Andy Murray (holding the fish) and Chris Henshaw enjoy a June moment on the NFC's lower E beats.

For rods used to the UK’s 10.5-month-long salmon-fishing year the Gaula season is not the longest. But those three months of world-class fly-fishing from June 1 to August 31 bring the chance for British game-anglers of some notable highlights.

One of course is to connect via a 15ft fly rod with one of the Gaula’s solid Atlantic salmon, weighing anything from a 5lb grilse, through ‘medium-sized’ fish in the teens of poundsto the 20-30lb bruisers that will test your mettle – and tackle – to the limit and make your week truly memorable.

There is also the chance that a pull on your line will convert into a battle with Norway’s finest sportfish – a salmon in the 30s, 40s or even 50s of pounds.

But another highlight for those heading out to fish at the Norwegian Flyfishers Club waters based around Støren this year for Week 24 (June 10-17) is the chance to fish with Andy Murray. The renowned and super-experienced salmon man (whose many credits include designing Hardy’s Swift series of rods) joins the NFC for one of the best weeks of the season. You will be able to get expert daily advice from Andy – and Chris Henshaw – free of charge!

There is currently good availability on Andy Murray’s June week and to join him contact the Norwegian Flyfishers Club via their Germany Office:
Telephone: +49-40-5892302, Email: Raguse@t-online.de
Norwegian Flyfishers Club c/o Manfred Raguse
Robert Blum Str. 5 B
D-22453 Hamburg
Germany

Join me in Norway this summer

I am organising parties of UK anglers to fish Manfred Raguse’s world famous NFC Gaula fishery this season. Contact me via my email, henry.giles01@yahoo.com or call 07961 921 726 for further details and I will help with all aspects of your trip including flights, hire car and NFC accommodation arrangements. Once out there I will help with logistics and do all I can to help you to a productive and enjoyable Gaula week. 

Guiding/instruction/casting: I am undertaking training with AAPGAI from March 2012 and as a veteran of three successful Gaula trips in the past three years will do all I can to put you on to fish.

It’s not as though you will have missed it, for Miss Georgina Ballantine stares out at you – no challenges you – from a framed photograph above the urinals in the Gents.

With the result that just as you’re going about your business in what is by definition a one hundred per cent male environment within the surrounds of a traditional, famous Scottish fishing hotel, you are presented with the clear evidence that you, as a fishing bloke, have been found wanting.

Of course the fish concerned, and pictured here, is the British record Atlantic salmon – a fish of 64lb taken from the River Tay 90-odd years ago. Never mind that you spend considerable parts of your life, and money (not to mention the goodwill of the female components of said life) salmon-fishing. It is extremely unlikely that you will catch a fish this size, or even half this size. Unlike Georgina.

All right if you fish rivers like the Orkla, Gaula, Kharlovka, Yokanga, or Alta a lot – and I mean a lot, year after year – you might catch one in the thirties or forties of pounds (okay Gaula and Alta, maybe even a shade into the fifties). But for most mortals it ain’t gonna happen.

I have occasionally (and I mean occasionally) gone into the Buccleuch & Q loo glowing with success at the capture of a salmon a tenth of the size of  ‘Georgie’’s but been pulled up cold by the blistering sensation of admiration and awe even the imperfect photo of this beast of a fish engenders.

But then I’m a fisherman, and I respect it – and the captor.

Although I’ve now caught a fair few fish in the 12-14lb range my biggest ever salmon remains 14.5. (I know what a 46.5lber looks like though because I saw the monster of that weight caught last season on the Gaula in the freezer of the Norwegian Flyfishers’ Club last August.) So not huge for the old record books, not huge at all.

But finally – and I’m not going any further on the whole women and big fish question, for now at least – just who the hell did put the photo up there, in that place because it was clearly a woman (the piece de resistance are the two exclamation marks on BETTER!! – you can just see the feminine exultation in the pen-strokes). The hotel manageress, the cleaners, some late-night soul in heels or fluffy slippers, perhaps, out to prove a point as she helped herself to a G+T in the hotel bar?

