Mr Fish
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- Oct 4, 2020
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Continuing the adventures at Sorvaer on the island of Soroya in Northern Norway, day 3 started off a bit shitty weather-wise, not terrible but wet and breezy, enough to convince us to stay fairly local and check out various inshore marks as well as push around to halibooby bay if the weather allowed.
Those plans were about to change drastically, however...!
A chance encounter with Anders the fishing guide by me outside saw him mention they had plans to push out to the fabled reef of Storskalltaren - it's 30 miles offshore and a relatively shallow plateau in the middle of nowhere that holds a wealth of big fish and is essentially the Mecca of Norway fishing.
He was on his way to brief a Polish crew that was also going and would pop back to our house after to give us a time, though it looked like it would be
after lunch.
The weather, he said, was a perfect window and the winds and swell would be dropping all the time. Btw, he lied, that swell was with us all day
I had been looking forward to our mixed fishing mooching around inshore, but that reef is often unattainable for weeks at a time and if the guides say it's good to go, you don't turn down the opportunity, so we went!
It gave us the morning off and a bit of time to consolidate our gear and for James to cook us a very nice paella too!
Down at the dock for 1pm, it turned out Gustaf the Ninja Master of Fishing Guides (more on that later) was now crew-less as one of the Poles had
apparently had a panic attack and was literally shaking - whether from the thought of going that far out to sea or for some other reason, Gustaf didn't know.
Anyway, he was crew-less so could he come with us and we'd take the guide boat? I must admit I was reluctant at first, not for having a guide, but
just couldn't be arsed to shift all the gear from our boat, however common-sense prevailed and that's what we did.
As it turned out, he did me a huge favour - the steam out was hellish and no way I'd have wanted to drive that far. Aside from having less experience,
it's damned draining, not to mention boring, to have to focus on driving in big messy swells for two hours.
Nope, Gustaf was the man for that job!
I thought it was miserable and wet enough in the passenger seat next to him - we were already wet from standing at the dock and the hire floatation suits were NOT waterproof!
The bigger seas were daunting, but the guides know what they're about, so I didn't have any safety concerns, but it was a very uncomfortable journey.
However, when we finally arrived, I realised Rich and Tat had seen their arses royally pounded by sitting on the box seat at the stern and Rich was totally soaked, so I counted my blessings!
We finally got there and you could see the impressive Storskalltaren reef rising from the depths on the 3D plotter, a fish heaven!
To start with we fished the 100-150m depths off the reef, where THAT record breaking cod had been caught by a boat from Sandland not very long before.
The order of this might not be quite right so the guys can correct me if not, but I got the ball rolling with a half decent 8-10lb coalie...
That was soon totally eclipsed by Rich landing a 19lb specimen that went like a train on light gear.
Rich also had a nice cod in the 35lb range and followed it up by a 50 pound beast that had a huge head, but was clearly spawned out and would have easily gone 60lb-plus if not 70lb during breeding season.
The news from the other boat guided by Anders was less encouraging - Ollie and Jon were badly seasick, Jon was feeding the fishies and James had dropped two halibut.
What was going wrong over there?
It transpired James had brought a BANANA
on board!!! Oh dear.
I suggested best nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure, but in any event the offending fruit was eventually thrown over the side and things improved.
James had a decent cod, Jon had a 145cm halibut...
And Jonny had a wolf fish, overcoming his urge to shriek by making friends with it...
Continues below....
Those plans were about to change drastically, however...!
A chance encounter with Anders the fishing guide by me outside saw him mention they had plans to push out to the fabled reef of Storskalltaren - it's 30 miles offshore and a relatively shallow plateau in the middle of nowhere that holds a wealth of big fish and is essentially the Mecca of Norway fishing.
He was on his way to brief a Polish crew that was also going and would pop back to our house after to give us a time, though it looked like it would be
after lunch.
The weather, he said, was a perfect window and the winds and swell would be dropping all the time. Btw, he lied, that swell was with us all day
I had been looking forward to our mixed fishing mooching around inshore, but that reef is often unattainable for weeks at a time and if the guides say it's good to go, you don't turn down the opportunity, so we went!
It gave us the morning off and a bit of time to consolidate our gear and for James to cook us a very nice paella too!
Down at the dock for 1pm, it turned out Gustaf the Ninja Master of Fishing Guides (more on that later) was now crew-less as one of the Poles had
apparently had a panic attack and was literally shaking - whether from the thought of going that far out to sea or for some other reason, Gustaf didn't know.
Anyway, he was crew-less so could he come with us and we'd take the guide boat? I must admit I was reluctant at first, not for having a guide, but
just couldn't be arsed to shift all the gear from our boat, however common-sense prevailed and that's what we did.
As it turned out, he did me a huge favour - the steam out was hellish and no way I'd have wanted to drive that far. Aside from having less experience,
it's damned draining, not to mention boring, to have to focus on driving in big messy swells for two hours.
Nope, Gustaf was the man for that job!
I thought it was miserable and wet enough in the passenger seat next to him - we were already wet from standing at the dock and the hire floatation suits were NOT waterproof!
The bigger seas were daunting, but the guides know what they're about, so I didn't have any safety concerns, but it was a very uncomfortable journey.
However, when we finally arrived, I realised Rich and Tat had seen their arses royally pounded by sitting on the box seat at the stern and Rich was totally soaked, so I counted my blessings!
We finally got there and you could see the impressive Storskalltaren reef rising from the depths on the 3D plotter, a fish heaven!
To start with we fished the 100-150m depths off the reef, where THAT record breaking cod had been caught by a boat from Sandland not very long before.
The order of this might not be quite right so the guys can correct me if not, but I got the ball rolling with a half decent 8-10lb coalie...
That was soon totally eclipsed by Rich landing a 19lb specimen that went like a train on light gear.
Rich also had a nice cod in the 35lb range and followed it up by a 50 pound beast that had a huge head, but was clearly spawned out and would have easily gone 60lb-plus if not 70lb during breeding season.
The news from the other boat guided by Anders was less encouraging - Ollie and Jon were badly seasick, Jon was feeding the fishies and James had dropped two halibut.
What was going wrong over there?
It transpired James had brought a BANANA
on board!!! Oh dear. I suggested best nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure, but in any event the offending fruit was eventually thrown over the side and things improved.
James had a decent cod, Jon had a 145cm halibut...
And Jonny had a wolf fish, overcoming his urge to shriek by making friends with it...
Continues below....
Last edited:
. We’ll be seeing that flat Mat on the sale section soon
