Time to fish!
Sunday, August 21st: Grong, Norway
We got up and went to the dining room for breakfast as soon as it opened at 7 AM. They had a Norwegian style breakfast buffet with the counter and wooden canoe full of food. We had warm bread with fried eggs, scrambled eggs with chives, bacon, baked beans, cold cuts, a variety of cheeses, snoked salmon and more.
We went back to our rooms to get ready for the day. This is where the confusion began with the lodge, which persisted through the entire trip. There was no one at the lodge that served as our primary point of contact. We met Hans and Kjell - they split us up for the morning session and we went our separate ways. I started with Kjell in the wooden boat to try harling and Matt went with Hans to fish from the bank. Kjell was quite the conversationalist - he was more interested in talking and sharing stories from his past than guiding. I put out three rods, two with flies and one with a plastic wobbler, and let them drift behind the boat as we rowed and drifted down a few runs. After two hours, we swapped. I went with Hans and Matt with Kjell. Hans and Kjell were total opposites. Hans was young (and we didn’t quite know how young until several days later), he didn’t talk much, he knew a lot about fishing for his age and was studying sport fishing in school.
We started at a slower stretch of river (I can never remember the name) and I started with our single handed fly rod. I skated flies in my first pass through and then we switched to a spey rod and banana fly - a gold streamer tube fly. Halfway through a fish striked. I was nervous that Hans didn’t carry a net, but we landed it on the bank, measured the fish at 63 centimeters and released it. We went back to the lodge for a late lunch break and then met Hans again to fish together.
We took the boat to a new beat and fished. Matt used the double handed rod and I used the single handed and skated flies. Matt and I were skeptical of the method until an Atlantic breached the surface and took the fly. We landed the fish, measured it in at 69 centimeters and noticed what looked like a red rash on its belly. We took pictures, Hans logged the fish in the database and we let it go. We fished the rest of the evening at Olehus without making contact again.
Dinner was chopped up elk steak with peppers, onions and mushrooms, served with a side of lingonberry sauce and roasted potatoes. Dessert was a warm rhubarb soup with whipped cream.
Accommodations: Namsentunet Lodge
