August kicked off with – you guessed right – fishing: the last time I went to the “big” Amblève was almost 3 months earlier (when the leaves were not yet fully out), so it was about time for a revisit. After a few weeks of dry fly action, this time the surface activity was almost completely absent… I have only seen two rises the whole day, and prospecting casts with the dry fly were mostly left drifting without a reaction from below, except for two takes. (In the small Amblève I saw more fish reacting to the dry fly, but it was late, and as usual with smaller fish, I missed or they missed except for one brownie.) Luckily this time I decided to have also my Euro nymphing rod with me, and that was the winning formula for the day. The fish that were absent from the slower sections were present around structures and right behind the rapids. After finding the good spots, I managed to catch a good number of fish (18 trout in total, 2 of which were rainbow trout, and the rest brownies as usual). I even caught a crayfish by accident :D The largest fish of the day was one of the two rainbows; not a giant but still a strong fish of 36 cm that produced some nice jumps and a run downstream.
On the 8th we flew to Norway, where we stayed until the 21st. This was our second proper holiday of the summer, and it turned out even better than Slovenia. It has been the 3rd time in 4 years that we choose Norway (and as I am writing this, we have already booked another two weeks for 2026 too), and we were never disappointed. Less than 2 hours after landing in Oslo and picking up the rental car we were already on the edge of my favourite Norwegian national park, on our way to the Atna valley. I picked this region from the map for our first week because of its proximity to the Rondane National Park, and because this area seemed to contain a variety of different waters with plenty of different structure, while being somewhat similar in size and volume to what I have already encountered in Belgium and Slovenia. As soon as we arrived to our first lodge, I decided to test the waters just behind our cabin. The river looked amazing (although a bit deeper and colder than expected), I could immediately spot some fish, and it did not take long until the first brown trout took my dry fly! The first ones were small, but I was already happy. On this first day (or rather 2 hours in the evening) I caught 8 trout, 5 on the dry fly (the largest around 30 cm) and 3 with the Euro nymph rig – the holidays were off to an excellent start.
On the second day we drove to the North, and stopped by a few resting stops along the scenic route of the Rondane. Since in the second half of our week we would be staying more downstream, I wanted to explore in the upstream direction on our first full day. While the first fishing spot had a few fish eating from the surface, the situation was complicated by the presence of canoes, strong wind, and a surprisingly deep riverbed, so all I managed was spooking fish… But the views were top. For the afternoon we moved further North. After walking a bit upstream (and the first sketchy river crossing, unfortunately leaving Clio behind) I arrived to the entrance of a canyon – something that seemed inaccessible from the satellite images before the trip. Here a deep pool between huge boulders held a lot of fish. Given the strong wind I decided to use a nymph under a New Zealand style (wool) indicator (that I learned in Slovenia earlier), which worked perfectly. I caught several nice (30+ cm) brown trout on this spot, with interesting, unique patterns. Some of the fish had almost marble-trout-like backs, which I have not seen earlier, while there were also some very scarcely dotted ones. After catching all the fish (except for the largest one that showed no willingness of taking any nymph) from the deep pool at the entrance, I also found a way to hike farther into the canyon, and catch a few fish there too from the occasional calmer spots! In the evening I decided to give the spot behind our cabin a go also with this indicator setup, and I caught two small fish there too. I finished the day with 10 brown trout (all of them caught with a nymph under a yarn indicator).
After the success of the previous day, I thought I could start the next morning with something risky, and I went explore even further upstream. The river was rather wide open and shallow here with only a few places that might hold fish (in my eyes at least). While it was still windy, it was doable with the Euro rod – especially using the heavy nymphs that the fast water was calling for anyway. My first cast was rewarded with a fish… It’s always surprising how close to your feet you can catch fish in crystal clear fast water. Continuing with the theme of fishing in a wide variety of water types, I also caught two trout from pockets around the very few boulders in the river. These were textbook spots, and very fulfilling catches. In the afternoon I decided to revisit the canyon from the day before (since it was a lot of fun, and I did not want to continuously discover new water). It did not disappoint (and in now less wind it was also doable with the Euro rod). Fishing here was a bit like fishing the Soča and Koritnica in Slovenia, except that here I found the spots and the fish on my own, without a guide or any prior information. After revisiting the two spots that I already knew from the day before in the canyon, I managed to find a way through the forest to a final third pool. Unfortunately I did not manage to net any fish there, even though I made contact with three smaller ones. On the way back to the car I decided to cross the river at a different spot, and while doing so I noticed that there was a slower pocket behind one of the larger rocks near the bank: the first cast there also delivered a nice fish! I tried one more spot on the way back towards Clio, but without success. After dinner I still did a quick session behind our cabin too, catching trout both on the dry fly and using a nymph under an (this time foam) indicator. In total I caught 13 brown trout on this 3rd day, 9 with the Euro nymph, 3 with the nymph under an indicator, and 1 with the dry fly.
