Raw...

Here is the raw cut from the halibut fight. We will try to cut a movie from all scenes during the trip but it will be a long while before it's finished. No music, nothing.

Enjoy.

150cm halibut fight at Vaeroy 2011-04-15 from Marcus Viderberg on Vimeo.

This is the Uncut video of my halibut fight on the trip to Vaeroy 2011-04-15. The rod is a Custom built antacid wrapped Synit Deepshot 350 made by CJ (Synit) and the reel is a Jigging Master PE5. It's taken outside the southern tip of the Norwegian Island Vaeroy located near Lofoten. The bait is a River2Sea Sea Rock 500g and the fish was caught on 40 meters of depth. It was measured to 150cm on land.

Third time is the charm

As the title says.. Third time is the charm, atleast for me.

After loosing one big halibut every trip, before, due to inexperience and bad gear. This time I was prepared, I took it calm and it went good all the way. It wasn't a huge halibut but still decent enough to be very happy!

Our weather recently has been far from optimal with winds up to 17 m/s but we still kept fishing. We had heavy rain and hail coming in heavy bursts. Today we drifted far to fast to use soft baits so I changed to a heavy metal jig on 500g and rigged it with one assist hook and one owner single hook so i could keep bottom contact and work the jig from bottom and up.

 I fished from the bottom and far up and about 15 meters from the surface when I felt something, I slowed down and waited a second or so, then made one last jig and I felt it right away. It was ON!.

 The fight lasted about 12-15 minutes long and we got most of it on film but it will be a while before we got anything edited and done, I might put up a link to the raw material.

The Synit Deepshot 350 Strumpan did the job at ease and it was a pleasure putting pressure on the halibut, the bend in the rod is just amazing you can see how soft it is but still extremely strong. The bend is crazy. I felt i could easily put on much larger fish without having to worry. I am also very satisified with my new JM reels having a leverdrag instead of a star drag makes fishing so much easier.

We caught the halibut on Storflaket on the southern tip of Vaeroy. This is the same area we earlier caught the small fish on. Its a big sandy area with around 45 meters depth.

We decided to keep it since it wasn't huge and we have been hungering for some good halibut meat and to tired of cod... In the harbour it was measured to 150cm and weighted 35,2 when it was bled out. The other people at harbour said it should have weighted 40kg due to empty stomach.

This is the last chapter of this trip to Vaeroy. I will write a sum up about the trip altogether after. But "as" I promised some people here is the fish together with my rod ;)

Now comes the long wait for the ferry and then a very long drive home. It feels both sad and great to leave this place. 7 days on the ocean does the trick... It worns you out in a good way!

Adios for now!

Love at first sight!

Here comes my first impressions from Vaeroy after our first four days, with 3 to go.

The fishing camp is totally amazing, the boats are docked about 10 meters from the entrance, the camp (sjybrygga.no) got everything you need for a great price. Ontop of that you get Vidar! The owner of the camp who gladly comes with tips and tricks from everything between heaven and earth, the camp is a win win in my eyes! His boats are really top notch aswell. Something to take into consideration is that all the great fishing locations is basically a boat trip on about 15 minutes tops from the camp.

Our first two days (Saturday & Sunday) was  very windy with winds up to 13-15m/s it was hard to get to the right fishing spots around the island. We tried fishing for some halibut but without any luck at all. We did manage to get some cod about 5 minutes away from the habour in Vaeroy. The cod wasn't very large but we did manage to get one on about 14kg and the fish just would'nt stop biting, we had a nonstop bite until we decided to head  back.

So... What happened next? Well lets say the winds went down to around 8 m/s and with an incredibly good boat. Sea pro 206CC with a 150hp yamaha engine we felt confident enough to head out to the fishing spots south of Vaeroy we heard so much about.

The cod at Grunnaregga and the other grounds around the area all delivered. We had non stop bites again this time with almost no cod below 10kg. Our top cod on monday was 20kg with many just below that, we threw so many back in it was hard to count. Your eyes deceive you easily at sea. The cod look amazingly big and its easy to draw the conclusion that they are bigger than they are (weight wise). Winds got to strong at noon so we headed back near shore to finnish the day fishing some halibut with a few bites but with no landed fish.

A picture of the days biggest fish 20kg that was caught by Viktor.

