READER STORY
Sea Angler reader Andy Walker recounts the story of victory in battle with a fish of a lifetime in Norway’s rich Arctic Circle waters
Fifteen years is a long time to wait to go fishing. That’s how long it had taken me to return to Norway. Life had been a bit busy and somehow a return trip kept being put off until late October 2023 when my friend Pete and I made the long journey back to in search of a halibut.
I had fished in the fjords north of Tromso on my last visit, but we had failed to catch any halibut. On this trip to the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, that was our number one target species.
After a few days of mixed fishing, we woke to find the world bejewelled with a layer of early season snow that had fallen overnight. As we made the 90-minute drive to the mark, the rising sun lit up the snow and gave the day an even more magical feel. With the mark coming into distant view, Zac, our guide, put the lucky halibut song on the van’s stereo and with AC/ DC’s Thunder Struck blasting out it set the scene for a very special day indeed!
THE WAITING GAME
Zac had said that today’s mark was the best chance of a decent fish. Afew halibut had already been caught over the last few days, but only to 25lb. We were told to prepare for eight hours of feck all followed by 10 minutes of chaos: the bites were going to be few and far between, but on this spot a bite generally meant a decent fish.
Just after lunch one of the rods cranked over and Ray was into a decent fish. He played it for half an hour of so with multiple runs ripping line off the reel. Sadly, when Ray finally had it in close the fish took the line into the rocks and the line snapped. We were all gutted for him but vowed to keep on fishing.
I was fishing using herring on an up-and-over Pennell rig with a 6/0 Cox &Rawle Chinu hooks and an 8/0 Varivas Big Mouth Extra. Sure enough, soon after it was my turn for a bite. The rod went over with a good run, but as I leant into the fish, the bend in my new Century Tip Tornado Graphex Sport told me that this was nowhere near the size of the fish Ray had just lost. We were all expecting to see a fish of around 15lb, but as it came near the shallower water for the first time it must have suddenly realised that it was hooked. The fish tore off, catching me quite by surprise as it must have been swimming in with the gear all this time. It stripped so much line on its first run that I was worried about being spooled straight away. I managed to slow the run and turn its head and slowly get some line back. This went on for some time with me getting the fish halfway in for it to simply tear all the line back off the reel with run after run.
After a dozen or so of these runs
