Fishing With The Finns

I had just turned 70 and decided it was time for another adventure

I started salmon fishing in Scotland about 30 years ago and in the good times of the 70’s and 80’s had caught my fair share of salmon – must have been about 60 – 70 in that period, but costs had gone up and my earnings went down, so the best beats on the Tweed were beyond my reach

We had had our ‘Victorian House Parties’ in the nineties, with six couples taking over a lodge in the Highlands (four staff including a ghilly and a cook) and living like the nobility for a week, the men salmon fishing and the ladies walking, but even these had petered out after the last change of venue and disappointing results

Its time to go salmon fishing again, I thought. Canada? Russia? I went on the internet to find places and compare costs. Norway seemed the best bet and good value, for what seemed like quality salmon fishing ! I could get a good week for £500 including accommodation, I found flights at £77 return to Trondheim. That was it, Norway it would be ! I tried to persuade friends to join me, but they were all tied up at that time

Why not go on my own ? There would be lots of other like-minded people there, probably mainly foreigners, but I spoke a bit of foreign, anyway. It would be fun!

I booked the trip and bought myself a 'Teach Yourself’ course on Norwegian – a book and a tape. Written Norwegian is very similar to Danish, but the pronunciation is entirely different, with a few different words and spellings. It was the same language up to 200 tears ago

I compared it to a man from Surrey trying to learn Glaswegian. OK, if you really tried to understand each other, but no chance if you heard two speaking together

I played the tape in my car for the last month before I went. I did not get too far and decided to rely on a sort of Danwegian

Just before I went, I emailed to ask what nationalities would be there at the lodge. They are all Finns, I was told

Friday 28th July

Caught the plane from Stansted at 9am (thanks for the lift, Terry!) and sat next to two young ladies that looked about 15, but turned out to be medical students at Trondheim University. Like most Norwegians, they both spoke good English and we discussed accents in Norwegian and how they varied from valley to valley

Jouni, the Fishmaster, and also a Finn, met me at the airport. It took a hour to drive to the lodge. We stopped off on the way to buy a fishing licence (about 20 quid) and have my waders disinfected (stops salmon disease spreading)

Actually I did not need my waders disinfected as I had bought new. The wrong ones I was to find out! Neoprene in a heat wave is like living in a sauna !

Then there was shopping – I had to shop for food for the week – it was self catering. We stopped at the Co-op. I thought healthy living

Breakfast – cornflakes, milk, orange juice
Lunch – crispbread – pate, salami, cheese, tomatoes & onions and butter
Dinner – a pizza and two steaks – perhaps I would get the chance to re-stock later
A few beers and some soft drinks, a jar of Nescafe

We drove along the Gaula valley. The water was very low

How many times had I arrived at a salmon river, only to be told we need rain. Friends would ask when I got back, ‘What was the weather like?’ ‘Terrible’, I would say, ‘just sunny every day, not a drop of rain!’ ‘Eh?’

The fishing week ran from Saturday to Saturday, but due to my flights I had taken two extra nights (Friday to Sunday). This meant I would meet the fishing parties leaving the next day, when I arrived ….. and at the end of the week, I would briefly meet the next lot who would be staying the following week

There were two lodges – the main one at Hage, which was larger and more comfortable. I would be staying there for the main week, but the first night there was accommodation only at the other one – Gylteigen Farm – rather more primitive with a the loo and shower a hundred yards across the yard

Jouni cooked lunch at Hage House, which we shared with some of the others there, then ran me up to the other lodge about 2 miles away

I could not really settle in, as I was moving again the next day, so I dumped my stuff at the lodge and got a lift to Beat 1 to watch the others fish - my turn would not start until Saturday, the next day

There were three groups of fishermen, fishing three Beats, with changes of the beat rotating every six hours ie four changes a day. This meant each group would be fishing different Beats at different times each day

It did seem strange to be fishing 24 hours a day, or at least to have the chance to. In Scotland on the big rivers fishing it is 9 – 5pm and certainly NO fishing on Sunday. On the other hand, in a country like Norway, where the sun does not set until 10.30pm at that time. It is virtually 24 hour daylight, so why not, I suppose

The outgoing group at the small lodge were 2 Danes and 2 Finns+ myself. I think I surprised them all by chatting in Danish – fortunately I had fished in Danish with my father-in-law and uncle a long time ago and remembered some of the terms – they could only communicate in English together – perfect as usual, no surprises there

I studied the fishing book and consumed my pizza in the evening, while the others were out. 30 fish in a week between 15 chaps was not bad ! Particularly in a low water. Most were rather small 2 – 4 lbs, but with the occasional bigger one

I looked back to June. One of 20.8 kgs had been caught ! 45 lbs ? Wow !!!!