But I tell you what. I bet she had a smile on her face as she did it.

Some of these in turn even were caught by rods. And returned and went on to spawn. Now there’s a thought.

And in the world of men – as Tolkein put it – we go about our business complaining if a wheelie bin gets knocked over by the January storms. But of course it has been much worse than that with human life itself put at risk and indeed with lives lost to the full force of the gale.

Yes it’s wild out there and it does make you feel alive: Happy New Year … Brave New Year.

Friendships – eye contact, a smile, a clap on the back, a hi-5. There is nothing like that connection between those who know what they love and move heaven and earth to get back there each year. The sight of a familiar face with which to share the adventure confirms what you already knew: that it’s all worth it.

Then salmon-fishers’ ritual: a serious nod towards prospects, river levels, runs of fish, water temperature, fly choice. Some feign a laid-back approach, but most note every nuance of the assembled experience and stash hints and tips in their minds to deploy through the first few hours and days (it’s a fishing thing: all matters, even by exception and default). Rods feel a measure of responsibility: let’s get some fish in the book, let’s do our bit.

Then the serious bit is over as abruptly as it began. Cigarettes spark up, toasts are made and all the old fishing stuff comes out, the stories, the shared memories, the fun and the first examples of cameraderie – respect, concern and care – of that first evening in good company.

Before you know it you’ve shoehorned six hours’ sleep under you belt and you’re on the river. You fish ‘in the zone’ – hard, but full of confidence because you know that a gleam of gold tinsel, angel hair and arctic fur, with perhaps a battered red conehead is being sucked down and round ancient salmon lies via a slow-sinking fly-line.

Any time from that first cast it can bring with a wild suddenness that miracle – the draw and thudding, pulsating weight of a muscled bar of silver from arctic waters: a fresh Atlantic salmon. A hook slipped into the scissors then a searing run, an outpouring of raw power with a leap at the end of it.

Just to leave you with this snippet from Melinda Moustakis’ book, Bear Down Bear North (I am loving that title) about the wilds of Alaska and its fishing and hunting which Chloë bought me for Christmas and has set me off dreaming (again). Okay not Atlantic salmon these, but nicely described in sparse prose:

“The stars, the sun and the moon make coordinates of refracted light. These and the smell of gravel guide them to the Kenai’s mouth. Their skin glimmers like knives and their meat turns red. After a heavy rain, the water rises and they charge the river. They grow hooked snouts and wolves teeth.”

“Their skin glimmers like knives …” The gleaming blade of a bone-handled Mappin and Webb from our dining room growing up in Sheffield. I like that.

So Happy New Year to you all this weekend – and whether you fish Norway, Russia, Iceland, Scotland or the north American continent let’s make it a good salmon season with plenty of fish returned to their wild rivers of destination (before you put them back don’t forget to take that photo so you can send it in for posting here). And have fun – I’m sure you will.

Hang on, no fuss at all? Anyone who has read the Salmon Adventure carefully will remember there was quite a lot of fuss actually. As Jess bent down ever lower to get the shot, his lifejacket exploded, to the delight of our Russian guide Sergay.

Hope all is well out there for you all and you’re sliding gracefully (or disgracefully with all those office parties) towards Christmas. I’ve been settling down to ‘enjoy’ the close season, with my favourite reading matter. Although I should be reading history books (he said enigmatically). Oh and running – it’ll be a leaner and fitter salmon junkie for 2012.

Whether that means one catches more or bigger fish I don’t know. But of course I was forgetting – that’s not the point is it?

The Gaula.

