1996 - Salmon Fishing on the River Laerdal,
Norway
Just across the road from
the fish market in Bergen is a statue of Ludvig Holberg,
the 18th century Norwegian satirist. One of his best known
works was a play, Jeppe of the Hill, about a man with a
drink problem.
Jeppe was driven to drink
by his henpecking wife. Behind the drinking, there is always
a reason, wrote Holberg.
The wild-eyed unshaven young
man who sat next to me as we cruised up the Sogne-fjord
was called Norman, not Jeppe, although he shared Jeppe's
affliction. Norman had been drinking and "looking for
girls" all that day in Bergen. Now he was returning
to his tiny village at the top of the fjord.
Norman's village was as
scenic as scenery can get. He hated it. He said he was a
cowboy and his favourite singer was Waylon Jennings. Norman's
medley of Waylon Jennings' greatest hits was only interrupted
when the ferry pulled in to the side of the fjord and he
tottered off into the scenery.
"The problem with many
Norwegian men is that they are being overtaken by women
in society. Women are beginning to run things. It has left
the men unsure of themselves," explained Ragnhild Schibsted,
another ferry companion. Schibsted, a handsome and tactile
woman with a firm handshake, was leading a party of French
nuclear engineers on a tour of Scandinavia.
"Next week I'm taking
a group from the US Lighthouse Society around Norwegian
lighthouses," she said. Somewhere on the other side
of the Atlantic there was an American lighthouse enthusiast
leaning back on his pillow dreaming expectantly of all the
Norwegian lighthouses he was going to see.
I understood. Mine was a
different fetish, shared with two companions. Our fishing
flies were strewn across a table on the ferry. The towering
mountains and dramatic waterfalls could not possibly compete
with a few little hooks dressed in feathers and hair. If
you want scenery, get a biscuit tin.
We leaned back in our seats,
dreaming expectantly of all the fish we would catch. We
had come to fish the River Laerdal over the summer solstice.
The river looked inviting and clean. Fast flowing, cold
and crystal clear, the Laerdal is famous for its big spring
salmon.
Norwegians are known for
their fishing prowess so it was with some surprise that
the first fishermen I encountered fixed me with the same
glazed look I had seen in Norman only hours earlier.
I stood back as one of them
prepared to cast. Heaving his rod behind his head, he looked
every bit the complete angler - until he toppled backwards
and collapsed on the floor. His companion was seated, his
spinning lure anchored to the river bed, neither spinning
nor luring. Their eyes were vacant. An empty Smirnoff vodka
bottle told only part of the story.
They were not alone. Across
the river a man was fly- fishing . His casting seemed serviceable
enough until his reel fell off into the water. He floundered
in the shallows, trying to retrieve it.
I thought of Jeppe. There had to be a reason behind this
collective inebriation. Slowly it dawned. No fish.
Finn Krogh, manager of the
newly opened Norwegian Wild Salmon Centre in Laerdal village,
blamed the cold spring. The snow had taken longer than usual
to melt and the fish will not come up-river to spawn until
the water temperature has risen sufficiently. It was three
weeks into the season and the run had hardly got going.
Just 20 salmon had fallen to the rod along the full 40km
length of the river.
Only four days earlier King
Harald had fished the very spot where his crestfallen subjects
were drinking to forget their river rents. He hadn't caught
anything either.
The king had been opening
the salmon centre. Even kings need their excuses to go fishing
. The centre, however, is much more than a distraction with
its 60ft-long glass-sided fish tank, fed by the river. Salmon
are netted and exhibited in the tank for a few days before
they are released to continue their migration. Newly netted
fish then replace them. Krogh is hopeful of enticing fish
to spawn in the tank.
Staring into the jaws of
three 20lb salmon only increased our fishing lust. The symptoms
of withdrawal were palpable. We needed the river like a
drug addict needs a fix. But would there be fish?
Norwegian salmon fishing
has been through some hard times in recent years. The country
has a proud fishing history that goes back to the 1820s
when British salmon fishers first came to try their luck
and discovered rivers packed with giant specimens. Fish
weighing more than 40lb were not uncommon.
Alarmed by dwindling fish
stocks caused by increasing acidification, the Norwegian
government put a blanket ban on salmon fishing in August
1988. It was lifted a year later, subject to certain restrictions.
No fishing is allowed, for example, between the hours of
2pm and 6pm.
Although acidity appears
to have levelled off in many areas, some rivers, such as
the Vosso, have had to be closed again. A liming programme
has been introduced in an attempt to return all the rivers
to health. In the meantime gene banks have been established
for some of the most threatened stocks.
Salmon have disappeared
from 41 of Norway's 629 salmon rivers. Stocks are under
threat of extinction in 50 rivers and "vulnerable"
in 141. But these are lean times everywhere for those who
fish the spring runs of Atlantic salmon.
It was not always so. Our
wooden cabin was bedecked with the paraphernalia of fishing
days gone by. Photographs of its veteran owner adorned the
walls. Pictures of great fish bore witness to the halcyon
days of Norwegian salmon fishing . Will they ever return?
We had a picture-book stretch
of water. We fished a local fly called the Blue Charm; we
fished Hairy Marys, Jock Scotts, Willie Gunns, Thunder and
Lightnings and Waddingtons. We fished tube flies, wet flies
and dry flies. We fished Scottish patterns and Norwegian
patterns. We would have fished knitting patterns had we
had them.
We fished with sinking line,
floating line and were tempted to use the washing line.
We span with spinners and lured with lures. Tobies followed
Devons which followed flies. The salmon were presented with
an a'la carte menu of gastronomic proportions . . . if they
were there. It may have been a full waiter service to an
empty table. We would never know.
Only darkness can call time
on the river and it never became so dark that you could
not fish. In the end we plundered our duty-free malts which
had been sitting, like emergency provisions, at the bottom
of our bags. Slowly we succumbed to the combined effects
of alcohol and exhaustion. We tipped our glasses and toasted
Jeppe. Holberg would have understood.
