Fly fishing for salmon is addictive. Some quickly gives up the "difficult" salmons, but those who experience the take of the salmon and perhaps even landing one is usually lost. For most of us ordinary fishermen, salmon fishing is hard work in magnificent surroundings, unless you have the money or some good contacts that can optimize chances of fishing on the best beats in the best rivers. Even here you will be subject to influence of conditions, but usually you will have to work harder for every salmon on a cheap day ticket beat, because you will be sharing the "hotspots" and the chances with others, but also because the low-priced rivers or beats usually is low-priced because of the fact that they don’t provide steady catches. There are always a few salmon fishers that are able to catch a lot more fish than the average, even under bad conditions. Local knowledge, a good casting technique, knowledge of which flies to use where and when and how to fish them at a particular place are some ingredients of their success. I am sure that the rest of us, "enjoying nature", the streaming water and the casting (that experience fortunately gets better and better over the years) and sometimes catching a salmon will agree with the Scottish salmon fisher who once said; "Don’t be surprised if you don’t catch a salmon, be surprised if you catch one". I am sure that those of you who have tried, but haven’t got surprised yet will recognize the words of the salmon fishers elegy from the book "Lystfiskerbogen" written by the Danish author Ludvig Svendsen in 1947; (rewritten); Once too early, once too late. Once too rainy, once too dry. Once too cold, once too hot. Once to low, once to high. Once on a new river, and once again on the same. Something was wrong whenever I came...

Words to remember: John Ashley Cooper who dedicated his life to salmonfishing wrote in his book "A salmon fishers odysse": "When a fisherman has caught some 500 salmon he is apt to think he knows the long and the short of the whole business. With 1500 fish to his rod he begins to be less certain, and by the time he has landed several thousand he has realized he will never get to the bottom of the matter."