Published Feb 13. 2004 - 20 years ago
Updated or edited Jun 15. 2021

Iceland, 5½ days

Iceland is best known for its salmon fishing, but the island has some of the world's best brown trout fishing too... and arctic char... and sea trout. So GFF partner Martin Joergensen and his friend Asger Olesen had 5½ great days of fishing the summer of 2003.

Rods in place

First try

Varmá

Martin Joergensen - Jón Eyfjörð

It was going to be a brief encounter. We knew that already from the start. Five and a half days with a very tight schedule and some long car rides and maybe even domestic flights to cover all the places we wanted to see.
Well... five and a half days with little food, little sleep, uncomfortable travelling - and lots of fishing in some of the world's best trout waters...? Such is life!

Clean gear

Coming to Iceland means coming into contact with some authorities that mean serious business. Icelandic fishing is high quality and Icelandic waters are amongst the ones in the world that are not infected with foreign fungi, bacteria and parasites. And the authorities want to keep it that way, so all your gear must be thoroughly cleaned before entering the country.
You can opt to do it yourself, authorised by a veterinarian or similar authority. You can also choose to let the locals do what they do so well: charge quite a lot of money for what seems to be very little. We looked into the first option and decided against it, opting for a cleaning in the airport, where the staff will disappear behind a door with your rods, reels and waders, emerging half a minute later with the gear - and a bill summing up to 600 Icelandic kroners a set. The treatment took five minutes behind closed doors, and no trace af it was left on the gear. No wonder this country has very high standards of living.
Never the less it's the easiest way to get the gear disinfected, and trust us: this is peanuts compared to other expenses on Iceland.

Arriving

We took the airport bus into Reykavik where Asger's friend Bjarni picked us up and brought us to his home in Reykavik where we were to stay the first night.
Our friend - guide Jon Eyfjord - picked us up early the next morning, and drove us directly to the river Varma/Thorleifslaekur, less than an hour's drive from Reykjavik.
For many Icelandic fly fishers, this is where you start the fly fishing season during springtime. We were here late in the season in August, and the weather was grey and misty with scattered showers.

Geysir

The river is one of Iceland's extremely many rivers holding trout and salmon. It's placed in a geothermal area around the village Hveragerdi, known for the many greenhouses benefiting from the hot water in the ground.
While fishing this river, expect a geysir to erupt every thirty seconds or so, bursting boiling water more than twenty meters up in the air. The green hillsides with hot steam emerging from the ground here and there and the geysir eruptions makes this a remarkable fishing experience. The river is a great and well known seatrout river, and our guide was surprised that we didn't catch a sea trout in the first few casts.
He would point out a particular spot:
- Cast there, and let it drift over there...
We would cast precisely according to his excellent instructions and he would look at the water in honest surprise that nothing happened.
- Again, a bit closer to the bank!
Again a nice cast, and perfect drift and no reactions. And again astonishment in his eyes.
We scooted upstream a bit, then downstream and even though we cast the right size 10 Black Ghosts in the exact right spots all we caught in Varma were some small brown trout.
After this wet day we went back to Bjarni's and Anetta's warm and dry apartment enjoying a quiet evening, a warm shower and a soft bed.

Ytri Rangá

Angelica

Salmon fight

Next day we fished for salmon.
And yes, salmon fishing in Iceland is indeed expensive. We had come to fish trout in Iceland, but the opportunity given, well... who would turn down the chance to fish for Icelandic salmon?
Yttri Ranga (the western Ranga) a little further from Reykjavik than Varma/Thorleiflaekur was available to us.
We fished the upper beat, above a large waterfall. Below the fall they caught salmon. Too many. And probably too easy!
We flogged the water above the fall - almost to no avail. After a few hours of fishing Asger's line tightened, and a salmon showed itself and gave a good fight for about thirty seconds, before it continued it's journey upstream. That hurt!

