Andre Holgersen, a new Norwegian guest on the beats of the Norwegian Flyfishers Club, opened the day with a nice 12,5 kg /27 1/2 lb cock fish, caught after a hard battle on a 1 1/2 in Cascade tube.
During the day experienced NFC regular guests were catching some impressive salmon: Thomas Wölfle from Germany caught a nice fish of 9 kg/ 20 lb, Norwegian angler Arnt HenningBrunborg had a 5,5 kg/ 12 lb fish, German regular Wolfgang Späte had one of 7 kg/ 15 1/2 lb, and Mortan Carlsen from the Faroe Islands had a fish of 9,5 kg/ 21 lb, whilst Norwegian angler Per Arneberg caught the first grilse of the season. In the afternoon another well-known face on the NFC beats, Norwegian regular Yngve Landro landed a 10,5 kg/ 23 lb fish.
Now Arve Nilsen from Bergen started to fish without much belief. He had lost 4 fish during the week and why should the last day of the week turn out better? He changed the leader beforehand to 0.53mm nylon, tied on a 6,5cm-long tube-fly and just a few cast later he had an enormous take. Arve was immediately sure that this would be a huge fish, bigger than the other few fish of over 15 kg/ 33 lb he had caught on NFC water on past visits.
He was not able to hold the fish in the long pool, so he had to follow the salmon 500 meters downstream, whilst putting maximum pressure on the fish all the time. In the pool below his friends were finally able to land it.
This enormous salmon had a length of 129cm (47 in) and was measured around the girth at 63cm and weighed in at exactly 21,1kg (46 1/2 lb). There was no discussion about releasing the fish – the tube fly was swallowed very deep. By the way, during the last years over 60% of all salmon caught on the NFC water were carefully released, this is why the Norwegian Flyfishers Club is seen as the spear head of catch & release in Norway.
The Gaula had produced up to the 27th June a total of 8,3t salmon which breaks down into 1064 fish over 7 kg/15 1/2 lb; 358 medium sized salmon and 11 grilse. The average is at the moment 7,84kg/ 17.3 lb. The average of the largest 10 fish caught on the Gaula this season (less than 1 month) is 18,4 kg /40 1/2 lb. The fish of 21,1 kg/ 46 1/2 lb topping the impressive list – and it is the only fish caught on fly among the big ones: 7 out of this 10 are caught on spoon and 2 on worm!
