Norwegian gear

[Sailing52]

I am sailing to the north of Norway and intend to do some fishing up near the Lofotan Islands...what would be the ideal gear....I do not want to bring to much for a variety of reasons.

[lowie69]

What part u goin to ?

[chuckaroo]

Can I come?

[Sailing52]

Lofotan Islands north of the artic circle....

[JimC]

I would look for a reasonable our rod of 2.1m with a fairly strong rating that can handle 100-200 jigs.
Pack a few jig heads of various weights. Check your charts to see the depth you'll be fishing.... But 100g should do you in not too deep with not a mad tide. Get shads in the 20cm size at least. You could even get a few metal jigs up to 200g.

Failing that, go for a lighter setup if the conditions will mean that you will be fishing in shallow water.

You want to achieve this sort of sport:
http://youtu.be/1XpN7YD9mR4

[bpmurray]

By far the best lure is the Norwegian Pirk - for some reason they're hard to come by here, but you'll find them in every supermarket and petrol station there - they definitely outfish everything else. 100g will only get you a few meters down - you'll be fishing in up to 400m of water, although you can get fabulous coalfish only 40-50m down. I find that 400g is a nice weight - heavy enough to get down to the cod and light enough not to leave you with a hernia. The rods I use are 20-30lb class with a good multiplier filled with 50lb braid (at least 300m). Using braid is important because of the depths - you'll simply never hit the bottom if you use mono.

I've never fished Lofoten, but I've fished a few places around Tromsoe and I imagine the fishing will be similar. You'll definitely get big cod and haddock and coalfish, with the foreign redfish (I only ever seem to get tiny ones) and wolffish (this is the only fish that scares me - they explicitly attack you when you get them up, rather than the usual flopping about). Of course, the real target is halibut - when you come back you can show us the photos of the 100kg one that you caught.

I use the map here (http://www.norgeskart.no/?sok=lofoten#9 ... 0507/+hits) to look at where I''ll be going and to try to plan the fishing - zoom in for the sea charts. BTW, the area is called Lofoten (with an "e").

Have fun - the fishing up there is magic!