On tuesday we headed out in the sunlight, the first we have seen during the entire stay at Vaeroy. We have mostly been surrounded by a heavy fog and wind. Felt amazing heading out with great expectations taking yesterday into consideration. The shallow grounds delivered as usual, we got bites on every drop. It felt more about luck about which cod ur jig would land infront. We landed an amazing amount of cod overall and many over 20kg and alot bigger ones lost. But like I said before its all about luck when fishing cod, they eat everything they see and they are all big enough to eat whatever you throw at them.

But I guess i got lucky....

The cod control weighted at the harbour at 27.2kg it was already cut open and bled out so I would assume 28 something. But I am glad. I just beat my old record by about 20kg ;) A true love at first sight!

They fight good the first couple of minutes but then they are just like a big dead weight to draw up from the bottom. I had others that felt alot bigger that I lost. It was caught on Red Ed 395g and the color Rose Fish. It seemed to work great on the cod.

Here comes a picture of two object which I am not sure if you guys know what it is...But the clue is, they belong to the fish and they are placed where I got the fish on the map! They are hard like a shell and they are beautiful memory from my trophy cod. Give me a comment and Ill tell you if you are correct!

We have three days left to fish and it does not feel especially challenging to keep dragging up big cod from the depth, I am sure there is alot bigger ones lurking out there but it will be someones else job to catch them. We will focus our three remaining days trying to land some halibut. We did manage to land a tiny one today so we got a good spot pinned out.

My new rods are amazing, when I say that I really mean it. I have Never fished with any rods that gives me so much control over the jig and gives me such a big relief when fighting big fish. For me they were worth every penny.

More news to come from our coming three days.

But sofar Vaeroy is a true love at first sight.

Tight lines.

Lock N Load!

Today our journey begins, we will go by car all the way up to Bodo in Norway and from there take the Ferry out to the island Vaeroy, that is located at the southern tip of Lofoten.

The weather forecast is looking more and more promising, when I looked at it about one week ago it looked like we could loose alot of our days to wind. But now we might only loose one single day! (saturday), but might even be able to fish in one of the more isolated coves on saturday. We got a solid boat a Sea Pro 220(21') with a 150 engine and one backup engine. We got VHF so I feel quite safe this time.

We fish between saturday and friday. If there is any available internet up there I will try to keep this blog updated, I blame the slow delivery of my 3G modem I was going to buy!



 As you can see above, Its always windy but the definition could be very different. I will be in touch with you guys, got about 1 hour left to pack and I honestly can't understand how some people manage to go fishing using an airplane because my luggage is massive.

Atleast I come prepared, would hate to sit up there not having the right tools.

Heres a few examples.

Some of my leaders, used Seaguar it is definately my favourite flurocarbon to use, its soft and easy to work with even on higher lb tests. They are reinforced with kevlar tubing around the terminal tackle. Trying the chainnot this trip did improved clinch not before, not that I was disappointed using that but I wish to try new things.

Bag of jigs (softjigs) + my speed jig bag filled. Its more jigs than it looks and it weights more than I wish to admit...

Cya guys on the flipside!

Meet Nemo & Friends

I went to my local tackle shop today and was going to stock up on some extra terminal tackle for the trip on thursday but he had some unpacked lures standing in big boxes right inside the shop. After a short examination of the box I could see that it came from kinetic.

So... I knew that Kinetic been releasing some of their new saltwater fishing lures for cod and halibut but they haven't been in stock. I was quite certain that I would not get to try them on this coming trip, but lucky as I am.... This was it!

They unpacked the boxes and here they were.

Let me introduce Nemo with friends!

As you can see they are quite large compared to the pen.

The names of the lures is.

Red Ed (Rose Fish) 395g
Flat Mat (Halibut Alert) 400g
Scary Jerry (Spotted Wolffish) 365g

I can let you all know that they look and feel extremely realistic when you have them in your hand. It's one thing to see them on pictures and on movies but another to actually have them infront of you. I have a great confidence that they will all deliver what they promise.

Although I was after the glowing wolffish they didn't have that in stock. However these do look really nice, I think that the flat fish is going to be great when fishing on sandy bottom on quite shallow depths. But ofcourse I get to try all these on the coming trip now. So I guess Nemo will need to keep his back clear because he is going to get it busy....

Tight lines.