Vigfus Orrason is standing over the sink, gutting and
cleaning three Arctic Charr caught that afternoon on the
River Fljotaa on the northern coast of Iceland. George Bush
Snr, the former US president, has just arrived in Reykjavik
and two of the fish are for him. The third is our supper.
Kurt Malmbak-Kjeldsen, a Danish fishing companion, takes
a puff of his pipe and casts a professional eye over the
Charr. He is satisfied that rigor mortis has not set in.
“It ruins the flesh. I can’t believe how often
chefs who should know better will cook fish that needs to
have been left for a while so that the muscle can relax,”
he says
Malmbak-Kjeldsen is the founder and managing director of
Musholm Lax, a Danish trout farm that specialises in supplying
steelhead trout for large markets such as those in Japan
and Russia. Just now, however, he is drying off, his thermals,
socks and waders pegged on the washing line after a dowsing
in the river.
Outside ripples of thawing winter snow dazzle like Zebra
stripes in the black ashy hollows of the hills that rise
up from the lush green pasture all around. Inside the hour-hand
on the clock has moved past 10pm but the day is showing
no signs of coming to an end. The sun will set briefly after
midnight and reappear soon afterwards. Little wonder, given
such long hours of daylight, that summer salmon fishing
times are restricted to six-hour stretches between 7 am
and 1 pm and 4 pm and 10 pm. People need to sleep.
Under Iceland’s patronymic naming system it can be
established that Vigfus is the son of Orri Vigfusson, chairman
of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, who has arranged the
Bush visit. The former president is an enthusiastic supporter
of the fund, formed 17 years ago to buy out fishing and
netting interests that had been threatening Atlantic salmon
stocks.
Vigfus had found some time to fish this small river before
his more onerous duty of guiding the former president on
the prolific River Sela over the forthcoming days. For the
rest of us, myself, Kurt and Michael Charleston, policy
advisor to the NASF, the Fljotaa excursion is a brief addition
to a five-day fishing trip to the Laxa in Adaldal, known
in Iceland as the “Big Laxa” for the size of
its spring salmon, many of which are hitting the 20 lb mark
at the start of the season.
This year the salmon run is arriving late after heavy snowfalls
in May and few fish have entered the main river. Most fish
are being caught in the sea pool below a large waterfall
as they gather to make their way upstream.
The mood in the lodge is phlegmatic. Anyone who has fished
for some time knows how unpredictable it can be. “I
have known parties here for four or five days in mid July
– the absolute prime time - who have caught nothing,”
says Ingo Agustsson, my guide who is rowing our boat close
to the lip of the falls. I pray for his continuing good
health.
“If anything happens throw this over quickly,”
he says, pointing to the anchor. The boat carries an extra
oar, just in case. A boat and its two occupants did once
go over the falls. One survived and one was never seen again.
Later, when back on the bank, we spot a fish in a short
pool among cascading tiers of waterfall. By casting upstream
I manage to get a weighted tube fly in front of the salmon’s
nose. It’s a big fish and the take is savage, cutting
my leader in an instant on the lava rock. The last I see
of the fish is a shiny humped back taking off over the falls.
On the way back near the bank, among windblown grasses,
moss campion and little tufts of thrift, all struggling
to grow in the dark volcanic soil, we stumble across the
nest of an Eider duck. It has four large green eggs, three
of which hatch the next day. It’s a smaller clutch
than usual. The Eider, like the fishing, has been hit by
the spring snow and the number of nesting ducks in the area
has been halved. I pluck some down from an empty nest and
pop it in to the pocket of my waders as a souvenir.
Apart from the river wading there is little need to walk
very far. Anglers on most of the Icelandic rivers are pampered
in well appointed lodges that cater for their every fishing
need. Each evening after the end of our fishing session
we are treated to a high-quality three course meal. There
is a hot tub and sauna but, for me, the most impressive
part of the lodge is the drying room where waders are suspended
over pipes that blow hot air in to the legs.
Hanging my waders, the pocket flaps open and the room is
quickly engulfed in duck down, like the residue from some
dormitory pillow fight. “Eider,” I say by way
of explanation. My fellow anglers seem bemused.
The lodge is a mixture of nationalities: Irish, Spanish,
English, Danish and Icelandic. Two Irish fishermen - Jim
and John - who go all over the world sharing a rod, explain
their system of taking hour-long turns. “If one of
us catches a fish, he hands the rod over and a new hour
begins for his partner. It works well,” says John.
The car park, like that of every salmon fishing lodge in
Iceland, is a showroom of four-wheeled-drive toys for grown
up boys. As confirmation in a Reykjavik street I see a fat-wheeled
Izuzu Trooper with the number plate: “BIG TOY”.
Fishing rods are raked over the bonnet of every car. The
only thing missing in the freezer is fish. On this river,
as on a growing number of salmon rivers all over the world,
a catch-and-release fly-only policy has been introduced.
Up to five years ago most anglers fishing the Big Laxa
in spring would be using a worm. As fly-fishing began to
grow in popularity anglers began to seek out prawn and worm
imitations. The most popular of these by far is the “Frances”
named after an English woman who used to take telephone
orders on behalf of the fly’s originator, the late
Hampshire-based fisherman and fly tier, Peter Dean.
No Icelandic fisherman worth his salt is without his red
or black Frances flies. Summer patterns such as the “Dimmbla”
rely on combinations of black, blue and silver materials.
Another popular fly, the “Sunray Shadow” is
skirted across the surface of the stream, often tied to
the line asymmetrically to create a discernible riffle that
fish at times can find irresistible.
