Gig And Salmon In Beautiful Beiarn

We came to Beiarn a little bit to late since Tapani was struggeling to get his lenses in his eyes for two hours. He is very slow when it comes to that. The first day we made a gig in a nice wooden house and we had a good time! The two guest artists, Paulo Vinaccia and Ernst Wiggo played great and they turned out to be two very nice guys.  Our audience where really nice, lots of people and only nice vibes.

Beiarn is a cool place, that is for sure. Jazz concerts are heard every night and day, and there are salmon fishers everywhere. This week they have a jazz camp here, a camp where young musicians meet, make music and hang out. Lots of top musicians work as instructors during this week, and that makes the mood really creative. Since we all, fishermen and jazz musicians, hang out in the same area, everyone gets to know each other pretty well. We’re having loads of fun here!

We have now been in Beiarn in Norway for a couple of days. The sun has been frying on our backs all the time, and some of us turned red. People here are very friendly and everything has been absolutely perfect, everything except one small detail: the salmon is playing tricks on our minds. Despite the great guides we had, Simon and Bört, we are having a hard time out there in the fast running river.

Salmon fishing is obviously something else. Some people are returning to a certain river year after year without catching anything. They stand out there in the river casting for hours without a single fish. Then they sleep and do the same thing the next day. In the end of the week they are totally broken down. Then they go home and slowly they will recover from the hard trip, I guess it takes about 6 months. One year later they will go back to the same place, wade out in the river and start to cast again. Some times they of course catch the monster. At the right time the river is boiling of salmon and it is then possible to catch plenty of beautiful fish. The thing is that you have to be there at the right time at the right place.

Rumors and whispering voices are being heard everywhere in Beiarn. People, both old and young ones, are talking – “He caught a 7 kg yesterday”, “today red is the best color”, “fish the fly fast”, fish the fly slow” and so on. There is some kind of magic atmosphere that is very fascinating and at the same time impossible to understand. When we came here we felt quite confident about how to get the big salmon. Now we are not as fresh. Black bags are hanging under our eyes, the skin is burned and our bodies feel like they has been smashed with a frozen salmon for three days. After 28 hours of fanatic fishing time we are now taking a short break in order to manage to stay awake and fish the whole night through. Yesterday we caught two seatrout and had a couple of really heavy takes.

Now we are going down to the river again and we are more optimistic now, because we recently learned the secret trick: it´s only about the haill!