Åelva 🇳🇴

The river Åelva is Norway’s famous “Secret River”. Running through pristine wilderness, it is home to incredible wildlife – and most importantly – abundant runs of large Atlantic Salmon.

Nature has created a dramatic river with fast flowing gorges and waterfalls. Thanks to these obstacles the Åelva salmon have evolved to be large and powerful. Imagine a place where spying over rocks into the pool below, and seeing salmon of up to 40lbs, is a weekly occurrence. The tall waterfalls also mean that the prolific runs are concentrated for much of the season.

One section of the Åelva, below the prolific Bjalfossen stretch, is reputedly the most salmon- dense stretch of river in all of Europe. The sea trout grow big here too: in 2017 a 25lb sea run trout was caught. This is truly a world class fishery.

The pools vary immensely with stretches where anglers are able to sight fish for Atlantic salmon using small double handed and single handed rods. Fishing dry flies upstream is a wonderful way to fish these pools and provides the chance to watch the salmon come up and engulf a bomber drifting down the river. Other parts of the river are a little more open with streamy runs and larger pools where spey casting a small double handed rod will cover all of those important lies.

Gear Used:

Nerijus Rupciauskas – Cross ST 7110, Opti Speedrunner reel, SDS Switch #7, Fly rods and reels T-shirt

Andreas – Cross ST 7122, Opti Strike reel, GDC #7 float, Gielas technical shirt, TPU 23L backpack, Cross S1 796, Opti runner reel, Opti Drift line