Gaula Rule Changes provide a Unique Opportunity to catch a Giant salmon
For years, I have dreamed and wondered about what Gaula would be like if we had a season like the one we are about to have now in which the big fish will be free to make their way the river without facing excessive angling pressure and he likelihood of not making it to their spawning grounds.
It’s a bittersweet irony that after all of the woes of a catastrophic season in 2024, this season might be the most memorable of recent lifetimes!
Certainly, it is the season that I have been waiting for ever since I first set eyes on the river in 2004. Then, as now, the river was heavily overfished, struggling to shoulder the burden of its own reputation for allowing too many anglers to take too many fish. Adored by sport fisherman and traditional anglers alike, its banks have been packed and that has brought consequences.
In 2024, after decades of being the best of the affordable salmon rivers in Europe, the river, like many others, finally cracked. A weak run and escapes of farmed salmon created a lethal cocktail that the river was not ready to handle. Packed with anglers and with a set of rules that offered scant protection to big fish, those stalwart fish that actually made it were slaughtered and a bad situation became a catastrophe, forcing the authorities to close Gaula and similarly affected rivers almost overnight.
The intervening months have been unnecessarily painful and protracted with a chronic communication failure baked in.
Decisions have taken too long. Communication and data scant and difficult to obtain. There has been horse-trading about rules going on at a time when frankly anyone that doubts the way forward and the necessity of it should be viewed as part of the problem, not the solution. And all the time, the reputation of the river burned as quickly as a tissue on a bonfire.
The end result is that the Norwegian Environment Agency and the Norwegian Rivers Association have heralded the beginning of a new era. This season the big fish are being given unparalleled levels of protection with the mandatory release required of all fish over 65 cm until such time as numbers support wider harvesting.
This means that there will be less people fishing the river and the big fish will be protected! Never in my time on Gaula have I I experienced the opportunity to fish for salmon when they are not slaughtered and bombarded on their way up the river. Angling pressure has a huge effect on the individual angling experience and now we are going to get the chance to see how good Gaula can be when you put a limit on the free-for-all.
Why This Might be a Golden Season...
For the first time ever in recent decades, Gaula’s salmon will get free and complete access to the whole river. The size limit means that even medium size salmon are protected and that will reduce the numbers fishing Gaula very dramatically. Rather than being a problem as the Gaula River Board have repeatedly suggested, the reduction in numbers of anglers provides a unique opportunity.
There can be no question that Gaula’s future lies in sustainable levels of fishing and protection of precious stocks. Harvesting salmon is part of local tradition and should be maintained but the size and numbers of fish that can be harvested should be limited and defined by independent scientific advice.
River owners will need to adjust to the new reality and the reduction in numbers of anglers. This will lead to a huge upswing in the quality of individual fishing experiences and Gaula which has the potential to recover, will see an upswing in prices. By protecting the resource, landowners will increase their revenues ultimately, provided that they get the right help.
We must work quickly to improve communication networks between our river board, landowners and angling guests and at the same time introduce the necessary checks and balances to prevent mismanagement of the river for the foreseeable future. We must immediately look to how we can support the Miljodireketerat and Norske Lake Elver in their mission to secure a sustainable future for the river.
We will achieve this by embracing the new opportunities that will be created by improving the fishing experience and the whole Gaula package.
Certainly, we will need to create a service to help landowners market their fishing in the new reality.
Its about time the we opened a central booking service for virtually the whole of Gaula, an information service and a back-up to landowners to help them with getting the best out of their beat, marketing and lead generation. With the demise of the Nature Centre in Støren, we no longer have a visitor centre and this is a hole that we could and should fill quickly.
News that a new National Salmon Centre, one of several, has been approved for this coming season in Støren and this is very positive news and we await further updates…
The River Conditions…
This summer we will see how the river should fish when it is properly managed and if I am even half-right some of our guests could catch some very big fish indeed!
The chance to Catch a Special Atlantic Salmon
This season for the first time possibly in living memory, fish will get free access to the whole river which is bound to have knock-on in spawning benefits. It also means that the number of big fish in the river will be much higher as a proportion of the run and that the giants cannot be killed. We have never experienced this situation before and may never again. That’s why, this season if no other, you should come to Gaula to experience the fishing without filters added.
It is my sincere hope that we will see the river in its glory and understand why I have always believed that this is the greatest of the salmon rivers in the world. We have a world class product and at long last, at least for the time being, we are treating it like one.
A New Era has Started – How Gaula can Become “The Home of Big Salmon”
In a recent comment, the leader of the Gaula River Board commented that the brand image he associated with the river for the future was that of “smoked salmon.” The disconnect between the new reality and the desire to return to old ways is palpable in this statement. It is a vision that is destined to return the river to uncertainty and ultimately collapse. The landowners on Gaula face a stark choice in the future and it could not be more pointed. We either shift into a new era in which we protect our big fish, keep the river healthy and economically viable or we return to the old ways and the uncertainty that goes with it, forever condemning ourselves to attracting customers that want to kill the resource and to closures related either to water levels/temperature, low fish stocks etc.,
Reflect on the fact that, despite having arguably the finest salmon river in the world, we are way behind in the price league table when compared to other rivers. Russia is closed. A major opportunity. Iceland is hugely expensive and contains only modest size fish and yet its price tag is up to 15 times higher than on most beats of Gaula!
Make no mistake about it, big fish attract anglers and rivers that are properly managed produce better revenues. They also provide the protection for anglers to harvest fish on the river. Local harvesting rights can be assured by implementing protection for the fish. There are multiple ways that it can be done from personal to season quotas but the point is that local harvesting will be assured if the river stocks are healthy. By expecting our visiting anglers to pay a fair price and to respect our river by adhering to its rules, we will create an environment whereby we can maintain local tradition.
In short, we have an opportunity here to set an example and enter a new era in which the future on Gaula is more stable and assured. the direction we must travel in is clear but we can balance interests provided that we are prepared to begin to manage the river properly.
Overseas anglers do not expect to kill fish. Nor should they be encouraged to do so if we want to allow our local landowners and anglers to harvest fish.
