Anyone contemplating the possibility of
fishing for salmon in Iceland this year after its record
catches in 2005 may have to move quickly since most of the
best rivers are already booked apart from a few days here
and there, says Orri Vigfusson, chairman of the North Atlantic
Salmon Fund.
Many of the choice beats,
he says, have gone to big City banks or dealers who happen
to be clients of the Icelandic banks that run fishing operations.
Fishing for business is a growing trend in the Square Mile.
“A few years ago it was golf. It’s
fashionable now to go salmon fishing,” says Vigfusson.
So what are the attractions of Iceland? “If somebody
has a heart attack there is first class medical care, mobile
phones work everywhere and the lodges have some of the best
chefs in the world,” he says.
Added to this is that other special attraction
for the sort of people who need the digits of both hands
to tot up their bonuses - exclusivity bought at eye-watering
prices. Fishing at the peak time in August on one of the
top rivers can cost between £1,000 and £2,000
a day per rod.
Not everyone in Iceland
pays those prices. Outside the peak times, the locals can
still finding fishing for maybe £200 or £300
a day but that’s still pricey. The worrying thing
for those of us who don’t want to pay top dollar is
that an overall growth in the popularity of a sport can
have a knock on effect on prices and demand elsewhere.
Money helps but it still doesn’t
open every door in salmon fishing. There was a time when
it used to be about who you knew. I remember knocking on
the estate manager’s door at one of the Tay’s
most exclusive beats back in the 1970s to ask about availability.
I felt about as welcome as a stale pie.
“Ye might get a spring rod sonny
if you’re lucky but you’ll nae find an October
rod,” said the manager in a doleful tone
In those days you had to
wait for the death of someone renting certain beats and
even then you had to be standing by the bed with your finger
on the pulse. Today that system has relaxed although demand
is returning and the internet has made booking simpler on
some beats. That said, my spring beat on the Dee this year
was only secured after some military-style interrogation
of the ghillie.
Thankfully the Scottish
riparian system upholds for the most part a sense of old
school gentility that, like golf, expects certain standards.
I’m not talking here about the wearing of a collar
and tie but of good manners around the water that discourages
those selfish types who always grab the plum spot; or the
ignorant anglers who can’t tell the difference between
a fresh run fish and a well-mended kelt (a fish returning
from spawning that should not be taken).
I must pass on this lesson in fish identification
to the two shooting friends I am taking to Scotland in April
who are only just beginning to digest the difficulties of
fishing a heavy sunk fly in the spring. There’s a
big difference between sight-casting with a light trout
rod and wrenching a weighted fly from the depths on your
double-handed rod with a bank of trees behind your back.
A casting lesson would help before they
go. It’s a waste of good salmon water to be learning
from the ghillie on your first day of fishing. A few weeks
ago I had the opportunity to work on my double-handed casting
with David Griffiths, the chief instructor at Total Fly
Fishing* that uses a lake platform on the Fonthill estate
near Salisbury.
The most useful skills beyond the overhead
cast are the Spey and the double-Spey that enable you to
feed line out without a back cast that might catch in trees.
Griffiths includes a few others such as the T-cut and the
snake roll if you want to explore some of the fancier techniques.
My biggest problem is remembering everything
I learn. I don’t, of course, but the lessons are worth
it, even if you have fished for years.
