Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 11 October 2025
I have mentioned before that the season for seatrout differs a lot along the Swedish coast. Some areas are open the year around. Many of the areas with different rules closes at September 30, many of them open at January 1. The general area I fish in open at April 1 and closes at September 30, with a little exception. A “small” part of the area has an exception, here we are allowed to fish until October 14. We call these the bonus weeks.
I have not been able to find the reason for these bonus weeks. A few years ago the information was that they were gone, I’m not sure if it was some misprint in the rules or an attempt to remove them. I have a memory reading somewhere that the reason we have these bonus weeks is that the people got as a gift from queen Christina as a gift the permission to fish for seatrout and salmon in this area. A gift that could never be revoked. It does kind of make sense. The area is located in Gothenburg, which was founded in 1621 and Christina lived from 1626 to 1689. So the timeframe makes sense. And salmon was a big thing in this area. A river that is part of the drainage basin that ends here, if you follow that a long way from here you will end up in an area that is fucked up because of hydro power. But there is a hiking trail there with some information signs about the area and the importance of the river. There you will learn that the people in the area was obliged to provide the king with 18 salted salmons each year. Which period I cannot remember. But please note and do not take the story about queen Christina as a fact. Hopefully I will find some source for the reason and I can write about that in the future.
What kind of doesn’t make sense is that the area of the bonus weeks is part of a river mouth. At least it is very far from any kind of spawning grounds for the trout and salmon and the fish you catch is not in spawning suit. But it is a good fishing area, but far from beautiful. A big part of the area is fucked up with industries, military and harbour area. Sweden’s most important harbour is located here. Both now and historically. Which has some interesting aspects going on. Like all fish in Sweden is auctioned off from here and that historically Gothenburg has a lot of motorheads. The freshest fish and the purest amphetamine.
Hopefully I can squeeze in one or two more fishing trips during the bonus weeks. So far I have one outing during the bonus weeks and didn’t see one fish. But I have gotten a few sessions before closing of the regular season. Which was quite good sessions, a number of fish in each session. But I had to work quite hard for those fishes. Moving a lot, changing flies and placing the casts really well. During the last session I found some new spots that looked very good, but only produced one strike. I spent all of the good tidal water in these areas. It is quite fascinating the tidal water here, it is not big but it impacts the fishing. But what I find the most fascinating is that the impact the tidal water can have on the movement in the water you can tell when the tidal water has stopped moving and reached a plateau. You just get a gut feeling that something has changed, you can feel that something is off. Suddenly the fish is gone, the activity in water changes. And you check the weather apps, and surely the tide is at a plateau.
So back to that final session. The tidal water was at a plateau and I was thinking about giving up but I checked one spot at my way home. Here the wind put a lot of movement in the water. I was drifting at around 2.5 knots. Then you have no time for tangles or you will blow past the good spots. I did a drift of the spot and got no action but felt that there had to be some fish there. I changed fly to an olive woolly bugger, not something I often fish but it felt right. I pulled out almost all of the tricks I have in my book. The special trick isn’t that special but somedays you have to put the fly right at the edge of the seaweeds and tease the fish out. I know a spot where there usually stands fish but didn’t get any action. Until I decided to do a long lift and recast. There was something that looked like a fish. So reset the boat and drift again. Cautious strike. Reset again, missed strike again. On the third drift I got the fish! A small one, but it always feels great to net at least one on the season finale. A little bit further down the drift I found another spot that held fish. Here I found a little bit bigger fish. Each drift here produced a little bit bigger fish, until it stopped. Not a bad end of the seatrout season.
Cheers, Rickard