If you want the best fishing, you need to make the effort to get there. The tiny island of Rost lies above the Artic circle, 100kms off the coast of the Norwegian port of Bodo. By the time we got there it had been a long old day (flights, ferry etc.), and the film crew decided to go to bed, but Rob Yorke, Cato Bekkevold and I just had to go and have a quick go at the boat fishing with our guide Kristian Keskitalo. Twenty four hour summer daylight means stacks of fishing time, and during a quick session before rolling into bed sometime in the early hours, we basically had cod and coalfish sport the like of which I had only previously dreamed of. Never slept a wink that night, hoping the next day would be as good when the filming started
Another huge cod comes up through thirty metres of icy cold water, the kind I do not want to fall into !! Cato stands by as Rob Yorke fights the fish on light, balanced tackle. Small, fast open boats are perfect for accessing the fishing grounds, usually no more than twenty minutes steaming from base camp : this is the kind of boat fishing that seriously turns me on.
Big cod after big cod came to our Giant Storm Jigging Shads, and virtually all of them were successfully returned by tipping them headfirst over the side. To see fish like this rushing back down to the bottom is fantastic. A couple of happy guys, but Cato on the left sees this as perfectly normal cod sport !!! (if only we had fish like this in such prolific numbers).
A triumphant Rob Yorke with nearly 40lbs of prime Norwegian cod, nailed successfully in front of the cameras for the programme we were making. Neither Rob or I had ever had seriously big cod before, but here we were living a dream. The island of Rost is something else.
Dont get me wrong, big cod are impressive fish, but a big part of the reason we came to fish and film at Rost was because of its reputation for serious numbers of monster coalfish, again something I had never caught to any real size before. Cato had said this was THE place to go to for these fish and with Kristians help we managed to catch a few monsters on camera, including this 35lb bertha for Rob. Coalies well over 40lbs are caught every season off Rost, indeed during summer the average size seems to be around the 20lb mark !!! Mind-blowing fishing, these things really scrap hard.
These big coalfish tend to feed at around twenty five metres down and then gradually move up as the water warms up a bit during summer. At times they can be caught virtually underneath the boat, indeed I was nailed hard a few times as I began dropping my Storm Shad down. The power of a big coalfish far outstrips that of a pollack, for they have huge stamina and are not affected so much by the change in depth; a mighty fish and a dream fulfilled.
Kristian has such a good set-up for boat fishing around Rost, with plenty of fast self-drive boats fully equipped for safe and speedy fishing. He will happily guide you on his boat while you get a feel for the area and then you can head off on your own. I have a feeling that Rost is going to start seeing an influx of UK anglers sometime very soon
Kristian himself with another prime cod, around the 40lb mark. I remain staggered that such awesome levels of cold water fishing lies so close to the UK, and yet I also find it depressing that over here we simply are never going to see substantial numbers of fish like this again. As I said, you want the best, you have to travel to find it.
Whilst Rob and I were on one boat fishing for the camera, we had a second camera on another boat being skippered by Cato, and when that second camera was not needed, of course he got in on the fishing action himself. This guy can catch fish !!
Kristian has fantastic, balanced fishing tackle on his boat, but Rob and I decided that once we had nailed a few big fish, we were going to have a blast fun and use nothing more than heavy spinning rods, indeed exactly the same set-ups as I would use for shore pollack fishing at home (the awesome 4-piece Greys Missionary 9 30-100g spinning rod, perfect for shore pollack and wrasse, plus obviously monster coalfish and cod !!). Forget all this rubbish we used to read about having to fish with over-gunned 50lb class outfits back home when the winter coalfish turned up on the wrecks. Rob and I nailed coalfish to 35lbs on spinning rods, fixed spool reels and 30lb braid !! Granted, the fish got the upper hand initially, but push that rod to its limit and you soon gain the upper hand : some of the best fishing fun I have had in ages. Light but sensible tackle is the way forward for me.
We only got to hear about Rost due to a fantastic fishing contact of mine over in Norway : without the help of Cato Bekkevold we simply could not have made this particular TV programme and I remain eternally grateful to him for all his kind help. It so happens that Cato is a hugely talented drummer and plays for one of my favourite bands, (and one of Norway's finest metal groups) the mighty Enslaved (www.enslaved.no). In my mind there is no better mix than extreme metal and a spot of fishing !! Rock on... Cato, you are a gentleman, thank you. For those of you who do not know, Norway is not only a place to catch giant cod and coalfish, it is also the "spiritual" home of some of the world's finest music, black metal.
The guide who helped us out with the fishing around Rost is the hugely talented Kristian Keskitalo of Wild Water Fishing : during winter he guides for big Baltic salmon in his native Sweden, and then bases himself in Rost during the "warmer" summer months. You owe it to yourself to fish with this guy, he is a great person and a fantastic guide. The set-up he has at Rost is first-class and he could not do more to make your stay a truly memorable one.
Anglers' World Holidays are now putting together cost-effective packages for the UK angler to head up to Rost and fish with Kristian. Speak to the guys about going there, I can not think of a better company to deal with for making this outstanding fishing available to us.
