Salmon Fishing: Fishing the Gaula

Gaula Fishing on the Malum Winsnes Fishing Area

Fishing takes place on the Gaula River and our guests enjoy some of the best fly water the river has to offer. Winsnes is part of the Malum Winsnes fishing area, a special zone owned and controlled by local land owners. The Malum Winsnes area have jointly operated the fishing zone since the late eighteen hundreds when the salmon lords arrived. The landowners are bound together by a special covenant that prevents the river from being broken up into smaller sections, the idea being that landowners work together to offer fishing rights on a much longer section of river. This is good news for visitors, ensuring that the river is open and available to fishing and that minor local interests do not interfere. In short, the Malum Winsnes fishing project was way ahead of its time and remains a fine model for modern Norwegian landowners to follow.

Fishing on Malum Winsnes is four very special pools and these are complimented by rights to fish ten other pools located outside the Malum Winsnes fishing zone. The Malum Winsnes pools include the most famous pool on Gaula, kroken (or ‘the crook’ in English). Kroken is so revered in salmon fishing circles that it is an ambition of many fishermen simply to be able to fish there. Other pools include Lillestrom (Pronounced lilly-strum), Oksoy (pronounced Ox-soya) and Kjellfue (pronounced shell-flu-a). All of these pools have excellent catch statistics and the Malum Winsnes fishing area forms the backbone of the larger GFF fishing area.

Rotation Fishing

Rotation fishing is exclusive, allowing visitors to fish in pairs on some of the best water on the whole river and not to have to worry about other anglers (note that on pool 8 we occasionally get fishermen on the far bank). There are four pools on the Winsnes fishing area and ten other pools located in the surrounded area. In total, our guests fish fourteen pools on an organised rotation basis because we are allied to Gaula Fly Fishing Friends (GFF).

Pools are fished for six hours before moving on to another one, meaning that our guests fish four different pools every 24 hours. In this way, each guest is guaranteed to be fishing good water almost continuously. Of course, some pools will always fish better than others (the best pools vary according to water height and conditions) but the rotation system ensures that guests will fish top-performing pools every day. The rotation organises 24 anglers into twelve groups of two. Each group fishes four pools every day in six hour shifts – genuine 24 hour fishing if you want it!

Guests arrive on Sunday with fishing from six in the evening until the following Sunday at midday.

Up-to-date, live info on Gaula River water height and flow