Starting from the 1st of May 2010, you will need a boating licence to operate a boat exceeding 8 meters in length and /or the engine is 25Hp or more in Norwegian waters. However the rule does not apply if you were born prior to the 1st of January 1980.

If you have a foreign boating licence this will be valid, provided it has information in English. I addition you need a print of the syllabus for comparizon with the Norwegian standards for the boating licence.

The punishment for operation a boat without the above mentioned licence carries an on the spot fine of 5000 NOK, and the loss of the right to obtain a boating licence for one year.

In the deeps of the fjords of Lyngen, Norway, a fjord well known among fishing enthusiasts from all over Europe for it’s huge cod and halibut, a different kind of monster lurk beneath the blue waves. More and more fishermen are reporting that they are catching codthat can’t be described otherwise than that they are freaks.

The monsters are recognized by their deformed mouths, bent neck and sometimes abnormal growth on the head. Tests by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research shows that the monster cod may be a result of intensive fish farming methods.And when the first pictures of the deformed fish arrived…

From January 1st, 2010 the regulations regarding minimum sizes for salt water fish will apply to sports and tourist fishing in Norway. All sport fishers should therefore study the minimum size that apply in good time before the next fishing trip. The regulations can be found bellow.

Mackerel that is caught with hooks or nets and saithe for your own consumption or for use as bait is exempted from the regulation of minimum size. This will among other things mean that children’s sport fishing from or near the shore will not be hindered by the new regulations.

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.

The coastal cod have been in decline since 1994. Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs have therefor introduced measures to protect coastal cod. For the the 2010 season this means that last years regulations will be carried on trough 2010.

It’s all well and good. But what the regulations do not mention with a word, is the catastrophic situation for coastal fish that the Norwegian fish farm industry have created in our fjords. The norwegian salmon farms have at any given time 350 million individual salmon in it’s farms.

I will be blunt. In a few years Norwegian Atlantic salmon will be a thing of the past. The reason is simply that we produce far more farmed salmon than the Eco-systems in our fjords can hold. The result is that farmed salmon is spreading paracites like salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) to both salmon and trout in such numbers that the smolt never reaches the open sea, and thus never returns to spawn.

The result are clear. This years salmon season has been branded a catastrophe in the Norwegian sport fishing community. For the 2010 season salmon rivers in entire counties will probably be closed next year as the number of fish ready to spawn in some rivers are down to a hand full.

What some visitors to Norway may have noticed is the lack of signs with texts like “Keep out!” or “No trespassing”. The reason is that for most places such signs would be illegal.

Yup, you do not need to clean your glasses, you read it right. In Norway, a landowner has no right to keep people off his land. Of course there are som rules governing this. And you may not roam around in someones garden, or trample across a cultivated field. But other than that, you are more or less free to go where you please.

The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal affairs have finally decided to get their collective finger out of where the sun does not shine, and get rid of the king crabs.

In a press release issued today, they have set aside NOK 5 million, towards exterminating the kin crab. The funds will be spent on hiring fishing vessels that will conduct targeted fishing for king crab west of 26° east (North Cape).

The fishing vessels will primarily target king crabs of little commercial value, and thus not prioritized by commercial vessels that partake in the free fishing for king crab. The directorate of fisheries will administrate the funds.

Thousands of Salmon has escaped from a SinkaBerg-Hansen AS owned fish farm in Vikna and Nærøy municipality in Nord Trøndelag. The holding pen contained roughly 130 000 farmed salmon. It is unclear how many has escaped. But estimates in media reports vary between 13000 and 130 000.

In an attempt to stop as many escaped farm salmon to reach the nearby rivers, including the famous Namsen salmon river, the governor of Nord Trøndelag has opened up Vikna and Nærøy municipality for free fishing, including the use of nets. “Everybody should go out and fish” is the advice from the governors office.

Had a nice session with my new rod and reel yesterday afternoon. The tide was up around 6pm, so I hit my mark around 3pm, as around here, fishing is best the last 2 hours before high tide, and the first hour after. Rigged up my surf rod first with the new 7000iC3 reel with a pulley tackle using boiled prawns as bait. I simply tie them on using normal office type eleastic bands…works great. Anyway chucked out but was not happy with the distance. [...]