On Friday night, the monsoon season arrived in Norway ! It came down like stair rods. I went to bed a happy man

The best time to catch salmon is after a spate – the river rises and then starts to drop. The salmon run in on the spate and fresh stocks come into the river from the sea. When it drops they are held in the pools and are generally in a taking mood. Funny how salmon stop eating altogether all the time they are in the river, but still will take the fly – perhaps it annoys them or brings back memories of when they ate at sea. I must ask one sometime!

Saturday 29th July


‘You will have a good week now’ said the Danes as they packed their car for home

Jouni picked me up in the car and transferred me to the Hage Lodge. The other parties were not arriving until between 4 – 6pm. So I had the place largely to myself

‘Why not go out and fish’ said Jouni. ‘You could borrow one of the cycles, if you like’. I inspected the array of cycles by the lodge, in various degrees of suitability. I ignored the ones with flat tyres, set up my rod, put my tackle in the rucksack, waders on the back and set off


I learned later, chatting to the farmer who owned the lodge, that a block of flats had been cleared out once and he bought, as a job lot, all the bicycles that had been abandoned over the years, for use at the lodge

Even after at least ten years, I found riding a bicycle came naturally again, although it was accompanied by disconcerting lurches caused by the effect of carrying a15 foot rod crosswise on the handlebars. Fortunately I had the side road to myself

I developed a contingency plan that if anything came on the road in either direction I would stop and let it pass

There were three ways of stopping the bike, I found
1 The front cable brake - not recommended at speed
2 The rear brake which was activated by pedalling backwards – not something I had experienced before, and
3 Something I found out by chance when one of the boots from my waders flopped off the pannier at the back of the bike and jammed in the rear wheel – effective but not a method recommended for normal braking

I took my life in my hands and crossed the main Oslo-Trondheim road and struggled down the steep wooden stair to the river bank

The stair didn’t quite reach the top and there was a skiddy bit at the top which needed careful negotiation

I had seen the river the day before and it had been a docile stream – pretty easy to fish, if you don’t mind clambering over a few boulders and rocks.

Today it had risen about a meter – a raging torrent ran through the middle of the stream (the best bit to fish). It took me about 20 minutes to edge my way, wading, to a place I could fish. I was not really out far enough, but the current even at knee depth was too strong for me …. And the rocky river bottom was unstable

I had a few casts

(That is waving around a 15 foot rod with about 20 yards of heavy line on the end and trying to project it out across the middle of the river – we fishermen call it casting)

To ‘cover the river and the salmon lies’ a salmon fisherman need to start at the top of a pool – a deep bit with rocks in it - and work his way down the pool, a couple of paces at a time, each time casting across the river and slightly down stream, letting the line with the fly on the end, flow down with the stream until it reaches the shallows downstream. Then, retrieve the line and cast out again

I struggled in the current to work my way downstream over slippery and unstable rocks. Inevitably, it seemed after about half an hour, I lost my balance and sat down in the water. For a brief moment the water poured over the top of my waders and partly filled them inside. I struggled to my feet again using the rod as a stick

Might as well carry on I thought, It took me ages to get out here. No point in not continuing – but this time I waded a bit closer in to the bank, where at least the current was not as strong. Note: Don’t take the mobile phone or the camera when wading!

I spent 3 hours that afternoon, without any success and was relieved to get back to the Lodge to meet the rest of my group when they arrived. I rode home in the waders this time

I had forgotten how strenuous salmon fishing can be. I was exhausted

The Finns arrived on time, having taken the ferry to Sweden and driven up from Stockholm

I was in a group with four Finns – a doctor, a chemist and two mobile phone guys with not too easy names to remember Jussi, Jarkko, Panu and Jyrki

They seem to use a lot of ‘j’s I Finland, don’t they!

