Thursday, April 26, 2007

South of Tromso - North of "Hell"

Here's a Way Upstream story about a recent record setting trip taken by Jeff Leopold (a friend and colleague in Norway). Here are his words - "I just returned from an experimental fly fishing trip in Lofoten. This is above the Arctic Circle just south of Tromso - North of 'Hell'. It's a famous area for its beauty and great sea fishing. I wanted to try and see how deep I could take a fly and what I was able to catch. I was surprised that I reached and snagged the bottom once at 42 meters - 137 feet. On another snag I broke off a piece of rock and was able to bring it up. On the back side was a crab which gave us confidence in our fly selection. I thought I would only be able to get to maybe 60 feet, so this was quite exciting. We were effective fishing from 10 meters to 40 and ended up getting cod up to 14lbs mostly on a crab flies I tied, but on the last day I was able to hook a 13 kilo (30lbs) Sei 'Coalfish' on a white clouser. It was the European record caught on the fly. Previous record was about 7 lbs. I hooked it at about 20 meters."
Congratulations from Way Upstream Jeff. Med vennlig hilsen.
Story and image contributions by Jeff Leopold

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I didn't know Sei was called Coalfish in English, I thought it was Pollock...anyway, I was fly fishing around Sandnessjøen last summer and cought lot's of Sei on clousters...from shore...they were smaller averaging 5-10 lbs. I thought I was the only one fly fishing for them.

Tor
www.torbrands.com

Jeff Leopold said...

The Sei is called a Coalfish in English and the Lyr is the Pollock. They are very similar fish. Er du norsk? We have been catching Sei and Lyr for a number of years in Southern Norway and even in the Oslo Fjord. In the Spring they can even be taken on floating flies as they chase bait fish. As you would know, they are great fun! You can read about our trip in Lofoten in the next issue of Alt om Fiske that comes out in October. Skit Fiske! Jeff

Unknown said...

And all this time I was calling Sei a Pollock. Thanks for the correction...

Ja, jeg er norsk, men jeg bor i Bend, Oregon

I'm looking forward to reading about your trip to Lofoten if it becomes available on the AltomFiske.no website.

here's a picture of one. www.tnbd.net/sei

-Tor

Coalfish said...

Nice Photo! You can find on Altomfiske.no a submenu with Fisk på fem språk. It's quite good. They don't post articles yet unfortunately. Jeff

Trouter said...

Nice article, great website.

I will be on the Lofoten islands later this month. I really enjoy freshwater fly-fishing for trout (all catch-and-release).

While there is a lot of information on saltwater fishing on the Lofoten, I have found no information on its specific trout streams and lakes. Do you have a recommendation where to fish? Are most streams and lakes open to the public? I will have the state fishing license available via Inatur / the post office but do I also need to buy river-/lake-specific licenses on the Lofoten? Thank you for your help.

Anonymous said...

You don`t need a fishing license for fishing in saltwater. You need the state fishing license for fishing Salmon and Seatrout in the rivers. You also need to add a local fishing license for that spesific river. For fishing Browntrout in the rivers you need only the local license, not the state fishing license.

Best Regards
Runar Kabbe

El Pescador said...

Thanks for the question Trouter and for the reply Runar. It's nice when the community takes care of each other. Keep your line in the water and believe in every cast.