Day 4 was a transitional day. After checking out from our first lodge we went for a 11 km canoe trip down the Atna river. This time we were only spotting the (large but not that numerous) trout from above. They were safe for the time being. Thanks to the sandy river bends we could also take a few snack breaks :) After our canoe trip I gave myself a two hour deadline to hike up along a tributary of the Atna in search of fish. I had no idea if this river held fish at all, so this day was definitely a gamble. Past the first few hundred meters I had to leave the trail and find my own way. The flow was much heavier than expected, but the first fishy looking spot already had something for me. After the initial success I passed a lot of way too fast water, and with time running out I was about to turn back when I hooked a big fish in the first larger, slower, and somewhat deeper section of this tributary. After a few seconds I lost the fish… I was devastated, but it was time to turn around – we still had to drive to our next cabin. I crossed the river to walk back on the opposite side, but decided to still make a few casts into the same section from there too. Second cast: bang, even bigger fish on! A long and exhilarating fight followed with the fish making a run all the way across and then heading downstream towards the rapids… It took a lot of effort to net the fish, but this second and last trout of the day was my PR brown trout (40-42 cm)! My heart was racing! I made it back to the car exactly on the two hour mark, then we drove a good 45 minutes downstream to our next place, where a beautiful rainbow (and a cozy house) welcomed us.
After a few busy days, I was happy to sleep in a bit and spend the morning fishing around the bridge just under our cabin. Clio could also finally just set up her chair on the river bank and watch me fish (while reading/listening to her book). I knew that this more downstream section of the Atna just 20 kilometres from the famous Glomma river could hold grayling, so I was hoping to catch them here. It took some time to find where they were holding (as the river was much larger here than where I had fished the previous days), but when I finally found them, they kept coming. And they were all in the 35-40 cm range! With the grayling located, I still wanted to see if there were fish elsewhere near the bridge, so I covered quite some distance on both banks, with limited success (one small brown trout). After a late lunch we drove back further upstream over a gravel road to another new section of the river. While I was hoping for rising fish in the slower section, the surface activity was still completely absent… To make things worse I also slipped and fell into the river, but thanks to a tight wading belt (stopping most of the water getting into my waders), the jogging pants I wore in my waders (that soaked up the water that still made it in), and a spare set of dry clothes, I did not have to stop fishing for the day. After changing into dry clothes I still caught a nice grayling here, and most importantly a beautiful, dark coloured, 40 cm brown trout too. This brought the day’s totals to 7 fish (5 grayling, 2 brownies – all on the Euro rig).
We started day 6 at the next bridge, a bit more downstream of our cabin. The story was similar to the previous day: find where the grayling hold and then catch them all! (Of course I had to start by falling in the river – super slippery bedrock slabs – but nothing a spare change of clothes would not solve.) Maybe thanks to the warmer weather the fish came further out from the deep and moved to shallower water here. This was the first day when I could fishing wearing only a T shirt on the top. The morning (pre-lunch) session delivered similar numbers and sizes as the previous day (distributed equally across both river banks), so I had fun. And Clio could again enjoy the view and the weather reading in her camping chair. In the afternoon we checked out another spot more downstream but that did not look fishy at all to me, so we had time for some groceries and a cultural stop (white wooden church overlooking the confluence of the Atna and the Glomma). Before dinner I still wanted to stop at our bridge for an easy grayling or two (knowing them from the day before), but I “only” got a trout in the out of the blue downpour. The first cast was the only fruitful one here. After dinner I went back to check out another new spot further along the gravel road, but I did not like it that much, so I ended up fishing the same spot as 24 hours earlier. This time I caught only brownies there, but it was still fun. I ended the day with 9 fish (5 grayling and 4 trout, again all on the Euro nymph).
