The Flyfish Journal - The Flyfish Journal 15.3
AN OBSESSION WITH THE ILLOGICAL
Words, Photos and Captions: Joakim Andreassen 2024-04-16 08:31:14
Andreas Lium searches a lake at 2,400 feet of elevation in Finnmark, Norway. Early in August, the midnight sun ends in the north. This means late evenings characterized by twilight and fog after a rain shower. We didn’t see a single rise in a whole week and had zero takes—not exactly balm for the soul facing winter.
CALL ME ISHMAEL
When I traveled to the northern parts of Norway as a flyfisher for the first time in 2003, my main objective was matching the hatch for trout. Everything I had read in my early teens about prominent specimens in what was supposed to be an El Dorado of birch forests, rivers and lakes culminated in a euphoria I had never known before. For a young man with his life ahead of him, it was unlike anything I had heretofore experienced. On the plane to Alta, I was ecstatic. The dream of trophy trout overshadowed everything else. And even if the first trip yielded little results, Finnmark and Troms—the northernmost counties in Norway—became a geographical obsession for me.
Little did I know that lakes in the lowland birch forests would become peripheral. Or that Finnmark, which I thought was mainly an endless expanse of plains, had countless higher mountain plateaus with thousands of both large and small bodies of water. Nor did I have any idea as I sat on that plane in 2003 that my mania would divert from trout to another species. It was impossible to predict that my very existence as an angler would revolve around the idea of catching huge Arctic char, the crown jewel of still water in Norway, a kind of white whale of the mountains.
IF THE WORD “NATIVE” WERE A FISH
Arctic char were probably the first freshwater fish to migrate up Norwegian glacial rivers after the most recent ice age. They are only found in the northernmost part of the Northern Hemisphere: Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Svalbard archipelago, Scandinavia and Russia. Called røye for its red belly in Norwegian, the fish thrives in cold water, which explains its distribution. Arctic char mainly spawn in still water but, in some cases, also in slow-moving rivers. Like trout, the species includes seagoing versions. This is a fish that exclusively returns to the river where it was hatched, just like its larger distant relative, the Atlantic salmon.
The strength of an adult char (especially an anadromous one) is surprising when you are used to other species in the same genus, such as lake or brook trout. They are in a completely different league, and anyone who claims otherwise simply hasn’t hooked one.
FOREVER NOT IN CHARGE
My friend Sondre Beck Sletten once mentioned that perhaps the reason Arctic char had always stirred profound emotions within him was their unpredictability and complexity. They adhere to no strict rules, unlike the trout. He emphasized that there could never be a definitive “world’s best char fisherman.” “When you believe you’ve improved as a char fisherman, you find yourself reopening the fly box once more, just to confirm how little you truly know,” he wrote in Oppstrøms, a Norwegian flyfishing magazine, attempting to elucidate ways to become a better char angler.
And he has a point. There is a sense of relief in knowing that no one can truly claim to possess a definitive answer to the question of Scandinavian char. At the same time, this fish touches upon something more profound that I’ve long felt a need to define in some way, even if just for myself. The fact that I’m writing about it now should not be taken as proof that I’ve figured that out.
As I get older, the attraction has gone from being a slightly unhealthy flyfishing fascination to something completely different, something that borders on madness and that I am unsure is actually appropriate to put on paper, considering the possibility of my loved ones reading this and thinking that I am actually crazy.
SO LITTLE TIME, SO MUCH DESPERATION
Living north of the Arctic Circle guarantees about eight months of winter, with no spring at all, but instead an abrupt and brutal transition to a short and intense summer that lasts for about three months. Then there’s a wet, cold autumn before winter is back. At an altitude of around 2,300-3,300 feet—which is the zone that attracts me the most—the ice may disappear late in June, if you are lucky. Early to mid-July is more realistic. So, when we talk about char fishing, we are talking about a tiny window with ice-free water, enough heat for insects to hatch and weather that is (maybe, hopefully) cooperative.
You can choose the lowlands and trout, and the success rate is much higher. Catching a trout of 4 or 5 pounds in a mountain birch forest in Finnmark in July is within reach, even with marginal time at your disposal and poor conditions. With Arctic char, on the other hand, you’re often dealt the worst cards you can imagine. It doesn’t eat, rise or move in any normal way. Compared to trout, the char simply does not behave logically—and that is if it shows up at all. You can almost guarantee it will choose not to rise when everything looks to be in place for it to do so.
THERE IS NO CURE
In the transition to Arctic char specialist, you quickly lose faith in your own skills before realizing it has nothing to do with said skills and everything to do with the char’s lack of logic. You regain faith in your skills and lose faith in the result.
I have a friend who cannot bear dealing with char in the summer because nothing makes sense compared to ice fishing for the same species. I have no experience with ice fishing, so I can neither confirm nor deny his conclusion. But when this friend, who has far-above-average fishing patience, doesn’t even bother to fish for char in the summer, it says a lot. And if you’ll allow me to exaggerate a little (and I really mean a little), char fishing is so unpredictable that there are likely only two to three days each year when it’s straightforward and the fish actually eats everything, no matter what you serve it.
This minute hope of hitting a small window has made me almost manic in my approach to summertime. When there’s a forecast of calm weather somewhere I can’t be, I grapple with a sense of deficiency or loss for which my psychologist partner probably has a clinical term. Life feels completely meaningless. Until I go for a run. Or think about the people who love me. Or remember that my health is good, and that I have a kind girlfriend and a lovely son. But for a moment there, I feel stuck.
The fact that I cannot spend all my time in the areas I know house huge char is discomfiting. This is an obsession with the illogical. Undoubtedly unhealthy. Guaranteed for life. My condolences in advance to my loved ones.
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