Anyone? Let me make a start. Well the Tweed has to go in there so let’s get that out of the way. Then there is obviously the most prolific Atlantic salmon river in the world, Kola jewel, the Varzuga. Other Russian rivers that have to make it are the Varzina and the Yokanga. Sport-fishing jewel the River Gaula is in the team as Norway’s premier big fish river with its wonderful fly water. Yes I know, the Alta too (although being a Lotto winner may not guarantee you a rod as the river has its own lottery for rods). The Aberdeenshire Dee gets in (chap called A H E Wood did rather well there, inventing floating line fishing in the Twenties/Thirties and it’s still a rather nice river to fish I’m told and hoping to take up an invite to fish it one day).

So I only have three spaces left. I was talking with a Pacific coast Twitter pal re the Skeena River in BC for steelhead and he said it was in his Top 10 World rivers to fish. So I did some research and the photos showed a broad, clear water, majestic to look at. Let’s put that in.

That leaves two spaces and I reckon we have candidates in the shape of Ponoi, Orkla, Kharlovka, Rynda, Umba, Tay, Tyne and Spey, not to mention Iceland’s Rangas.

It would be great to get some outraged comments from those who reckon ‘their’ river should be in. But that’s the fun of lists – the ones you leave out! Comments please and suggestions out of the rivers above for the final two places.. (C’mon, it’s the close season!)

Sport not food: a rod-caught Atlantic salmon, barbless fly removed, is kept in the water before its swift return.

It’s easy sometimes to forget what a serious and life-sustaining business fishing – and the associated health or otherwise of world fish stocks – is for many millions of people in the world.

Around 45 million people (at least 6 million of them women), according to a United Nations report launched yesterday, fish for a living and are threatened by overfishing and climate change.

I – and readers of this blog overwhelmingly – fish for sport, but I am not being entirely flippant with my blog tag-line ‘Born to fish, forced to work and fish’ as many times my hobby (or sport, rather), fishing (or angling) has intertwined with earning a living. Not that that’s the point. (There is also my fishing partner on the Gaula last summer who’s a professional sea-fisherman working boats out of Christchurch (UK) harbour – and so genuinely one of that 45 million world statistic.)

But underlying the sport of salmon fishing is the knowledge that we anglers are major custodians of our rivers and fish stocks and wild places. The onus on us is to take a sustainable harvest and in most instances this means practising catch-and-release. (Amazingly there are many angling dinosaurs – some of whom in other respects I like and respect – out there who have yet to latch on to the well-documented reality that the overwhelming bulk of carefully released salmon go on to survive and spawn, but that’s another story.)

Yesterday’s United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report focuses in part on the impact of climate change on the life and death struggle for food (fish being a great source of protein) in some of the world’s poorest countries. It says the vulnerability here is twofold: the countries most at risk also rely the most on fish for dietary protein, livelihoods and exports. Climate change is expected to lead to major declines in fish stocks in the Pacific Islands, say, while benefits are predicted at some northern latitudes, including around Alaska, Greenland, Norway and the Russian Federation.

Yes I know, the thought flickered across my mind too. A silver lining? No I’m not going to entertain it on this occasion.

Like those Brits who celebrate climate change as an opportunity to sunbathe on UK beaches and add a vineyard or two to their Home Counties estates – to insulate oneself in such a hubristic comfort-zone would be not only flippant, but also morally suspect, and in environmental terms deeply unwise.

Gaula filmmaker Daniel Göz shoots the release of a Gaula fish in August.

All right, I’m running out of excuses for that tardy end of season report. Truth is I’ve been busy busy busy. Born to fish, forced to work and fish. Only problem with busy busy busy is it foiled my last-ditch attempt to engineer a nice, if short last day of November day on the Lower Tweed next week. However pal Charlie is still going (I hope and trust – go on Charlie!) and so we all hope for a phoenix from the flames story of a final Tweed fish (go Charlie go!)

So there it is. Thanks to any of you still hooking into this but what I can promise is some great fishing coverage throughout 2012 – I remember this time last year I confided that I wasn’t so much hatching fishing plans for the season ahead as plotting.

