THE ANGLERS GOLDEN PARADISE
 I have gone fishing in Alaska for king salmon, on the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia for silver salmon. I have fished Atlantic salmon in Iceland and black marlin in Australia. But this is different. For I have been to the Faroe Islands before. Several times - as a boy. So I know what those 18 islands can offer - it is no exaggeration to say that they offer everything an angler could wish for. Wonderful walks in the mountains to distant lakes where trout hide behind almost every stone, foaming waterfalls with newly arrived gleaming sea trout and, in some of the waterholes under the falls, even salmon. River mouths where you can see scores of sea salmon jump around in the sea just outside. Calm fiords, and in the sounds swift currents with shoals of coalfish and cod. And in the ocean you can meet one of the giants - the halibut - which up here may weigh up to 90 - 100 kg.
In these islands people have a different attitude to fishing. The villages stand on the coast. And on a walk down to the quay the curious visitor may often meet a couple of boys who plan to spend a quick half hour fishing. They seldom need more. Their fishing gear looks like the things I used myself as a boy. An old heavy 7 to 8 foot fibre glass rod with half the eyes roughly repaired with tape. An old fixed-spool reel with a 0.35 mm line with lots of resistance. A heavy spoon bait or a plummet with bait. And then they seldom cast more than a few metres. But that is enough when the current is right. In the sea!
I myself am an inveterate troller, but fly-fishing is beginning to interest me more and more. Tempting the fish to bite an artificial insect in competition with nature’s own creatures is a fantastic experience. I cannot think of any kind of angling which arouses such passion among the best anglers as fly-fishing.
It is an important rule when you go near the water that you do it carefully. Especially so in the Faroes, as the water here is crystal clear and the depth of the water - except in the holes under the falls - is seldom more than one metre in summer.
The calm evening revealed a fantastic glassy lake. I sneaked down on my knees to the bank. Usually it is best to stand with the wind coming in from the lake. Partly because there are ripples on the surface that hide my presence from the fish, and partly because insects and larvas drift with the wind. The fish are near the food.
The trout is very shy, but a few casts and it is there! The small spinning bait I use on the Danish coasts has tempted a nice-sized trout of 40 cm to bite. And that was it. It seemed as if it was the only fish in the whole lake. Until the golden hour. Then a few rings begin to form in the water. As if at a sign of command the fish begin to eat insects on the surface, mostly quite small fish, but a few splashes indicate bigger fish. And suddenly they are everywhere in the lake. You may see roughly the same pattern in all the lakes in the Faroes, but it is typical that the smaller the lake, the more shy the fish.
I change for the fly rod, and then it is a fight against time till I find the fly that is closest to the flies the fish eat. When I find it at last the golden hour is over. I only manage to tempt one little fish to bite before the rings in the water disappear as quickly as they came.
Full of hope for the fishing of the next few days I make a stop on the quay on my way home. A tourist is fishing coalfish with a plummet and a hook with mussels. He has one coalfish in his bucket. Tempted by my boyhood memories I try my little spinning bait again. One long cast, a little pause for the bait to sink a few metres. And pop! There is a rise to the bait. Half an hour and a dozen coalfish later I leave a frustrated tourist who would have loved to change places with me!
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Faroe Islands Travel Tips