I’m off to Norway next week to try to fulfill one of my angling bucket-list items: to catch a big, wild Atlantic salmon. I have caught Atlantics before, on Ireland’s River Moy, and it was a great experience. But those fish are pretty small, running mostly in the 5- to 12-pound range. In Norway, we’ll be staying at the Norwegian Fly Fishers Club and fishing the Gaula River, known for its fish up to 40 pounds.
As always, I’ll be traveling with my high-school buddy and photographer, Sandy Hays, who shot all the gorgeous pictures from our Slovenia adventure last year. Others in our group will include Jeremy Kehrein of Orvis Travel, Taylor Edrington of Royal Gorge Anglers in Colorado, and my friend John Bleh, with whom I play soccer every Sunday morning here in Vermont.
Our goal is to catch some beautiful salmon like those in the video by Daniel Göz and Anton Hamacher above. We’ll arrive in Trondheim on Sunday and should be on the water bright and early Monday morning. We’ll be posting daily updates here on the blog, and you can follow along on Instagram (#orvisflyfishing and #norwegianflyfishersclub), as well as on Facebook and Twitter.
My buddy, John Bleh, with a Gaula salmon he caught last June.
Photo courtesy John Bleh