Day 7 was the next transfer day: we had to make it to the other side of the Rondane… First stop: a stave church in Sollia. This being the last day of validity of my week licence for the Atna valley, of course I had to do some fishing on the way. For these last few hours I chose to go back to my favourite canyon for a third and last time. Walking and wading towards the canyon’s entrance I spotted rising fish in one of the only calm lanes of the river bend, and after losing one, I caught a nice brown trout on the dry! After many nymph only days it looked like that maybe the last few hours would bring some dry fly action! Still, I had to switch to the Euro rod to fish the deep pool at the entrance of the canyon, where another two lost fish was followed by a beautiful nearly 40 cm brown trout. Then I hiked into the canyon and spotted rising fish already at the first good spot. I had to climb down carefully to the water further downstream than usual to avoid spooking them, but I managed safely, and the first cast immediately delivered. Then I caught a second one too! It was super fun to catch fish on the dry fly surrounded by amazing nature. I did not even mind losing what felt like the biggest (of these three) fish from this first spot afterwards… After I caught/lost/spooked all the fish here, I climbed out of the river on the opposite side, hiked further upstream to the next good spot, and climbed back down. Here I initially saw no rises, so I tried with the nymph, but the currents were so complex that it was almost impossible to present a nymph in front of the fish… After a lot of trial and error I finally managed a good drift and hooked a fish just to lose it a few seconds into the fight… I had no time to fret as I spotted a rising fish in the bubble line at the back side of the pool. The second cast with the dry fly was perfect, and I got the fish! Given the time pressure (of still having to drive to our next cabin), this fish was enough here and I hiked further to the last spot. Unfortunately there I did not see any fish this time, so that spot remained the only one where I did not catch fish in the canyon (I lost two there a few days earlier – one of them on the edge of the net). It was time to get back to the car… As I was making my way back I decided to still try my luck at that one place in the last river bend where I already caught fish earlier. After a few not so great casts I finally managed to deliver my dry fly to the perfect spot, and a few seconds of drag-free drift was followed by a big fish swallowing my insect imitation. A good fight followed, but at the end I managed to land a pristine, unique – barely spotted and very yellow – 40 cm trout; the last fish of the Atna river system. With that the day’s totals settled on 6 brown trout (5 on the dry fly and 1 on the Euro nymph). Then we crossed the mountains to the West on the Grimsdalsvegen, a scenic gravel road between the national parks, following another small mountain river for a long section. We had no time to fish here unfortunately, but I will do that next year ;) After arriving in Mysusæter to our third cabin/lodge, we still went for an evening walk to check out the nearby small mountain stream. I needed no time to spot fish holding in the calm pockets, which was encouraging for the next day. It’s amazing how fish can live in these waters (there were huge waterfalls every few hundred meters on this river).
Day 8 was the last day with fishing involved. As the rain was on the horizon and the mountains were in the clouds, I decided to try my luck in the mountain stream running through the village in the morning instead of leaving for my planned hike heading higher into the National Park. I did not put the GoPro or the waders on anymore, just a minimalistic kit, one rod (nymph under an indicator), wet wading socks in my trail running shoes, and let’s go. I fished multiple spots starting with where I saw fish the day before then heading upstream, and it took only a few casts to catch the first trout. The first ones were very small, but the fishing was very technical so everything felt like a big success. After hiking a few hundred meters upstream, I found a bigger pool, and almost immediately hooked a bigger fish. Unfortunately I only got to see one flash of it in the depths before it got itself off the hook… I tried to catch something else from this pool, but nothing worked – I feel like this fish might have been big enough to make sure that this pool was their territory shared with nobody else… More upstream I found a nice run with multiple fish near the 25 cm size, which delivered at least three beautiful brownies (these were the most beautifully coloured wild trout of the holidays, but maybe of the whole year). Here the rain and wind became so strong that we decided to call it a morning and head back to the cabin for lunch… Still, 8 fish from this river in a rather short time was a lot of fun. After lunch the rain stopped and – as expected – the weather cleared up beautifully. Following some hesitation (mainly because of the forecast ever strengthening wind), I decided to still go for my plannedhike. I started at 14:15, with more time pressure than originally hoped for, but I love this national park and I wanted to try and catch fish at even higher altitude. My original goal for the hike was catching arctic char from the lake Fremre Illmanntjønne, but to be honest with the actual weather conditions I was pretty sure that won’t be for this time. With 75 km/h wind gusts (and 40-50 km/h base wind) the lake was covered with parallel lines of breaking waves, and while I managed a few casts down/crosswind, I felt like waiting and looking at the indicator was no fun at all in these conditions (and fish probably moved to the calmer depths anyway). Therefore I headed back down towards the main valley. Just before the outflow of the lake drops through a series of deep waterfalls I spotted a fishy looking pocket, and with a few casts I managed to catch two small trout from it. These brought the daily total to 10, and they became my highest altitude trout to date (1200 m AMSL). I lost one more – definitely larger – fish while prospecting various places along the river on my way down, but the wind was only getting worse, so at one point I had to give up, and just enjoy the (still amazing) scenery for the rest of the hike back to the car. I also had to add an extra km and some serious elevation gain when I realised that I lost my net, but at the end I found it near the top of the waterfalls… I finished the hike after 18 km (400 m+) and almost 6 hours, and way too many pictures to choose from :) It was totally worth it, even if I only caught 2 small trout up there. The views in the Rondane never disappoint.