All spoke excellent English

The other group all appeared to be friends in the paper industry in Finland – big business out there – the other business is, of course, mobile phones (Nokia)

There were bits of a dead moose in the sink – the result of an earlier hunting expedition – ‘you should try it’, said one Finn, part of the ‘paper boys’. The trip on the ferry had also enabled them to stock up on booze. They surely had enough beer and vodka to last a month, unless they were very hard drinkers

the latter proved to be the case

I settled for a quiet evening in, and left the keen newcomers to do the fishing. Two salmon of 4.8 & 3 kgs came in that night

Sunday 30th July

Rose at 8 am refreshed and had a breakfast of cornflakes and orange juice

As the week went on, I realised that certain foodstuffs were treated partly as one’s own and partly as pooled. There were no rules, but that was the way it seemed to work best. Milk, orange juice, bread etc got shared, whereas, meat etc was not

Cornflakes were obviously borderline. But I did not have any objection to the son of one of the ‘paper boys’ helping himself to mine. I did have to apologise to him, however. I had mistakenly opened the packet at the bottom. ‘I am sorry’, I said ‘all the cornflakes are upside down!’ He did not seem to mind

That morning, the rotation took me back to Beat 1 again – I had not seen any other yet. I was amazed to see the water level had dropped about two feet from the day before – it was manageable again, but still no fish

Jouni was to leave us for the week and go back to Finland until Friday, so he took the opportunity of showing me the fishing. At last I saw all the beats He seemed to know them well

I skipped the afternoon fishing, it was just too hot

Temperatures during the day rose to 29 degrees that week (84 F) and, of course all the days were long, so it did not cool down much during the evening (which did not start until 11pm !)

Jussi & Panu were together and had hired a car. Jarkko & Jyrki were the other couple and they had a car too. In the evening, both offered me a lift to Beat 3, which was about two miles downstream

I felt like the husband who had been given two ties for his birthday and immediately put one on. ‘Don’t you like the other one?’ asked his wife

I chose the lift from Jussi & Panu, as they were leaving in 20 minutes and I fished mainly with them for the rest of the week

We fished the beat in turns – two fishing at stages down the pool and one resting

It enabled me to study techniques. I was beginning to realise I was rather old-fashioned in my fishing. Firstly, I was not wearing the uniform – breathable waders with stocking feet and strong wading boots. Secondly, I did not have a modern lightweight rod with a spey casting line, which meant that I had to use an overhead cast, rather than the looping double roll cast the others used

I had made my rod in 1977. I had never learnt to ‘spey cast’, although I knew the principles. I tried to Spey cast with the double tapered line I had on, but it just was not made for it and ended in a heap.

The overhead cast means that about 15 – 20 yards of line goes back behind you in the air before the lines is shot forward, so you need to look out for people passing behind, but also it is no good if there are trees. You just catch trees !

Spey casting keeps the line in front of you all the time

By the time we had got back to the Lodge, Jarkko had caught his second fish (7.7 kg) about 18 lbs

Did I chose the wrong car?




Monday 31 July

Jarkko announced at breakfast time that he would cook salmon soup for everyone that night.

I was a little apprehensive, as I normally only like my salmon smoked or as gravid lax. Much as I liked to catch salmon, poached salmon is definitely not my favourite. As it happened, I liked the salmon soup so much, I came back for second helpings – well there was enough for an army!

It was hot again, so I fished half the morning and part of the evening – after the salmon soup. This time I did not bother with the waders. There was a real sauna at the lodge, I tried that instead

I did manage to scrounge a lift with ‘my Finns’ into the village. I said I would do dinner the next day and shopped for it

Jarkko spent a couple of hours boiling the bones of the fish he had caught on Saturday. He kept the fillets for taking home,. Potatoes, onions and a few other ingredients were thrown into the pot and stirred

Versatile these Finns ! I suppose if you live with only 5 million people in a country which is half as big again as UK, but mainly covered with lakes and forest you need to develop a few country crafts – there was still a bit of cooked moose on the stove, which I sampled too

Tuesday 1 August

I fished Beat 2 in the morning. This was where the ‘locals’ had caught five fish the evening before from the other bank, including one of nearly 40 lbs !

Funny how the best bits seem to fish better from the other side, but then a Panu remarked that week ‘ well, look at the grass’ It did seem greener

They were not there today

We worked out that if the locals were fishing, it had to be a good time to fish – they did not bother to fish all the time – just when it should be good. I probably should have concentrated more on the early part of the week. That was the best time.

This time I went right up to the top of the beat – it took 25 minutes to clamber over rocks and boulders, and started on a lovely pool which fished well from our shore. There should have been a fish every cast, but alas…………….

