#1 Norwegian Codfest: Cod from the shoreline

Today I began to write my first post in the new blog and they say you should start with a bang so I have, this fishy tale took place during February 2010. I hope you enjoy the read.

This trip was an absolute cracker from the moment we boarded the plane at Stansted airport in London. The laughs and fish kept coming right until the very last cast of this extraordinary fishing trip.

Arriving in Norway: After a two hour flight to Trondheim in central Norway, we met up with Phill Dale of Skarnsundet fishcamp, a seasoned cod angler who would be our guide for the next few days. After a short drive through snow covered mountains and moose at the side of the road, we arrived in darkness at the fjordcenter. After unpacking our fishing tackle we were soon wetting our lines from a pier a mere 100yds from our chalet’s front door.

We didn’t expect to catch much from this mark, but this little gem turned out to be a pleasant surprise with us all catching fish mainly Haddock to 7lb with a smattering of smaller codling too. Although we didn’t see any of the huge cod we had came for it was still a hard decision to pack up and go back to the apartments for some much needed sleep and an early start the next morning!

The Difference between night and day

Phill wanted to familiarize us with the local fishing marks during daylight before we fished from them during darkness, which is normally the best time for shore fishing in winter. So at 9am we were off in the van to Straumen a small village at the neck of a fjord where the strong tidal movements attract hungry fish. We only caught a few small codling during the daylight hours and things as expected were very slow however this fact was about to change big time very soon!

Our next fishing fishing session was later that day during darkness at a spot under the huge bridge at Skarnsundet, called the landing, this was an old ferry jetty that was in use before the bridge was built. Here we were all straight into fish with Nicky loosing a big fish just down the side of the jetty! Amazingly the water here was absolutely crystal clear and we could easily see the big cod sitting on the bottom in 40 feet of water. We dropped a line down and managed to snag the fish and not long after Nicky had caught the best fish of the trip so far at 16lb’s.

Not to be outdone Mick caught a fine but slim cod of 18lb shortly after putting him in pole position in our friendly biggest fish wins all competition.

We all caught lots of fish here, mainly coalfish and codling with some huge haddock too on bluey and frozen black lugworm baits. Bluey is a small oily fish with it’s real name being the pacific saury. Pacific saury are an excellent bait in Norway due to their huge oil content, Norwegian cod can’t resist them!

Very tired but happy with our day’s fishing results, we retired back to our apartments with dreams of what we may catch the next day.

Here be monsters!

We awoke the next morning to stunning weather, blue skies and light winds, perfect for casting a line! We all headed back to the landing once again hoping to reproduce the hectic fishing we had the evening before. Although once again slow during daylight the catch rate really shot up as darkness fell. Nicky was once again on fire catching the majority of the better cod to 14lb and haddock to 7lb.

Phill Dale came to see how we were doing and spoke of even better fishing with potentially huge cod to 30lb plus to be caught at Straumen, the place we had checked out the day before in daylight. Tempted by this advice we quickly got in Phill’s van and headed down the road to Straumen. Here we tackled up accordingly with huge 8/0 hooks and big bluey baits in anticipation for the big cod to turn up and turn up they certainly did!

Nicky who was by far the best angler on the trip and nicknamed the trawler for a reason, was again quickly catching cod to 28lb and then a truly monstrous cod turned up for him which slammed the scales down to 48lb! We could not believe what we had witnessed it felt almost unreal. We were all bouncing with excitement and adrenaline for the rest of the night.

The best is yet to come

After Nicky’s outstanding catch the night before we were all up early and raring to go again. We hoped to find a good fishing spot ourselves today so we asked Phill if it was worth a go directly under the bridge near the fish camp, he warned that it was quite a climb down and he was right! Here there were loads of nice haddock with a few small codling to be caught. The fishing was good but we weren’t finding the big cod we were once again looking for. We rang Phill and asked him to take us back down the road to Straumen for the big cod once again.

Our move was certainly the correct one and finally after 32 years of cod hunting my moment arrived. A big lunge on my 13ft century fishing rod tip indicated the possible bite of a big cod on my bluey bait. The rod tip quickly sprung back and I made a mighty grab for it before the rod was pulled into the sea! I struck and it was fish on!, a mighty tussle then ensued between man and fish and with more luck than skill the largest cod that any of us had ever seen was near the surface and excruciatingly slowly being brought to an area where it could be landed.

Out of the water then came a monster cod of 49lb 7 ounces or 50lb I have over the years rounded the weight to when I tell the story. I’m sure any readers will give me that overstatement haha! I’m only 5 ft 6 inches of beer muscle and this fish was as big as me! To cap that fantastic night off Nicky, the trawler also caught another huge cod of 47lb. Writing this now brings all of the excitement and adrenaline buzz of that evening back in focus even so many years later.

With only a few hours left before our flight home I had a quick cast from the pier infront of the apartments and to my surprise I promptly landed a 19lb cod! As i said at the start of the story this was a cracking trip from start to finish. I’ve had many great visits to Norway since to catch huge cod and some I’ll also share at a later date in this blog. I hope you enjoyed the read and if you did I’d love it if you left a comment. Tightlines and all the best David and oh I did win the competition!