The fishing part of the holidays ended with these statistics: I caught (and released) 65 fish: 55 brown trout and 10 grayling. By technique I caught 31 Euro nymphing, 23 using a nymph under an indicator (yarn or foam), and 11 on the dry fly.
After 8 days of mainly fishing, enjoying nature, and being away from humans in general, we moved South to the shores of the Oslofjord for a few days of chill. We had an amazing AirBnB basically 5 minutes from the centrum of our cozy village of Drøbak. We spent these days with walks exploring the colourful old fishing/artist town, searching for coffee and cake/bakery goods, visiting the local aquarium or the small open air museum (where we mainly went for the waffles though), and just relaxing. Every day we went to look for various fish and medusa in the harbour – Clio’s favourite seaside activity! One of the days there we took the (surprisingly speedy) ferry to Oslo. It was worth already for the journey itself, with great views all over the Oslofjord and its islands (colourful holiday homes galore). Apparently this was the last day of summer in Oslo (with 26 degrees Celsius and people swimming everywhere), so we had to stay in the shade, and find iced coffee. Of course we also visited the “new” Opera once again, before taking the bus back “home”. Unfortunately all good things come to and end, and we had to fly home after two beautiful weeks in Norway…
Back in Belgium I still went to fish a long day on the Vesdre (26 brown trout: 20 of them were caught on the dry fly, 6 on the nymph, including a 30+ cm one, probably the biggest fish from this river this year), and a shorter one on the Ijse (for the first time in almost two months).
I started September by booking a long weekend for myself in October to go back to Slovenia and see what I can do there now on my own (being motivated by my success in Norway). I also bought another new rod (really the last one this year), an Echo River Glass 7’6″ #4 rod to try how fishing with a glass (fibre) rod feels like. I tested the setup (with a SA Amplitude Smooth Trout fly line) in Luxembourg (the country), where I got invited to fish the first weekend of the month around Kautenbach. While the conditions were challenging (low water, no wading allowed, and a lot of vegetation), we managed to find fish both days. I caught four species each day: brown and rainbow trout, grayling, and chub. It was the first time that I caught grayling on the dry fly (and actually also the first time I caught rainbow trout on the dry outside of Slovenia)! The numbers were not crazy (the seasons might be changing), but sight fishing the grayling and the rainbow trout was a ton of fun! It is always nice to meet similar minded people to share a passion. (The Friday before this weekend was the only Friday in months when I was not fishing, but I went biking and had brunch on the sunny terrace of the Madmum at the Vaartkom instead).
Both of the following two Fridays I went to fish the Petite Amblève, and the second time I made a video too (of course the first occasion was “more exciting” in terms of fish variety, but I also really like fishing without recording, then I have absolute zero distractions or pressure). I kept using the glass rod on these occasions as it was a good fit also for this river. The nice thing about this rod (besides fitting under the trees and casting beautifully at shorter distances) is that it’s fun to play even small fish with it, while it can still handle a bigger fish too. The only downside is that for indicator nymphing the very soft and slow action is somewhat sub-optimal (and long distance casts are a no-go). On the first Friday I caught 1 grayling, 3 rainbow trout, and 13 brown trout (another salmonoid trifecta). While in the summer months I was catching almost everything on the dry fly here, this time they were holding mostly in the deeper, slow pools (which are not that many in such a tiny river), so I was indicator nymphing all day long. The typical size was a bit better than earlier, around 20 cm, except for a monster brown trout of 40-42 cm! This fish was (and still is) the biggest brown trout I caught in Belgium so far, and in the Petite Amblève it was at least 10 cm bigger than the previous “record holder”. The second Friday I covered the full fishable length of the Petite Amblève. The fishing was much slower, but the afternoon saw some surface action, and things got really good in the last two hours of the evening, where I doubled the day’s totals, bringing up the fish count to 16 (all of them were brownies). Most importantly I got two fish from a very fishy looking spot where I never managed to catch anything before. The trout season in Belgium closes on the end of September, so my last outing to the small rivers of the Ardennes was on the 23rd: I went back to the Vesdre, where I also opened the season in March. It was a chilly, windy, and overcast day, undeniably autumnal, but the fish were still very much present, and even in the mood for dry flies! I caught 26 brown trout, nearly all using a dry fly, and there were even a few larger ones, including a nearly 30 cm one, my largest on the dry fly from this river section so far.
The month closed off with a nice BBQ with colleagues and family (excellent organisation, thanks Wouter), and I got new wading boots: the Vision Musta Hiker – these seem to be more durable than the Vision Koski ones (even the free replacement pair started breaking apart after two more months on the river – I think they would have kept sending me free replacements forever, but I would rather spend more money on something that lasts).