My fishing buddy, Torstein purchased a nut shell of a boat back in January. Since then we’ve either had temperatures approaching minus 20 degrees, blizzards or neither of us have had time off to enjoy it. Until finally this Saturday we both had time off, and with the sun shining from blue skies and not a breath of wind, it was time to launch the boat and get out there.

The boat is an open 16″ thing with a 25hp Mercury at the stern, and it being brand new, we took it easy out to the mark. The outside of Arnøya, a small island off Harstad. The mark is known to yield red fish, saithe and cod.

My rod of the day…well, it is my only boat rod, was an el-cheapo Ron Thompson Steelstick 30lb rod mated to the very same Ambassadeur 7000i C3 that I purchased to go with my surf rod last summer. I figured if a Swede could haul up a 200+ kg halibut on a reel like that, it would be good enough for a few dinner sized cod.

Fishing buddy Torstein and captain of our mighty vessel on the other hand figures that using a fishing rod from a boat is something only Swedes, German tourists and cafe latte drinking souterners do, so he opted for the good old hand line on a fishing wheel.

The terminal tackle for both of us was the good old silver Norway pirks with a few gummimakk up the line. My Norway pirk was however a 400 gram from Ron Thompson, while Torstein was using the original 750 gram pirk from Sølvkroken.

Arriving at the mark we did not hesitate to chuck in our tackle. And after 5 minutes there was the familiar steady tug of a cod. Now there was only the matter of pumping the fish to the surface. The cheap rod did a good job at it. An the reel performed quite well. And soon we were able to lift in a 7-10lb cod. It was also the first fish of the boat, my first of the year, and the best fish I have taken since I took up fishing again last summer. To bad it was the only cod we got on this trip.

The next fish was the captains, a baby Cusk. And soon there after it was my turn to haul aboard. That was my very first of that species so right then size did not matter. And when after 5 more minutes I hauled in a dinner sized member of that familly, I was quite happy.

But now there was no more bites. So we moved further out, and we were soon into cusk again. Then I had a nice coalfish, and a pollach. While Torstein hauled in a couple more baby Cusk. But by now we could see snow clouds approaching, so we headed for shore. We had enough for dinner anyway.