This was my first fishing season in Norway since 2005. I had been away working in Asia and starting a family. But was now back in Northern Norway and ready to start fishing as soon as the rotten spring ice left the lakes.

Only trouble was, that most of my tackle was gone. Most of it left at our house in Thailand. And I was more or less broke after moving the familly to Norway and getting us a roof over head and a car to fart about in, so if anyone in the family was getting any tackle it would be the kids and my wife. I did manage to find some cheap Okuma reels and rods for them.

In the tackle box
I still had my Shimano Beastmaster UL165 and Okuma Force FE15 to have a go at the lake trout with. Else there was my 30 year old Tjøstheim 600N, a 9′ rod for 10-50gram lures. Excellent rods, that are not made anymore. But you will still find them in use all over Norway. I had a good reel for that. A Shimano Super GT-RA 4000. And a spare reel. My old ABU Cardinal Black Max 5000. Else I had a good supply of spinners, flies, floaters and sinkers for lake fishing. So that’s were I started.

The Trout
Not to far from home is a nice little lake. It does not have very big fish. But there is plenty of it. Important when you bring a ten year old that never have seen a trout. His brother was also keen to fish. And while my wife is not all that enthusiastic about fishing, she loves to eat the result to the degree that she will tag along, and make everything ready to barbecue over an open fire, Thai style.

Anyway, this lake is ovepopulated with undersized Trout. So generally we keep everything we catch here. The first day we had about 20 trout between the four of us. Most of them on my ultralight Shimano Beastmaster UL165 rod. It can fish lures from 1-7 grams, and I use Blue Fox “Vibrax” size “O” – 3 gram silver spinners. Guarranteed to land you trout. And with ultralight equipment like this even small trout is fun.

The wife did also have a go, and caught several of these frying pan sized trout using my old Tjøstheim 600N rod and  Shimano Super GT-RA 4000 paired up with a floater and fly combo.The rod and reel was perhaps overkill on these fish, but that’s a fairly normal fishing style here.

Most people only have one or two rods, that is used for everything from Salmon fishing in the rivers with lures or worm and sinker, trough trout fishing with floaters and flies, to shore fishing for cod and saith along the fjords.

Shore fishing mania
So when a couple of friends, Robert and Torstein asked me to come shore fishing at Stornes in Toppsundet, a mark that earlier has yielded huige cod and saithe, wolf fish, and Halibut, the old Tjøstheim rod was what I grabbed.

I did not know then that for the rest of the summer, shore fishing would develop into mania. It was something I had not done much of is since I was a boy. For 20 years I have had an absolute passion for ultra light spinner fishing for trout. Not giving thought for what may lurk under the surface of our fjords. As it would happen, my mate Tortein brought a along a DAM surf rod. I was intrigued by the long rod. At 14′  feet it was almost twice the length of my Tjøstheim.

We got very little fish on this trip. But a few days later we returned. But again, no fish…until I got a totally new species for me on my Tjøsteheim rod, using a 28 gram Stingsild lure: A Toby!

It was promptly cut in half. I wanted to try bait fishing. Something I had never done in salt water. I took the treble hook off one of my stingsild lures, and treaded half a toby on, using the rest of the lure as sinker on a paternoster tackle. And five minutes later, I hauled in a 3 kilo (6,5 Lb) cod. A new passion was born.

New Rod and my first bait casting reel
The next day I was the owner of a 14,5 foot Ron Thompson Armageddon Surf rod. And was reading all I could about shore fishing, not to mention tackle. I could not afford to by a new reel for it. But pressed the ABU Cardinal Black Max 5 into service on the surf rod.
And while casting lengths was not that great, this sturdy reel did not let me down. And some more cod was the result. My friend Torstein came to the rescue however, and gifted me his 15 year old ABU Ambassadeur as he was getting a new reel for himself.

The old Ambassadeur 6500 CS Rocket was in near mint condition. It just need a new line, and some internal parts replaced that where worn down after 15 years of use  by Torstein and it was like new again.

The 6500 CS Rocket was a breeze to master. Despite not having any brakes apart from the mechanical one adjustment of the end caps. I did not know it was suposed to have brake blocks. Yet I had doubled my casting distance…well…when I put it on my old Tjøstheim rod, and casting my favourite lure for cod and saith…the Stingsilda lead lure.

Upgrading
But it was soon clear that I would need a second bait caster. Not because I could not use the Ambassadeur 6500 CS Rocket on my surf rod. But because I loved casting it so much that it was never on it.  Lets face it. Bait casting is a drag. You bait up, cast out and then…wait.

That’s too little going on for someone who has spent the last 20 years playing with spinners on ultralight tackle. So when I had some extra money coming in, I was in luck and found a good deal on a ABU Ambassadeur 7000i C3 and ABU Workhorse 2 salmon rod for lure weights 20-60 grams.

While I did not have much confidence in the rod. I looked on it as a free bee, it would prove top be a casting machine. Completely parking my old Tjølstheim rod. The plan was to mate it with the 6500 CS Rocket, while the 7000i C3 reel would go on the Ron Thompson Armaddeon Surf rod.

Mackerel here?
The season wore on. But the big fish was not to be seen. But I did get a few surprises. I had never seen a mackerel up here, until I got 9 of them on a single trip. All in the 1 kilo (2 lb) class. All caught on the ABU Workhorse 2 rod. I was happy. Should be good bait for the surf rod. However I did not reckon with my wife…

She is from Thailand. And consider just about everything I use for bait, a delicacy. So before I even had the chance to use my mackerel for bait, she had eaten it all!

Well, she did make an amazing fish soup out of it, that even my grandmother approved of. So for the rest of teh season, I used king prawns from the supermarket as bait. But most of the time it was tiny 1 kilo (2 lb) codling that took the bait.

Autumn
This continued into the autumn season. The biggies where nowhere to be seen. On the lures I must have taken up hundreds of baby saith and the surf rod continued to yield little but tiny codling.

Then in September, at Stangnes. A land fill into the sea, I got one decent sized pollack and 5 minutes later a nice coal fish. That was it really…until one cold Saturday in October, the bait alarm on my reel screamed, and the Ron Thompson Rod bent over…only to explode into pieces. What I had on I will never now.

The rod was replaced a week later by a Fenwick Seahawk surf rod. But by now the oomph had gone out of me. There was a few more trips yielding yet more baby codling. And by mid November…have not had a line in since then. Partly because by now it’s deep cold up here way north opf the arctic circle, and part because I have no inspiration for fishing it would seem.

What will 2010 bring?
That is until now, as my wife gifted me with this for x-mas. It’s an ABU Garcia Ambassadeur REVO S. I promise a comprehensive review as I have not found much about this reel online. Reviewers seem to concentrate on it’s more shiny siblings, the REVO STX and SX.

I just need a good sea-trout rod in the 5-20 gram range to marry it with, and in march/ april I’ll be off allong the sandy beaches wading in the freezing arctic waters for sea-trout. That should be fun.

And then my fishing buddy and old friend Torstein has announced that he is in the market for a boat in the new year. So I will need a proper deep sea rod and reel as well. 2010 season here I come!