When adding new fishing destinations to our portfolio, it is always important for us in Fishspot to have a reconnaissance to get to know the place. This time we have had a look at Selbu and what the municipality has to offer. We know this much – the area is very interesting. It has a varied landscape and fishing, we had heard, and our expectations was high. Even the weather was looking promising.

Known for its prolific insect-life and delta like areas, we where expecting the banks to be filled with fishermen, but our surprise the are is not getting heavily fished. The lower part is a lot like a delta.  The river splits up to side rivers, with channels, thresholds and islands. This creates a perfect habitat for both insects and fish. As we arrived the fish was rising and it was all looking promising.

The river fishes well on all sorts of equipment, but with us being fly fishers the hatching was our main focus.  And the most saught after event is the hatching of the large Danica mayfly. And it did not take long before we spotted the characteristic sails drifting down the river. As with the rest of Norway, the summer is late and we showed up early as we had done with most locations this far. If you set your course to Nea now, you will most likely get a lot better hatching.

With many other species hatching the fish was rising, not steadily we must add, but enough to fish on. With the short hatching periods we had the fishing was tricky and we seemed to be cursed with fishing falling off, tippets breaking and general fumbling on our part. Maybe it is was really down to us and poor fishing skills?

The Nea river have both calm slow flowing water, backwashes, seams, breaks and riffling water, the river is meandering down to where it meets Selbusjøen lake.

We teamed up with some local fishermen to take us out on lake Selbusjøen, for a spot of pike fishing.  Selbusjøen has a growing stock of pike, and from being an unwanted species som years, it has now been protected with big pike in mind. As normal, maybe due to cold spring, the fishing was poor and we had to give in with no catch.

The lake however, is beautiful surrounded by lush green fields and forest covered hills reflecting the lake. It is truly a place of dreams for pike fishing. It has several islands, shallows and numerous bays that are perfect pike habitat. The lake also contains arctic char, trout and burbut. As we where failing our pike target, we observed boats landing a good number of char.

There are a number of good options in regards to accommodation, all near to or on the water bank. One of which is  Selbu Camping, where you are right on the lake.  Another option, if you prefer a more retracted location in the forest, with trout lakes near by is Østrungen Friluftsleir worth a go.

For hiking and camping Østrungen offers many hidden gems, and over 300 waters and has a really diverse nature. We did not have time to properly take it all in, but we are coming back to properly check this place out.

Getting a license for fishing in  Selbu. Either you buy the Selbu card, whitch gives you access to most of what the municipality has to offer, or you can buy an individual license for the respective fishing places.