Well. I was getting fitter. There was a time last Saturday afternoon when I had wondered ‘Can I really manage this? Should I give up?’ I was feeling much more comfortable now. It was easier to cope

Fishing? Where’s the exercise in fishing? – just sitting under green umbrella’s all day – salmon fishing is not quite the same

In the afternoon, I concentrated on preparing the dinner

Jussi helped me as commis-chef, peeling the potatoes and boiling them and chopping the spring onions. He was also a deft hand with the béarnaise sauce, made from a packet

The dinner was to be:

Starter: Pate & sliced tomatoes on a lettuce bed on crispbread
One had to improvise with what one had – I sacrificed half my liver pate

Main Course: Entrecote steak on the barbecue
Bernaise Sauce
Potato salad (with spring onions)
Tomato & onion salad

Coffee: by Panu

I donated most of my 3 litre Wine box for the occasion, on the understanding that I could call on ‘pooled’ resources, when I ran out

Knapkins in the glasses and a rose in a tumbler added the finishing touches

Afterwards, we all went to fish Beat 1, where Jyrki caught a fine 7 lbs salmon, which lead him quite a dance and took him out of range (for me) for a photo of it being beached. I had to content myself with a snap of him returning with the fish, aided by Panu.

Wednesday 2 August

I was settling in to a sort of a routine, getting up at about 8 am, fishing the morning until noon. I was getting the hang of the casting better, but I still felt it could be better

A friend of mine once told me there are four stages of acquiring a skill

1 Unconscious incompetence – you don’t know where to start
2 Conscious incompetence – you know what to do but you cannot do it
3 Conscious competence – you can do it if you concentrate
4 Unconscious competence – you can do it without thinking about it

I have tried to achieve stage 4, but it only needs a gust of wind or a stumble on the rocks to leave me back in stage 3

You need to pull in some yards of line and lay it in coils by your feet, to be able to lift the line off the water. Its very satisfying when the cast goes out perfectly, pulling all the coiled line out until it slaps against the rod, just tugs on the reel and the line goes out straight, with the fly following over in a loop to drop in the water right at the end

What is the best cast? Well, one that catches a salmon ! I have seen them caught on the worst of all casts - perhaps that means that salmon have no taste

Having fished the afternoon on Beat 1 again, I decided to rest for the evening

The Farmer in the adjoining House (who happened to own the lodge and the fishing – Jouni only rented it from him), came across the yard for a chat. It was still warm enough to sit out in shorts. He had heard I spoke Danish. I had tried out my Danwegian on one of his guests, thinking he was the Farmer

As usual he spoke impeccable English

There were acres of wheat and potatoes around the lodge, which seem to be his main crops and a few thousand hectares of woodland, but mainly on craggy near sheer rock faces – difficult to get to and maintain

He had been once asked by one of the fishermen if he kept any animals. What do I need animals for when I have you fishermen, he had replied

Thursday 3 August

Got a lift to the fishing on Beat 3 in the morning. Jussi, Panu & I fished it well, but the water had now dropped further and the fish were difficult to find

It was hot again. I lunched on eggs & bacon, fried bread and tomatoes

Well I could not eat healthy all week

and I decided to leave the fishing until the evening

I would tie a few flies. There was a table set aside at the Lodge for that purpose,. I had seen four vices set up there at one time. I had my own kit, even though I had had to reduce it down to a manageable size to carry with me on the plane

You would not believe the collection of paraphernalia that a fisherman collects over the years to tie flies

The teenage son of one of the ‘Paper boys’ was busy tying flies with an array of materials around him

‘Could you tie me a fly?’ I asked ‘The problem is I do prefer steak to salmon – any chance you could tie me a fly to catch a cow?’ He hardly looked up

I turned my hand to some smaller ones for the end of the week

Jussi came back dejected from the fishing on Beat 2. He had tried the lowest pool, which has a steep bank with trees behind it. I did not go there as it could only be fished by Spey Casting

‘This is the day when I bought my first rod’ he said

Apparently, he had slipped down the bank and broken his rod on a rock as he fell …. and for good measure, he had also torn his waders. An additional problem was that it was his first salmon fishing trip and he had only borrowed the rod!

I fished until nearly midnight that day and very pleasant it was

Somehow it did not matter about catching fish – it was a way of life

Friday 4 August

Set off after breakfast to Beat 2. This time I walked and then made the long treck up to my favourite pool at the top

It was a shadow of what it had been earlier in the week,

but there was still a chance

I worked my way down through the pools, back to where I had started. By the time I had finished it was time to go back for lunch

It was hot again and I rested the afternoon. I’d save my strength for the evening.

