We caught a fish! Finally, we landed one as we were leaving Sula, an area renowned as a rich fishing ground.

Before coming to Scandinavia, we imagined delicious, fresh fish dishes almost every day, with the sea's bounty providing sustenance and making trips to the grocery store unnecessary. Our experience belied that dream. Repeated attempts at fishing proved fruitless. This despite preparing the prescribed rig and following the prescribed procedure.

We were beginning to think the unthinkable -- that our entire Norwegian voyage would come and go without catching a fish. Then, our luck changed.

We slipped our lines around 0600, headed for Kristiansund. About a half-hour into the trip, I cut the motor and furled the sails, leaving all but a slim corner of the jib exposed to a 10-knot following wind. Our speed slowed to one knot, the precise speed for catching fish.

Forty-five minutes later, no fish. Jocelyn complained the pitching and rolling at the slow speed was upsetting her stomach. She had had enough. I had almost reeled the line all the way in when we crossed over a relatively shallow shelf. I let the line out for one last try.

At first, I thought I had snagged the bottom. Then, slowly, I could tell it wasn't a snag.

"Get the net!" I screamed.

The fish emerged from the depths benignly, accepting its fate. I scooped him up and deposited him on the deck. A blow to the head later, and fresh cod was on the menu.

To be sure, until that time off Sula, our fishing efforts were largely incidental to other activities. We would drop the line off the stern as we were making way, trolling along at five to seven knots, much too fast for the lure to sink to effective depths. Or, we would stop briefly over a shelf and drop the line in, but quit after a short while, too impatient to let the lure work.

This approach, however lackadaisical, was not uninformed. Our rig set up followed guidance in the Norwegian Cruising Guide e-book, which stipulates

• 30-meters of heavy (150 kg test) monofilament
• A Svenske Pilk, a shiny, fish shaped 0.25 kg weight with hooks, attached to the end
• A couple of leaders around 10 cm long with hooks and tubular plastic worms tied at 1.5 to 2 meter intervals above the weight
• A wooden reel with a crank to spool the line

According to the e-book, the prescribed procedure is to "stop your boat over a shoal and drop your rig to the bottom. Then pull it up one-half meter and jig it up and down slowly, then raise it slowly in one-half meter stages, jigging all the while. When you feel a nibble, pull up slowly and hoist the fish into the boat." Sounds simple, right?

We even vetted this approach with Jan-Erich, a bonafide advisor with the Norwegian Fiskedirectoratet. He endorsed it, offering variations like lowering the rig in deeper water and pulling it up 10 meters at a time to find the water strata where the fish reside.

Despite all this informed procedure and advice, we had had no luck. Until Sula! Now we can rest easy, knowing that we won't go home without catching a fish in the Norwegian Sea.