Fishing in Setesdal
Everything doesn’t always go to plan. Honestly more often than not things don’t go to plan, and you have to find a solution or change the plan. That doesn’t have to mean the trip isn’t a good one, it just becomes a little different than what you planned. This was that sort of trip. The kind where all the plans got changed, but the trip ended up being a god one anyways.
My cousin, Maya, and I have been talking of going on a fishing trip in the mountains for quite some time. So when our summer vacations lined up this year, we finally got around to doing it. We decided on going to the area around Rågeloni, a popular spot for both day hikes and overnight hikes, in the Sirdal/Setesdal mountains. Firstly, because the area is absolutely beautiful and secondly, because my cousin had all her fishing gear at her family’s cabin which we would then be passing on the way so she could pick it up. After having picked up my cousins fishing gear and done a final organizing of our packs we continued towards our destination. We parked the car at one of the parking lots along Håhellervatnet and followed the T-marked trail on the west side of the lake. The hike in went smoothly. The trail was relatively flat, but a bit wet and the weather was nice. The sun was out and the temperature high enough that I was really glad that I had put on shorts and not trousers.
The original plan was to set up camp at the Rågeloni peninsula and go on dayhikes to some smaller lakes a bit further into the mountains. But after having studied the map of what area our fishing card covered a little bit closer, we decided to cross the river and set up camp on the opposite riverbank as the map said we were allowed to fish from that side of the river but not from where we had initially planned on camping. This turned out to be a great idea as we had the place all to ourselves, whilst on the other side of the river we counted a total of 18 tents on the busiest of the two days we were there.
After setting up camp we were starting to get quite hungry, so we made an early dinner before getting the fishing poles out and fishing for a couple of hours which resulted in 4 delicious fish that we ate before going to bed. Now some people would probably wonder why we didn’t do the fishing before dinner so we could have had fish for dinner. The explanation to that is easy. Both of us get hangry, so if we would have had to wait for us to catch fish to be able to eat it would not be an enjoyable experience for any of us. And our primary objective even if we are on a “fishing trip” is to have fun and enjoy the trip.
The next morning, we woke up to wonderful weather. I went down to the water to brush my teeth and concluded that it was likely to be a good fishing day judging by the many rippling circles on the water, and then continued brushing my teeth and enjoying the silence. That was until Maya got out of the tent, looked out across the water, and practically shouted something along the lines of “There’s fish everywhere! We need to be fishing!”, and then proceeded to dive back into the tent to get her fishing pole. Which I found kind of funny because usually I am the more energetic of the two of us in the mornings, and then she normally surpasses my energy level by quite a lot sometime after breakfast. The energetic morning fishing unfortunately did not result in any fish for breakfast, but at least we got a good start to the day.
After breakfast we packed our day packs and then followed a stream up the hill behind our camp to a small lake, or rather a large pond. Now, it must be said that even though I like fishing I am not particularly good at it. But even if I usually don’t catch all that many fish, I still enjoy the act of fishing. Standing at the edge of the water, throwing the line out, reeling it in, repeat. There is something sort of meditative about it. The calming repetitiveness of it, and just existing in the here and now makes for a highly relaxing experience, and that is what I like about it. And the surroundings certainly did not subtract from the experience, as the views were beautiful in every direction.
I didn’t catch any fish, or… that is not entirely true, I caught one that I released because it was quite small. Maya on the other hand caught a few, so we were set for lunch. We walked a little further up the hill to a big flat ish rock to eat. By then it was clear that it was going to be a really warm day, so we scrapped the plan of going to a different lake afterwards and instead enjoyed a long lunch with some sunbathing, and then took a detour back to the camp.
One of the problems with being over the treeline when the temperatures creep above 30 degrees Celsius is that there is no shade. Even the tallest of the bushes provide verry little protection from the sun, and whilst you could argue that the tent provides shade. Being inside it feels like being inside a sauna, even with both doors open. The only option for cooling down is therefore getting in the water. So that is what we did. After our short hike taking a dip in the cold mountain water wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it sure as hell was refreshing. After our bath, we spent the rest of the day lounging around the tent and taking a short walk along the riverbank.
Initially we had planned to stay for three nights, but after two immensely warm days, and with the forecast predicting the next day to be even warmer, we decided to cut the trip short and hike out the following morning before the sun got too high. We decided to set the alarm for 8 in the morning the next day, but we ended up waking up before 7 due to the high temperature inside the tent. Since we were already awake we got up, ate a quick breakfast, packed our bags and started hiking back out. We didn’t want to go back the same way we came in, so instead we followed the river up to Håhellervatnet and crossed over the dam to the eastern side of the lake. This is NOT something I recommend doing!!! Seeing as if you fall you will either go swimming with your heavy backpack, or you will fall down 2-3 meters and likely hurt yourself on the rocks. But we decided to be adventurous and, if we are being honest, probably a bit stupid and did it anyways. From there we reconnected with the T-marked trail on the eastern side of the lake and headed towards Håhelleren. There we once again found a suitable rock to sit and eat lunch on before continuing the hike back to the car.
Even if the hiking trip had been cut a bit short, we didn’t want to return to “civilisation” just yet so instead of driving back home we went to Mayas family’s cabin to air out our things and stay for the night. All in all, a successful trip even though most of the plans got thrown out of the window and replaced 😉
