sandland brygge 2019
this year we had a break from our annual trip to Ireland and instead we headed north to sandland brygge northern Norway. I know several people who have visited this place and all recommended it. We had our first fishing trip to Norway way back in 2009 and so the 10yr anniversary was a good enough excuse to head back. Sandland is a little remote to be honest so it was handy to have helpful advise from stina who runs it along with a lot of advise from my good friend Barry who has been there many times. We just missed Barry, Charlie and Kenny by a week but Charlie was king enough to give me some charts and a bit of info before we left. Barry had also told me his friends john, tony and their group from up north would be there at the same as us so they would point us in the right direction. We also had another chart from another friend John rawle who gave us some pointers too.
fully armed with information and loaded with tackle we were on the first flight from heathrow in the morning. This meant an early start and I must admit with 2 flights, a 2 hour bus journey and a ferry I was a little apprehensive. We boarded to first flight and by sheer chance Barry’s friend Tony and John sat next to my brother! They told us they were taking the same route as us so all we had to do was follow them. This came in handy after the second flight when we arrived at alta as they guided us to the supermarket and onto the bus. We got the public bus to the ferry and it was smashing, there was plenty of room for our luggage underneath and it was warm, dry and comfortable inside with wifi. The ferry was also nice although most of the ferry ride was in darkness. Stina, steinar and Ads met us at the ferry to collect us and dropped us at our apartment. This all went very smoothly despite it being a miserable rainy day.
day 1 of fishing and after being introduced to our boat and signing our lives away we were off. There was plenty of breeze about so we were hiding from the weather a bit. The main aim for this trip was to catch a halibut. Last time we went to skervoy in the middle of summer. the weather was great but between the time of year, the location and our inexperience we didn’t manage a halibut and only a few came out in the entire camp. This camp has a good reputation for numbers of halibut so hopes were high. We weren’t disappointed when within the first hour, maybe even the first half hour I had my first halibut. A modest fish around 12-13lbs but a great start none the less. to be honest with a blustery wind and prolonged heavy rain showers conditions were challenging. I must admit I wished I could have anchored as it may have made life easier and there were several times later in the week when it would have been better to anchor but we couldn’t and we stuck it out and found a couple of cod, plenty of small coalies, a jumbo mackerel and a torsk for the day.
