A river keeper and his extended office
“Kvennan is the heart of it, but the office is a good deal bigger than the zone markers,” says river keeper Eirik Sætren.
Eirik Sætren’s main beat is Kvennan Fly Fishing, but the work does not end where the fly zone does. Around it lies a spread of rivers in the Tynset, Alvdal and Folldal districts that he also keeps an eye on for Fishspot, a slice of the upper Glomma valley big enough to keep any fly angler busy for a season. Think of it as his extended office.
“People come for Kvennan, and they should,” says Sætren. “But half the pleasure is what lies around it. If the grayling are being difficult, or you just fancy a change, you are never far from another good river.” Here is the round, in his words.
The Glomma at Tynset, and the Tunna
Just below Kvennan, where Åbrua marks the end of the fly zone, the Glomma rolls on quietly, broad and slow across the valley floor, for the best part of 19 km down to the Alvdal boundary.
“It is a calm, big-river stretch. Good for pike if that is your game, and a proper challenge if you want to fly fish for whitefish on light gear,” Sætren says. The tributary Tunna has its own fly-fishing zone, run on the same rules as Kvennan.
Brya, for visible big trout
A little to the east, the small river Brya winds through Brydalen and into Finstadsjøen. It is a different game altogether.
“Brya is where you hunt fish you can see. The bottom is pale and the current slow, so you often spot the trout before you cast. They run one to three kilos, lake fish that move up into the river when conditions are right,” he says.
It does not give itself up easily. Only five permits are sold a day, every trout over 35 cm goes back, and some days the river looks empty. “Then the water lifts or the temperature shifts, and there is a big trout sitting over the sand. You have to be there when it happens,” Sætren says.
The Glåma and Folla in Alvdal
Downstream in Alvdal, the Glåma and Folla give miles of varied water with healthy grayling and trout. This is the broad confluence country some call the golden triangle, where the Folla and the Sølna come down off the high ground to meet the main river: the Folla clear and cold from the Dovre plateau, cutting a deep V-valley through its lower miles, grayling water all the way down. The Glåma itself runs wide and calm, quickening at Steimoen, with big whitefish and grayling in the slow sections and large trout that feed on small fish. There are pike here too, some over ten kilos.
The fly-only stretches in the Folla are run as their own zones, in clear, cold water, with a limit of one fish a day.
Up into Folldal, and Grimsa
Further up the valley, Folldal opens into a web of rivers and streams: the Folla, the Marsjøåa, and the Einunna threading 24 km down what is reckoned Norway’s longest seter valley, areas people have fished since the ice withdrew from it. The Folla runs clear and cold here; the copper and zinc that the old Folldal mine once bled into it have long been cleaned out. Above the confluence at Grimsbu sits the Grimsa fly-fishing zone, a mountain river that comes into form a little later in the summer, once the cold meltwater has cleared.
“Grimsa is worth the wait. Give it a couple of weeks of warm weather after the snow is out of the system and it can be excellent. It runs on its own license, mind,” he says.
One keeper, many rivers
“That is the luck of this job. I get to know all of it, and I get to point people to the right river on the right day,” Sætren says. “You'll usually find me bankside or sometimes mid-stream, somewhere along the water.”