Sadly the fish find my own riffled fly only too easy to
resist. I try the fly on a section of river that can only
be reached by walking provocatively close to a colony of
Arctic Terns. The tern is a bird with attitude that thinks
nothing to attacking a prospective intruder. In something
resembling a scene from a Hitchcock film my only protection
is the fishing rod that succeeds in keeping the angry birds
at bay.
Birds are a constant on the river. A family of Whooper
swans and their chicks glide by while Whimbrel, Curlew and
Black-tailed Godwit maintain a steady stream of twittering
calls from the surrounding marshes. I sit by a glassy feeder
stream for the best part of an hour watching pairs of Red-necked
Phalarope plucking at the meniscus for small emerging nymphs.
Iceland’s salmon season is short. Every river is
restricted to 92 continuous days of fishing and the river
managers can choose the start and finish of their respective
seasons. Runs start at different times, depending on the
river, but anglers should be wary of any agencies that offer
May fishing in Iceland. Runs rarely start before June. The
biggest numbers of fish start arriving in July so the most
expensive fishing weeks are those in July and August.
Record catches in 2005 have made Iceland this year one
of the hottest salmon fishing venues in the world, although
heavy competition in Russia has suppressed demand from US
anglers. It is not only former presidents who come here.
Jack Niklaus, the golfer, is a regular visitor, Eric Clapton
and Prince Charles tend to patronise the Hofsa and film
stars such as Kevin Costner and Cameron Diaz have also visited
in the past year or two.
Prices tend to be related to 10-year average catches. In
practice, however, the fishing at prime times on prime rivers
works like any market that matches willing sellers with
willing buyers. A rod on a mid-July beat on the most prolific
rivers such as the Hofsa, Sela or Laxa in Asum will set
you back between £2,000 and £2,500 a day.
Peter McLeod, who runs the UK-based fishing agency, Aardvark
McLeod, had just found a rod for a client on the River Nordura
for £8,800 for six days in mid-July. “That week
had come free due to a cancellation for the first time in
35 years,” he says. Most surplus rods, however, come
available in September. By the end of November the prime
times on the best rivers tend to have been booked up apart
from the odd cancellation,” he says.
Not all the fishing is so expensive, however. Iceland has
more than 70 rivers and some good fishing can still be bought
for between £50 and £100 a day, depending on
the river and the time of year. One river, the Ellidaar
that runs through the centre of Reykjavik can be rented
in July for £80 a session. As Reykjavik Angling Club,
founded there in 1939, puts it: “Nowhere else in the
world will you find salmon fishing of this quality in the
middle of a capital city.”
Not everyone will appreciate the flyovers and nearby housing
that have urbanised the river banks, but there is no shortage
of running salmon and, as Olafur Johannsson, one of the
club guides points out: “It’s the only salmon
river in Iceland you can reach by bus.”
The club was formed to allow Icelandic anglers the opportunity
to lease stretches of salmon river from the farmers who
owned the fishing rights. Today it has leases on 30 rivers.
Haraldur Eriksson, the club’s marketing and sales
manager, says that members tend to make days available for
visiting anglers at the height of the season. Days can be
bought directly from the club or from outside agencies such
as Aardvark McLeod that has its travel agency concession
in UK and Europe.
Iceland has more than 50 fishing clubs, some that have
arrangements with agencies and some that reach private rental
agreements. The better connected the angler, the more chance
there is of finding a prime beat. But even the best beats
cannot guarantee fish. While most agencies will quote 10
year averages, as a customer it sometimes helps to find
out what the catch was in the previous year.
Other considerations are aesthetics. While worming is
a skill in its own right there is little doubt about the
size of the challenge in bringing a fish to a fly where
positioning and fly movement can be crucial. It means, however,
that fewer fish are likely to be caught on fly-only rivers.
Then there is fish size. The most prolific rivers in terms
of numbers tend to have average-sized fish while specimen
fish are concentrated in a minority of rivers.
The record rod and line catch figures in 2005 exceeding
55,000 fish for the first time since national records were
collated in the early 1970s, is good news for Iceland’s
rivers. Credit for much of the improvement must go to the
NASF that has succeeded in buying out significant fishing
interests in Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
The trawler nets and most of the estuary nets in Scotland
and the North East coast of England were bought out in the
same way, often involving hard negotiations with Vigfusson,
whose background in the herring fishing industry enables
him to speak the language of the commercial fishermen.
“We know what this fishing means to their livelihoods
so we have worked hard to find alternative sources of income,
often involving fishing for other species such as lumpfish
in Greenland,” he says.
Today the fund is working to remove Norway’s estuary
nets but the biggest remaining commercial drain on Atlantic
salmon stocks, says Vigfusson, is Irish drift netting which
continues to kill more than 100,000 wild salmon every year.
The NASF has argued that income from rod and line fishing
is far more significant than that earned from drift net
fishing. To do both, says Vigfusson, is unsustainable.
My companions both catch fish. I leave the Big Laxa fishless
apart from two charr and a trout, but happy in the knowledge
that I tried my best. “We’ll have to have you
back again so you get one next time,” says Orri. That’s
fishing. There’s always another day.
Richard Donkin fished the Laxa in Adaldal as a guest
of Orri Vigfusson(vivvi@icy.is).
In Reykjavik, he stayed as a guest of the Hotel Holt (www.holt.is),
a popular stopover among salmon fishers. Salmon fishing
in Iceland is available through Reykjavik Angling Club (www.svfr.is)
that rents rivers only. A travel service and fishing is
provided by various agencies, including Aardvark McLeod
(www.aardvarkmcleod.com),
Frontiers (www.frontierstravel.com) and Roxtons (www.roxtons.com).
