January 2nd I paid my hometown a visit going on a 2 day fishing trip.
I called up my mom asking her if she would let me stay at her house a couple of days. “I’m going to hunt for sea trout” I told her. Even though I grew up in this small fishing town, I never really payed much attention to seatrout fishing. But the past few years I have really upped my fishing game and I couldn’t live with the fact that I never caught a sea trout yet. So this was my goal for the trip. I had made my studies and found the spot where I was going to try my luck. Although winter is not the time to fish for seatrout on the outer coasts of Denmark, I knew this was normally a recognized seatrout spot. It is located on the mouth of Roskilde Fjord and has a “leopard bottom”. At this time of year the seatrout normally seeks towards the warmer fjords. But I was determined that I would not let this get in my way.
Day 1
It was two extremely cold days that I had picked for my trip. Temperatures were subzero, the wind was near gale and so far this was coldest day of the winter and the first Ice Day of the year. The first day I started fishing at about 2 PM. Nature along the coast is amazing and the light on the north coast of Zealand is particularly amazing. The best comparison I can think of is the light you see depicted by the old Skagen painters P.S. Krøyer and in particular Michael Ancher in “a stroll on the beach”. It can be difficult to not to loose yourself in the scenery and loose focus. But this time I was determined to keep my Mørasilda lure in the water and stick to my plan. I was fairly methodical as I worked my way through the coast. For a couple of hours I just kept throwing and pulling back in. Never loosing faith. Then suddenly as I was about to pull the lure out of the water, right next to the groyne I was standing on, I felt it. A tempered tug on the line followed by a bright silver coloured trout jumping out of the water. I was so happy and afraid to lose it at the same time. I jumped from one rock to the next as I tried to get closer to land. I was talking to the fish telling it how beautiful it was and begging it to stay on the hook.
When I finally landed it I was both happy and relieved that my mission had succeeded. I think I threw a few more times but I had lost focus now. So I decided to call it a day and head back to my mom’s.
She prepared dinner for us as I filleted my fish. It was really great spending some time alone with my mom. Unfortunately it’s something I rarely get to do. Normally when we see each other there are other family members around including my kids. That’s great too but this time we had some time to sit down and talk one on one.
Day 2
The next morning I got up while it was still dark outside. I got dressed, grabbed my gear and headed for the coast which is only about a ten minute walk from my mom’s house. The wind direction had changed to onshore wind and it was even colder than the day before. It was low tide too. Not at all ideal conditions but I was still high on yesterday’s success so I just kept going. I fished the whole morning without any luck. It was freezing cold. Some hours later I decided I wanted to forage some seaweed to bring home as well. I found a nice big bundle of bladder wrack (Fucus vesiculosus) that I wrapped up and put in my bag. I was so happy to be out on the coast and feel the wind on my face. I didn’t want to quit just yet. I had a better idea.
When I was young there was a small kiosk by the harbour where you could buy sand worms. Since I had brought a few snoods I thought I would go and see if they still sold them and hopefully end the day with a few flatfish. It took me no more than 10 minutes to cross the small beach between me and the harbour and reach the kiosk. It turned out that they did in fact still sell sand worms but since it was right after Christmas and New Years they didn’t have any in stock. So I had to give up on that idea. It is funny how some places change so little though. It was like time had stood still for 25 years in that place. It was a really great feeling actually. I don’t know why but there’s just something comforting in knowing that in this world of fast pace change there are still places like this where time doesn’t matter.
I took a small stroll on the pier before I headed home. It didn’t matter too much that I didn’t get the worms I think. It was very windy and I doubt that I would have been able to do any proper fishing out there anyway. And after all I still brought home a sea trout. //