat with power enough to read down to 700 meters and that gives us an opportunity to try the daytime swordfish on very deep waters. Nice to have Bosse on board with so much experience concerning GPS, fish finders and wreck fishing on deep water. I will come back to that later when we have tried it, it’s quite challenging, dropping down 8kg concrete weight down to 500 meters with a lot of lights and a fresh bait,,,, a lot of winding !!!!

I will have my main blog on Mustad this year and hope to be quite frequent when the fishing starts up, we still work with the system to stream video from the boat both under and over water.

The big Kingfish we claimed to be a Kenya record on 50 lb line is confirmed and we go on hunting for more records in the future.

Best Regards

Captain Alex

The Bait

The sun has not risen above the treetops when we slowly maneuvre our boat up the narrow, curvy river. Even the scenery looks primeval! Our guide, Captain Kirk, pulls the boat up at a clay bank; here we are going to place our bite alarms and rods baited with a large piece of carp. When all the rods have been placed along the bank, we sit anxiously waiting for the alarms to set off and the floats to rush down the river …

My heart makes a jump when a big Alligator Gar suddenly appears at the surface, just a few yards from our boat. This river is teeming with monster fish … My heart makes another jump when one of the alarms sets off like a stuck pig, a fish has taken the bait and is on its way down the river. Captain Kirk tells me to wait making a strike until the fish turns up stream again. The mouth of the Alligator Gar is so long and hard that it takes some patience before you can make a proper hooking of the fish!

When the fish has turned and stopped it’s time: I use all my strength to make a strike and get an angry response from the fish. It offers a real show, making some powerful jumps up in the air. When we get it alongside the boat, we can see that this is just a small Gar of about 15kg, Captain Kirk can’t help smiling and calls it a «baby-fish», before he unhooks it by the boat.

The sun is getting higher and the temperature soars. Summer-time in Texas can be intolerably hot! When we move on and find some shade to have a snack, another alarm sets off. It keeps on whining; the fish takes off far down the stream, and we have to leave the shade and follow the fish. The movement of the float tells me that this must be a bigger fish.

Finally, the fish is ready to be hooked. I make a real effort and the fish answers by rushing away from us. Then it stops and resists my effort of trying to pull its head up, which indicates a monster! I’m forced to really use my arm muscles. Eventually, the fish is getting tired and the shadow that appears along the boat is the most brutal sight I’ve seen when it comes to fish! It’s just like a crocodile!

Captain Kirk secures the fish with a lasso around its head, and I can assure you that the fish dislikes this tremendously and it starts banging against the boat; it feels like we are being butted by a bull. We manage to lift the fish inside our boat and bring it to a stone bank for a photo shoot. These fish are so tough and well adapted to various conditions that they can be out of the water for about two hours. It simply starts breathing air just like us, which is probably one of the reasons why the species has survived for such a long time…

At the bank we place the fish on the ground, and now I can see how big it really is: more than two metres long and a girth of a little less than one metre. The mouth is more than half a metre long and full of razor sharp teeth. This is the ultimate predator.

To be on the safe side, I try to keep close to the tail when take photos, but Captain Kirk suggests that I put my face beside the head of the fish for a cool photo. I’m nervous when I carefully approach the front end of the fish, and just before sticking my head forward, the fish throws its head towards me and closes its mouth with a bang! My pulse runs wild; I was just an inch away from having my face mauled by an Alligator Gar. A bit shaken, I stand up and tell everybody that the photo shoot is over…

I was lucky after all!

Now Alligator Gar is quite common in rivers all over Texas. After a period with low numbers due to bow and arrow hunting for this fish, the Gar stock is now on the increase as a result of more research and restrictions on killing fish. The Alligator Gar can weigh more than 300 lbs, which makes it more and more attractive for sport fishing, attracting fishers from all over the world.

Hook used: Mustad Treble ref. 3551-BR

Think Fishy/
Emma!

There is 35 meters from the platform to the surface of the sea, and another 350 meters to the bottom of the sea. In these open waters, the oil constructions act like artificial reefs, since there are not many other structures in the “seascape”.

We were invited to the ROV control room, where we on several monitors could follow the view from the remote controlled submarine. AMAZING! There were huge red-fish, cod, tusk and monster ling that were moving slowly around, totally unaffected by the technology that had invaded the scene. The oil workers had already tried out fishing from the platform for some time. However, they had been using automatic jigging machines and big wheels that were mounted on the railing. Accordingly, even the huge Red-fish they caught did not qualify as sport fishing records. Also, fishing with SandEels/Gummimakk, most of the catch would be Coalfish, from the enormous shoals that were occupying the waters from 30 – 200 meters under the surface. These fish proved to be a real problem to us, trying to get our baits through the shoals of Coalfish, down to the bottom.

We were using 50lbs rods, 4/0 class reels, loaded with hundreds of meters of 0.39mm/60lbs Fireline. A 500 gram sinker was sufficient to get our baits down, since the weather was very cooperative.

We prepared tackles with 1.5mm leaders, and a tandem rig with big and strong Mustad ref.34007 and ref 92553 10/0 hooks, baited with mackerel. The baits were secured to the hook with bait elastics to make it more difficult to steal the bait.

Dr.Hook decided that the best way to get past the Coalfish, was to wrap the bait in sheets of newspaper, and then shake this off when reaching the desired depth
Did we catch fish? YES!!

