Hot as hell

To do a recap of the fishing in July and close to the first half of August, is not terribly difficult. We could summarize it as hot as hell for a bigger part of the period. Depending on which river valley, the water temperature has been between 16 and 24 degrees Celsius, which all of you know doesn’t make for some great salmon fishing — even on a year with a good run.

If we look at the numbers of salmon which has entered the rivers the numbers aren’t great, but in some cases not entirely pitch black either. If we look a Kalix and Byske river, the numbers are about level to the years when we all started fishing some 20 years ago. And back then we where out by the rivers each and every day. But just to state the obvious, there should be no reason to go back to those days.

Torne river is all in all sad story with way less salmon in the river, than the average between 2013 and 2022 (62.500 salmon/year). About 1/3 of that average has entered the river this year meaning there’s still some +20.000 salmon in the system, which means that we can still go fishing, enjoying our passion, but with low expectations and a strict catch and release recommendation.

We know that the catches have been low in all wild salmon rivers in Sweden, not coming anywhere near the numbers we’ve seen between 2013-2022. Although we still got the latter half of August left, and some of our rivers finally have cooled down a bit and catch reports are starting to drop in. So, catching and releasing a Baltic salmon 2024 it’s not impossible, but they don’t come easy.

On the good note, Swedish media, both local and national, have been reporting about the status of the salmon, the herring situation and the overall state of the Baltic sea, pretty frequently during the whole summer, June – August. Which gives us hope that our politicians in Sweden but also around the Baltic sea will start to do the right thing, so that future generations can experience the same joy as all of us salmon anglers do.

So, if you are a salmon angler, or someone who fishes or cares about nature, please speak up! That’s the most important thing we can do as a single individual. On our end, we are deep in the film production on the matter (Free falling) and we are stoked by the fighting spirit we’ve come by while meeting with people who are devoting their lives to preserve the wild Baltic salmon — it’s nothing but a privilege to portrait this incredible hardship.

Let’s all hope 2024 will be remembered for being the beginning of a sustainable and long-term management of our sea and everything that lives there and the end of the industrial harvest of all fish in the Baltic sea.

We are looking forward to a good back end of the season, and we’ll enjoy it even if we do not land any of our favorite species.

Tight lines from up North.