The
Holm WEB-site
Author: Leif Holm, NO-7520 Hegra
Author: Leif Holm, NO-7520 Hegra
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Growing up at a place like Hamnavollan was exciting.
Indoors there wasn't much to do; we had no radio, and we haven't even heard
about TV. Books that might interest a young lad like me were few, and the ones
we had I had already read several times
before I started school. But outside there were countless activities to indulge
oneself in. No more that 50 meters down to the sea, and in the shore area
between high and low tide there was an abundance of life crawling, twisting and
squirming among small and large rocks. And in the sea there was fish. Large
schools of coalfish fry were swimming close to the shore, and also larger fish
could frequently be seen swimming around hunting for food. Fishing was a major
part of life out there, not for fun, but because it brought food home. But for a
lad like me fishing meant excitement, food or no food! My first angling
equipment was a freshly cut young rowan stick, a few meters of sewing thread,
and a bent pin for a hook, on which I put a small sea snail for bait. I was
allowed to stand on the rock beyond our boat house, clearly visible from the
windows, and that's where I caught fish for the cat. Small ones, hardly able to
swallow the bait. It was incredibly exciting. And the cat ate the fish as I
pulled them ashore. Hitra is a rather large island, populated almost
exclusively along the coastline. The interior of the island is mainly pine
forests, marshlands, rocky hills and low mountains. But there are also brooks as
well as small and larger lakes populated by trout. I might have been 5 - 6 years
the first time I was allowed to accompany my father on an angling expedition to
the Hifjell Lake - still with a long and flexible rowan stick for a fishing rod,
but this time a stronger line with a float on it, and a proper hook. Earthworms
were dug out of the ground and put in a box, a packet of sandwiches put in the
rucksack, and we were off. But it was an endless walk! At least an hour, until
we finally were sitting on a rock pointing out in the lake, threading obstinate
worms on the hook. After a few unsuccessful attempts the bob was finally
floating well off the shore. But fish? Not
even en indication that there was any fish around. I guess my father smelled a
rat. I am sure he realised that there's nothing like starting young to become a
passionate angler, and if the fish decides to be absent when a young candidate
makes his first feeble attempts at this noble activity, then there is a big risk
that a dawning enthusiasm may get its deathblow My father decided quickly that the trout swimming
around in the Hifjell Lake this particular night of June had no interest for our
bait, so there was no point in staying there much longer. We set out again,
across marshland and heathen-clad hills until we saw another lake in a dip
between the hills, reflecting the summer night. "Eagle Hill Lake", my
father said, and added, "The trout will bite here". And it did. On
each and every attempt! That night by the Eagle Hill Lake I was incurably
infected by the Angler virus, and ever since that night I have had to carry this
"suffering". I should probably mention that what my father didn't say,
was that this particular lake was over-populated by mostly small and lean fish,
desperately going for anything that looked like food, with or without a hook.
But I didn't care about size or lacking fatness! The trout in "Eagle Hill
Lake" took my bait, and that's what mattered! After this, the forests and hilly landscape of Hitra's
interior quickly became my new paradise. There was life everywhere; the red deer
was numerous, the black grouse and the wood grouse were hatching their eggs
every summer just a few hundred feet from the house. As I grew, my action radius
quickly increased, and it didn't take long before I was spending whole nights
out by some lake with a fishing rod and some sandwiches. And that's the way it has been, all through my
adolescence and adult life. I never went for the extreme challenges that by many
are considered to be synonymous to the phrase "outdoor life", but I
have had many and great experiences staged by the Nature around me.
I know the Røros mountains and the Femund area like my own hip pocket. I
have had the great luck to be able to experience the Varanger Plain for a few
summer weeks, with a soul mate, a friend who long ago crossed the line and
entered the eternal mountain plains. I have caught those really big chars way up
in the central Troms mountains. I have been roaming The Jotunheimen mountains
from top to bottom. Has anyone been sitting by a fire by some lake in the Beiar
mountains, and seen freshly caught trout, fat and red, curling itself in the
frying pan? Smelled the fragrance of a culinary climax rising from the fire,
slipping into your nose, persistently titillating your sense of smell? I have! And here are a few amateur photos from forests,
mountains and sea: (Click on the
small picture to view a larger one).
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