The world record Redfish (Sebastes Marinus) is caught further north in Norway, at Söröya, and is 9.02kgs. We ended up VERY close, with a monster fish of 8.89kgs. 130 grams still missing … Thanks to the advanced fishing lines, you can feel every little bite of the fish, more than 300meters below. It is a good feeling when you know you have passed the Coalfish with your bait still in place, and you watch the tip of your rod moving. You lift carefully the rod, and when there is resistance you strike. HARD! You will much rather that the fish come off immediately, than reeling in 200meters and then losing the fish. It is hard work to reel in from these depths. Already the first day we caught several beauties (who says a Red-fish is ugly!?). Rising from these depths, the reduction in pressure is so high, that eyes, and sometimes the stomach and swimming bladder pops out. This mechanism is the reason why scuba divers and deep water divers need to spend time on decompression when returning to the surface from big depths.

Ling is another common fish in these waters. Our biggest was 20kgs, while we had many fish between 10 and 15 kgs. We even landed a Tusk of 9kgs. Good size!

How to land a fish from such an installation? One of the guys from the platform had a gaff device produced, that probably also is a good idea for anglers fishing from tall bridges. 1 ½ meter above the gaff there is a snap hook that should slide down the fishing line.

One of the great aspects of fishing in open waters like this is that you will experience the sun set in the sea. Beauty! We had 4 classes these days at the platform, teaching tackle, species and technique, generating a very enthusiastic audience, and a revitalization of the Heidrun Sportfishing Club. For sure, the world record for Sebastes marinus will not stand much longer. A qualified guess? It will be beaten by Heidrun fishermen. Soon!

Thanks to Statoil, Heidrun and special thanks to manager Dag Skuseth

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Five good fishing friends from Baastad Sea fishing club, Henning Meyer, Odd Larson, Morten Ekhaugen, Kjetil Langvatn and Morten Hvam were early up the first day rigging rods and it wasn’t long before they were on their way to the Loppehavet with Kjetil (mr Fish finder) behind the wheel, it didn’t take long before they were into huge numbers of fish just outside the Halibut shallows.

After the boat is positioned we get the signal for lines down, and it doesn’t take more than a few seconds before the first shout of ‘fish on’ echoes around the boat. A quick glance at the fish finder shows there is a huge layer with cod from 30m – 100m deep, that’s a 70 m thick layer with cod from 5 – 20 kg in weight !

From earlier experience of fishing at Söröya we know what tackle is needed, so all of us are tackled up with a 600 g “Svenskepilk”, a ‘Swedish pirk’ with a Mustad 3551-DT Treble at the business end.

After 3 hours of fast action my pirk stops dead on the way down at 35 meters. I start pumping and manage to take in a few meters onto the reel, and suddenly it stops dead again with a couple of heavy knocks and then begins to run, stripping line off my reel. I understood right away from earlier trips that this was no 15 kg fish and after 10-12 minutes of tug ‘o’ war Kjetil was standing ready with the gaff, and we got our first look at the lady, as she surfaced: A huge spawning ready female cod. Kjetil does his job and hauls the lady on board, where we immediately begin to guess her weight! We all agree she must be over 40 kg.

A couple of hours, and many cod later, back at the fish delivery centre at Sörvaer harbour, the scales reveal the lady’s true weight 41.72 kilo’s, for those of you that are still not in the metric system that’s a massive 92 lbs ! 147 cm long and a girth of 114 cm. It was at exactly the same place last year that I caught the largest of 36.74 kg, a fish that secured me the prize for best cod in the Norwegian fishing magazines ‘Alt om Fiske’ fishing competition for 2011.

We took lots of big fish in our week at Söröya, we had 30 fish over 20 kg and a total collective weight of a little over 5000 kilos!

This is an Eldorado for sea fishing that has to be experienced…

Best wishes

Morten Hvam

Note: At the time of publishing, the cod caught by Morten Hvam is
a new Norwegian and European record
at 41,72 Kg

www.fiskarboden.no

MANY anglers loves to catch Perch. Quite a few do not know how to clean it, and how to peel off the skin. I have never met anyone who uses a pair of scissors to do the last finish, to get rid of every single loose bone, and would like to share this method also with you guys. Watch this video and learn how to do it:

I am currently visiting Gillham’s Fishing Resorts in Thailand and this is a brief report of a very exciting fishing experience. I have been here before and on my previous visit I managed to land an 28kg Amazon Red Tail Catfish, and at least compared strength with an arapaima, which can be compared to trying to land a tractor.

This time was no disappointment! The first fish I got acquainted with just took off. I had to jump into the water in order not to lose it. Among the strongest fish I have fought with a spinning rod!!! I just yelled out and with my guide at my heals, we passed fishermen with their lines out. Along the water’s edge, I’m in unto my neck. Imagine the sight! With a spinning rod above my head, trying to keep the line tight, going 200m, and then the fish said good bye to me and took off.

I was in for some waiting, fishing with pellets for Carp. Tried small herrings and chicken hearts as well.

Then the fish was there, making my float disappear, an incredcibly strong Mekong Catfish with no inclination of letting itself be landed. The drag was so tight that I was almost pulled out on the water. But I proved to the stronger of us, even thought my right arm biceps started to make funny noises. 55 kg!!!!
Loads of fun! I will try again next week.

55 kg Mekong Catfish

I can warmly reccommend Gillhams Fishing Resort! Great facilities and very good guides. The place is not far from Ao Nang (where I stay) or Krabi, in the direction of Phuket. The resort was established by Stuart Gillham. The son runs it with his father. Check out: www.gillhamsfishingresorts.com

Best wishes

Torunn Handeland
Team Mustad Norway