It was a sunny, Scandinavian afternoon when Even Nord Rydningen spotted something in the still waters beneath Oslo’s Gullhaug bridge.
“It looked like a trout, but it also looked a bit like a shark,” he told Norwegian daily Aftenposten.
Upon closer inspection, Rydningen realized it was in fact a pike, a sharp-toothed (but tasty) species that are sometimes referred to as a “Nordic crocodile.”
Having fished a lot as a child, the man decided this was an opportunity to try something new. Treading carefully, he climbed over the railing until he was right above his unsuspecting prey. Then, with one swift movement, he grabbed the beast by its gills and pulled it out of the water.
“I beat it to death,” Rydningen said.
A climate activist, he went on to say how great it was to find such rich wildlife in the city, especially at a time when the fjords are increasingly drained of fish.
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Photo: Even Nord Rydningen
But as Jo Vegar Arnekleiv, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, notes, people should think twice before emulating Rydningen’s hands-on approach.
“A big pike shouldn’t be messed around with,” he told the paper. “In the worst case you could get bit.”
Luckily for Rydningen, no extremities were lost. The unfortunate fish, on the other hand, ended up being turned into pike cakes. God appetitt, as the Norwegians say!
