So, I finally caught a salmo salar. It won't win any prizes, except for one of the smaller ones, but it's still a salar. The Gaula was a interesting river and I finally understand how all this stuff works over here. Over 2 days I saw about 12 salmon caught (including mine). Mine was the smallest but most fish were in the 5-9 lbs range. I saw maybe one go maybe 10-12 lbs. In the river you would see fish as large as 20 lbs jump. It's unreal to see these huge deep fish leap while on the move upstream. Of the 12 fish caught about 2/3rds were bonked/killed. It sucks to see such a beautiful fish killed, and that many of them as well. I know it's more the Scandinavian culture on this, but it's no different from the problems we have in the PacNW with the steelhead. Of the 12 fish, all but 2 came from the other side of the river that I couldn't reach. We probably had about 40 different anglers on both sides over the 2 days. This fish was caught around noon of the last day of fishing and I had 2 other solid takes that morning. Those were the only takes of the entire trip. I felt so good get tugs and be relieved that I was doing something right. I failed to hook on both even with one being a tug/tug/tug/tug kind of grab.
So for a rookie salmon fisherman I'll gladly take it. I know things were not as iconic to catch a big salar on the cane spey I built, but overall this has been an amazing trip. I'm trying to get all my gear clean and sorted for the journey to California for one last wedding this weekend and help my brother get moved into his new place in Trondheim.
Cheers, and huge thanks to all who helped put this together.
Shawn
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