Gaelforce Destination 6pc rods succeed at River Orkla Opening June 2015

The weather continued in the same vein for the next three days, cold wet and windy, one of the Swedish lads with us described it to me as a typical Sor Trondelag summers day. I understood where he was coming from, it was similar to Scotland in late April four seasons in on day.The pools that we fished were still a bit on the high side for good fly fishing, but were slowly beginning to look very fishy as each day passed, pools like Vella,Ovre Vella, Bestfarholen and Sagholen looked like magnificent fly pools and I would loved to have fished them in a lower water. All too soon our three days at Vella Rikstad were over, we were moving further downstream to our new venue for the remainder of the week. I must say I was very impressed with the fishings at Vella Rikstad, the farmers attitude to his guests, the warm friendly hospitality shown to us during our stay, its a great pleasure to see the farmer taking good care of the banks and providing first class facilities for his paying guests, thank you Steinar I hope to return someday soon. Reports from the river since opening were showing reasonable catches spread throughout the system which was very encouraging as the rain had subsided, hopefully the air and water temperatures would rise a little as well, so we traveled down the valley, downstream of the Bjorset dam and the Svorkmo power outlet to Fahnrem and met up with Sverre Hveding, Oysteins brother. A lovely meal was had in the Vertshuset resturaunt with some reminiscing of fishing trips past and good laughs were had. Sverre had earlier just lost a big fish lower downstream, just a few kilometers above the tide using the Destination 13ft 9in 6pc rod and was very excited telling us blow by blow of the strength and the fight this big fish had just given him, he looked pretty excited,as were we on hearing this.The next day we would all be fishing together and looked forward to this with trepidation as tide fresh fish were being taken from this part of the river,the excitement was building as the temperature on the thermometer rose to 10 degrees with the water now up to 8 degrees.The morning was damp with drizzling rain, the river level hovered at 60cm3 perfect conditions for traveling fish off the tide, fishing the deeper side of the pool with shorter casting and no wading I opted for the Destination 13ft 9in 6pc 8/9# rod,matched to the 9/10# Multi Tip line with the sink 8 tip and a very large Blue Norseman fly. I had not long to wait, as I was day dreaming the rain got more persistant, I had just made a cast mended the line when the rod was nearly pulled out of my hand, a solid take then the rush of a lively fish making a 150 metre dash without breaking the surface across and downstream.Deep fast water between me and the fish gave it the upper hand, but a good rocky bank allowed me to slowly walk downstream following the fish keeping directly opposite with good pressure, the power of the Norwegian Salmon never cease to amaze me, with a combination of the powerful flows of the river and deep fish, the rod performed admirably with a steady pressure managed to beach the fish lower down the pool on the only piece of shingle bank available. This fish when guided to the bank was a great surprise, not the big early Storlax the Orkla is famous for, but a memorable fish indeed at 87cm and straight off the tide it’s one I will never forget, the hooks removed it swam off strongly to continue its upstream journey.I just sat back relaxed in the shelter looking at the morning mist and distant low cloud, marvelling at the wonderful Salmon rising on each tide in this majestic river.