It would be our last together

We set off as a team for the evening’s fishing. Panu carried sausages & beers. There is a camp fire area surrounded by rocks on that Beat and soon the Finns were chopping logs into kindling and with a sharp knife shaving the edges for lighting


The curls of fine wood caught easily and soon we had a good fire

They had done this before! They would make good boy scouts

Somehow sausages on a camp fire always taste better With some mustard and a beer – perfect

As I worked the pool in front of the fire, I stopped and looked up.. ‘ Could I please just have one fish even a small one, perhaps even a sea trout?’. I carried on and cast out again. I think I had a fish on. It was a salmon parr (about 4” long – 10cm a salmon before it goes to sea)

I looked up again ‘I didn’t mean that small !’

Was I ungrateful?

We were not sure whether we would see each other in the morning, the Finns were off early, so we said out goodbyes I had had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed their company. We had had a lot of fun and told a lot of stories

Saturday 5 August

Rose at about 9 am, just in time to see Panu & Jussi leaving. The others had left earlier

Jouni, the Fishmaster, and myself were now left on our own. I had seen a picture in the back of a 'Vision’ fishing tackle catalogue on the lounge table. It was of a fsherman on a bicycle with a salmon on the back. It looked familiar

‘That was taken here last year’, said Jouni ‘Why don’t you go fishing until midday at least. The new crowd are not due until 4pm

I had the pick of the cycles and chose the one in the picture to get to Beat 1. Perhaps it would be lucky

I fished expecting to catch a fish at every cast. Wouldn’t it be nice to write to the others saying ‘Oh, by the way, I caught a salmon after you had gone’

Sadly it wasn’t to be, not even using the lucky bike

After lunch, I surveyed the abandoned wine boxes, I various stages of consumption. It was my duty, surely, to help out. I took one out onto the table in the yard and sipped contentedly

The Farmer joined me for a chat. I reminisced over the events and stories of the week
















A captive audience from the paper world – I just had to tell them about my collection of mint copies of 1950’s and 1960’s toilet paper – the ones inscribed LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL – Now wash your hands please, many more of the Local Authorities and Kodak, Vickers Armstrong, Crosswords, Jokes even foreign toilet papers, some 50 in total. It must be worth a fortune now. I lecture on it now, of course, as an eminent ‘Papyrologist’






(part of my collection)








How I had recounted that my two eldest girls were only 11 ½ months apart, meaning that for two weeks of the year they are the same age. Jennifer, the eldest, was asked at about 11 by one of my friends at a party ‘How old are you?’ I’m 11’ said Jenny. ‘and how old is your sister?’ ‘She’s 11 too’ said Jenny ‘Are you twins?’ said my friend
‘No, Daddy is a sex maniac’

As you can imagine everyone thought this was hilarious and Antonia the younger one, realising this was funny, almost provoked another friend to ask the same question a few days later. When asked ‘Are you twins?’ Her reply was ‘No, daddy is a homosexual’ That got a few laughs too

The Farmer’s wife came over to join us later. She spoke excellent English too and had even brought her own bottle of wine

She told me she had come over to talk to me earlier in the week, but had mistaken me for the only Finn that did not speak English – and he was drunk, she added

I seem to remember he smiled in English, though

I told them I had tried out my Danwegian on one of the cleaners who turned up in the afternoon, as I thought she might be the only one who did not speak English, but found communication difficult. ‘Not surprising’, said the Farmer ‘she’s Russian and does not speak much Norwegian’

Somehow the evening sped by as more & more stories came out. I had finished one half empty box of wine and enjoyed good company

Isn’t that what holidays are about. Good friends, good company and good conversation. I’d had a great time

Sunday 6 August

Checked the Fishing Records to find that the new group, all Finns again, had caught three fish on the previous evening - well, they were all keen

Hope they had a good week too








Our final tally had been 12 Fish for the whole group. My team had 7

To be accurate Jarkko had 3; Jyrki had 4; the rest of us nil

I walked round the Lodge looking at the pictures of past glories. There were some very interesting ones of the English Nobility with their entourages in the 19th Century, posing imperially outside the porch. After all, it was the English who taught the Norwegians salmon fishing

I suppose it is like so many other things : we invent it and then we find others do it better

So what had I achieved in the week ? A few words of Finnish. (Spelling not guaranteed)

Herbigen Gerbigen: Cheers
Kiodos: Thankyou
Kylla: Yes
Ei: No
Hyvaa momenta: Good morning
Hupo Hupo: was that ‘Rubbish’ ?
…and the only word, I knew in Finnish before I went, learned it from an au pair girl
Kiss Kiss: Puss Puss

……and I had made a lot of good friends

Jouni took me to the airport at 2pm. It was an hour’s drive. I caught glimpses of the river on the left hand side

I’ll come again. I told him, but next time I will be better prepared

Perhaps catch a fish, too ?