And that hasn’t changed much. I always think that if there is fishing out there that is so exciting it stops you from sleeping properly for ten days before you go out there then dominates your waking moments throughout the following summer then it must be something that rocks your boat and is not to be discounted lightly.

Sabbachi camp, Varzuga. About 10pm, May 2011. Photograph above this one: cold water salmon fishing: time for a quick pic of a Russian salmon from Lower Varzuga's Bear Lets before its return.

Fished on a long leader of 19lb fluorocarbon to an intermediate shooting head, the fly swam perfectly through the holding spots at a nice, even depth.

And five casts down the pool, just as the ‘flick’ of the straightening cast registered with a slight load on my Helios 15-footer, the line pulled away through the rings with a smooth draw in the waters of the stream and a 12lb crescent of fresh Gaula silver threw itself broadside onto the stream below. The reel spoke, then shrieked as the salmon tore off.

Fish on!

The annual conservation auction held by NASF/ Reddvillaksen.no 14 days ago has raised a record £90,000 (800,000 NOK) for Orri Vigfusson’s salmon conservation organisation.

And it was a UK rod who clinched the showpiece lot ‘after a hard battle’: a two-day salmon adventure fishing on the eyewateringly exclusive River Alta. The final price? 170,000 NOK, or about £18,000.

Fish&Fly reports: “On offer were many great fishing trips at home and abroad as well as some quality fishing tackle. The most desirable item was a two day salmon fishing adventure on the Alta, sold for NOK 170,000 to a British fisherman. The Board members of Reddvillaksen.no who give up their time freely (over 1,000 hours annually) to save wild salmon, are pleased and grateful to all donors and supporters for such generous donations and bids. Without these kindred spirits salmon would be in even greater peril. Money raised will also help launch a new in-river conservation project where Reddvillaksen.no will work closely with NJFF (Norway’s Hunting and Fishing Association), to improve spawning conditions, nursery areas and living conditions in streams and small rivers. NJFF will organize and implement the projects based on local initiatives by their members and Reddvillaksen.no will contribute to the project’s funding.

“Chairman Paul Klouman of Reddvillaksen.no began the evening by presenting the foundation’s new website www.reddvillaksen.no, which provides detailed information about the wild salmon and its challenges. Klouman also highlighted current issues before the auction started: A call for clear double-labelling of farmed fish Reddvillaksen.no, and together with Norwegian Salmon Rivers he initiated a broad cooperation with other organizations dedicated to wild salmon. The organizations have sent out a common requirement that all farmed fish must be “double-labeled” – both fat-fin cut and marked with origin. Escaped farmed fish are environmental hazards and it is vital that we can trace the source of this pollution to improve safe-guards at the offending fish-farms.

“Stopping Norway’s netting of Russia’s salmon in violation of international law was another priority. Klouman spoke of the scandal of sea salmon fishing with bend nets and other methods in Finnmark. About 20% of the annual run (16 tons) to Kola Peninsula rivers is caught by this fishery – for the spring run the share is even higher. This really must cease from next season. The same point was emphasized by Orri Vigfusson, the founder of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund.

“In a cry to move toward closed containment fish farms Erik Sterud, Chief Advisor to the Norwegian Salmon Rivers Association, emphasized the need for the fish farming industry to move toward closed containment methods which are seeing increasing commercial use in Canada. Apparently, production costs for closed-containment farming are competitive against traditional net pens. If we add the fact that sea cage fish farms should pay for the costs of pollutin The 2011 Auction was a great success and thank you once again to everyone for their contributions and donations.g the coastal waters with biological waste, sea lice, virus and genetic challenges this must be the future solution of fish farming.”

So great news for the Atlantic salmon and especially those who love the beautiful country of Norway and the stunning fly-fishing water of its rivers. Best wishes as always to NASF and its Norwegian and international friends for a great fund-raising event and nearly a tenth of a million quid for a great cause.