Gone fishing

Tag : Balls Of Steel



The captain wore a confidence-inspiring salty seadog beard and theAtlantic-going vessel "Trollfjorder" was equipped with the verylatest fish detection devices. So when we dropped anchor five milesoffshore from Svolvaer, slap-bang in the middle of a shoal of"Gaudus Morrhua" nearly a mile long and 50m thick, expectations onthe boat were understandably on the high side.

Thirty-thousand tons of cod ("skrei") are caught every year betweenJanuary and April in the northerly latitudes at the tip of Norway's1 100 miles of coastline. One female cod produces 3-million eggs ayear during spawning season.

Such facts, coupled with having European cod-catching champion ArneAvestad and Torril Krane at your side, and you really have to fancyyour chances of a big one.

The unofficial world cod-fishing championships (held from March28-29) is the culmination of the Lofoten Islands' annual CodFestival, when the 25 000 inhabitants get together to toast cod inan ancient "Day of Booze" (traditionally March 25) and throwthanksgiving parties for their favourite great barbel-facedbottomfeeder. Cod and its derivatives have formed the staple diet,as well as the basis of prosperity and conversation for the Lofotenislanders for centuries. The sagas mention a fishing season.

In the 1940s, 30 000 boats came to "row" the Lofotofisket. Now thenumber is less than 2 000 and despite quotas being enforced in thefishing grounds on the cod's migratory route to and from theBerents Sea, the number is not likely to get any bigger.

The winner of the championship I took part in it with suchconspicuous ineptitude was won by Stigg Nilsson from Harstad on theNorwegian mainland. He hooked into a 32lb cod while fast asleep.

Forty pounders have been caught commercially. The largest cod evercaught was caught off the east coast of the US. It measured sixfeet and weighed in at 211lb.

My pollock weighed in at a paltry 3lb. It did not put me incontention for either the coveted steel cormorant trophy or therunners-up prize of a spanking new state-of-the-art serrated codgutting knife. It did, however, bring a lot of derision my way.

"There is a certain amount of skill in cod fishing," Nilsson toldme afterwards at the Cod Gala Banquet and Ball. We talked inbetween mouthfuls of cod cheek trifle. Everything on the menu wascod. Even the cigars smelt like they were made out of roe.

I asked the champion for his secret, barely able to hide my envy."You just throw the line and hope a lazy cod comes along and yawnsat the right time!"

The caberet at the Cod Ball was provided by Mareno Storeide and hisSinging Cod Chefs. They sing about nothing else but cod, with codcovers of classics like Great Cod Balls of Fire and Never SayTartare. Mareno has spent the last 10 years unsuccessfully tryingto come up with a rhyme for taramalasata.

Over dinner and on the dance floor, the locals tried to console me.Even a half-asleep cod, the islanders assured me, putting theirhands around my shoulders to convey sympathy, assess my muscularityand to keep balance, can put up quite a fight.

Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't not catch one. Cod are asstrong as marlin.

An amateur can have his arms wrenched out of their sockets by areally big cod and, if I had hooked into a really big one, my armswould be waterskiing around the North Sea for months, they told mewith serious faces. When about 20 Norwegians who have all justeaten their own bodyweight in cod laugh hysterically at the sametime in your direction, it is hard to remain self-conscious forvery long. It is easier to join in with the convulsions.

You need at least three days to see the island and all its3-billion- year-old rock formations, deep inland lakes anddelightful fishing villages like Henningvaer and the Unesco site ofNusjford.

The Northern Lights, Svolvaer's one and only landmark, "TheMountain Goat peak" and the "Moskens" current (Poe and Verne'smaelstrom ) should also be on the agenda. Hell is worth a detour.It is a tiny village.

The cheapest accommodation is in clapper board fishermen's hutscalled "rorbruer".

Borg boasts the longest Viking banquet hall so far unearthed inScandinavia. The main bird colony in the Lofotens is on Vedoya.

Most locals are only too happy and bored to show you around. Thetown of A ( pronounced Aw, but which should be called Z because italso the last letter in the Norwegian alphabet) has a cod museumand Norway's oldest cod liver oil factory.

The flight to the Lofotens is with the unsung Braathens S.A.F.E. toOslo and then the length of Norway up on to Trondheim and Bodu fromwhere you can catch a short air hop (20 minutes), the coastalsteamer (five hours depending on how much cod has to be loaded andunloaded) or the catamaran (three hours). Catch the catamaran ifyou can. If you don't, it's like going to the Lofotens and notcatching a cod. It's rubbing salt into an open wound.

Cod fishing is one of the oldest sports. Out in the open North Sea,you find yourself doing what people have been doing in this part ofthe world for centuries. It is a trip back in town. Wrapped up inyour oilskins and being rocked biliously from port to starboard,you start wondering when the horizon will stop moving.