I have just come back from a 9 day trip to the northernmost destination I've visited, being Skjervoy in Norway.

Skjervoy is in the Arctic Circle, and is best accessed (from London at least) by flying to Tromso (via Oslo) and then driving for around 4 hours to get to Skjervoy. The reason for this trip was to get out and try some Japanese style flutter jigs to fish for cod, halibut and other species that I'd heard were in abundance in this remote part of the world.

Fish in these parts are generally targeted with either soft plastics / shads or with very heavy pirks, so it would be interesting to see how these jigs and the light jigging kit would fare.

We were to be based out of the excellent Skjervoy Fiskecamp facility, which provides around a dozen cabins for rent - each with it's own boat which is moored a very short walk from the cabin. It is a self-drive operation, and we were very pleased to see that the boat was an almost brand new model of the Arvor 215, with plenty of modern electronics which would make finding fish easier in a place where we had no marks to start with.

Another thing that made this trip different to others that I'd done, was that it was in effect both a fishing trip and a couples holiday, because my mate Tom (from Perth) had come with his wife Rene, and I'd be bringing my fishing widow Caris, so we had 2 expert deckies to join us on the trip.

Safe to say the rental car was loaded to max capacity!

Wild moose sighting on the way down, and some pretty amazing scenery made the long drive enjoyable. The odd thing to note is the first 3 photos were taken around 2am. Given how far North Skjervoy is, you have 24 hour sunlight and given our trip spanned the summer solstice - it really was the same daylight level at 3pm as it was at 3am, and on some nights we were fishing from 11pm until 7am, as if it was the middle of the day. Could have made sleeping tough, had it not been for all the booze we brought ;-)

First day out and we were greeted by some pretty magic conditions. Our deckies were happy about that to say the least, as we had warned them to be prepared for strong winds!

After about an hour's steam into the fjord we got out to the first likely looking mark with some nice activity on the sounder, and it was time to drop jigs. We were fishing a mix of jigs with a range of tackle, but the first jig to get hit was Rene's (girls showing us how it's done!) she was using a Jigging Master Fallings 2012 jig on a Temple Reef Mytho rod, and got nailed on the first drift. It looked like a good fish so the rest of us wound up to let her fight, and up popped this awesome cod. Dinner was sorted, and Rene's first cod (and biggest ever fish) was in the cooler. Good start!

Now it was time for the rest of us to get into the action, with cod after cod coming over the side.

We were catching fish on a range of jigs, but the Fallings really seemed to be the standout for the trip - particularly in the pink & glow colouration with a squid assist attached.

A few other species began to fall to our lures too, including wolf fish (below), tusk, link and coalfish. But for days and days, the halibut that I wanted most of all had evaded us and we were beginning to lose hope we'd ever see one.

Each day was pretty much the same so I won't do a day by day report. We'd head out, jig up some cod, then try and target different waters for different species using every lure in the box, and the pics below span several days.

On some of the days, the conditions were nothing short of amazing. Complete glassoffs in some places, though this wasn't the case every day.

After days and days of trying though, I still hadn't found the halibut I'd been chasing. Norwegian halibut can get enormous (200kg+) and I was dying to get one of any size, particularly as I knew how delicious they were! Towards the end of the trip I decided it was time to give up my pride and drop a bait down for them in the shallow (15-40m) bays, which I was assured was a sure fire way to get one. This did produce 1 solid run when a huge halibut struck my bait as I was retrieving it, but the hooks didn't stick.

As often seems to be the case, it had all come down to the last day. The girls had called it quits, and Tom and I were bobbing around solo in a bay not too far from camp. We had 2 baits in the water, whilst I played around using a light (135gr) Fallings jig on my Mytho to catch some lighter fish to pass the time. You can imagine my surprise then when my jig got absolutely nailed by something that I knew straight away was not a cod.

The fight began in earnest and line started disappearing from the reel, but it was at this moment that we discovered that my line had become entangled in one of the other lines, which in turn was now snagged on the bottom! After much cursing and hasty slashing of line, we somehow managed to free my line, and the fight could continue.

When we did get it boatside we saw that we'd gotten our halibut. It was no monster by any stretch, but at least we found one (which after 30 hours or more targeting them was a relief!) and had some fillets for a black miso halibut recipe. Doesn't get much better than that.

Norway was an incredible place to visit, and I can't recommend the Skjervoy Fiskecamp highly enough if you want to get out there and give it a go. Balasz the manager there runs a very smooth operation, and made the whole trip a pleasure. Would definitely recommend it!

Until next time...

Tackle used:

Rods
-Temple Reef Mytho LJ510B
-Jigging Master Evolution Titanium 150
-Synit Mantis X35
-Smith AMJ52H

Reels
-Wiki Jigging 900H
-Jigging Master Power Spell PE2
-Shimano Ocea Jigger 4000 and 1500NR

Most successful jigs
-Jigging Master Fallings 2012
-Lamble Bait Haoli (various models)
-Smith Meijume

Terminal tackle all Shout, Owner or Sasame

More info on almost all products used is available at www.adventureangler.net

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