Hard work

Martin was fishing his 10 weight two hand rod, and apart from the sheer poetry in motion of casting, his biggest experience was struggling with two heavy Snelda flies on the tippet on Jon's recommendation.
The water is perfect for the two handed rod. Lots of water to cover, easy wading, even currents and long stretches of uniform, fairly shallow water with the odd boulder or underwater rock strewn in plus the variation of the river's meandering through the landscape. Martin's heavy combo enticed a single fish to follow at one point, but he had no strikes or other contacts.
Asger's fish was the only salmon we saw. Well, Jon, our guide, caught one, but the guide catching fish doesn't really count, does it...?
Our theory was that the salmons stayed in the pool just below the fall, where the fishing was obviously very productive.
The upper beat first opens by August the 1st, supplying new, endless miles of riverbank upstream. We walked for at least 5 kilometres (3 miles), and saw plenty very nice water, but no salmon. We could catch the odd brown trout if we wanted. None big, but still beautiful. But who wants to fish for small brownies on salmon water priced 1,000 US$ per day per rod?
Usually the salmon beats in this price range are very productive, but for us it proved to be hard work with little outcome.
As soon as the fish would start moving upstream, we were sure that the beat would become an excellent stretch of water with plenty salmon to catch.

View

Fishmobile

Gale force casting

Releasing

Nice brown

Nice sea trout

Jón Eyfjörð - Asger Olesen - Martin Joergensen

Trout up north

No, salmon fishing is definitely for the far-too-rich-guys and not common folk like us.
We had come to Iceland to experience the great trout fishing, and we found it in the northern part of the island.
After one night's drive through Iceland, sleeping a couple of hours in the small town off Skagafjordur, we were at the banks of Litla. This great river in the north-east part of Iceland, east of Husavik, offers you everything. Deep stretches with challenging nymph fishing, varied bends great for streamers, and slower stretches with arctic char. We even found a large, shallow and very calm pool were Martin managed to get a couple of small fish to take a dry - a Black Funnel. actually.
We caught some fine trout in Litla, and Martin even made an Icelandic grand slam: a seatrout, a brownie and an arctic char caught the same day.

Nymphing and streaming

Martin chose to fish with deeply fished nymphs most of the time, in spite of the tradition in Iceland leaning more towards streamer fishing. A heavy nymph and a strike indicator proved to be as lethal here as anywhere in the world where trout roam.
Just below a deeply undercut bank he managed to cast his rig about 3 metres into the gale and get a drift of maybe 3-4 meters before his indicator blew into the grassy bank.
Even under those less-than-optimal conditions his beadhead flies brought several nice fish to hand, including the sea trout comprising a third of the grand slam and several brown trout in absolutely decent sizes.
Asger was casting streamers in the more traditional down-and-across manner favoured by most locals, and this also proved to be productive - particularly on necks and more shallow runs of the river.

Green stuff

Jon had arranged a small cabin close to the river for us. We rode there after having bought groceries and eaten a meal. The cabin was fine, and we slept well and long in real beds.
Our last day of fishing was on the lower part of the well known salmon river Laxa, also called Big Laxa.
The river also supplied some fine trout fishing, but is entirely different than Litla. It is wide and slow and not nearly as changeable as Litla. On the other hand it has a lot of surface activity and due to its large, calm surface begs to be fished with a dry fly.
But even though it was a very attractive water it proved to be a challenge to fish. Half of the time we had pouring rain - cats and dogs and not really promoting to dries. And there was a lot of green stuff in the water - algae and weed flushed down from the lake above the dam and really an annoying menace to all types of fishing.

Removing dirt

Rain and weed

Dirt!

In the rain again

Last evening

A rock and a hard place

So we were caught between a rock and a hard place in selecting method:
- Fish a streamer or a nymph and be forced to pick off green goo from every fly, knot and indicator between every cast - very well knowing that within seconds of the fly landing in the water it would be covered again.
Fish a dry fly with little surface activity going on and rain hammering onto the water, drowning the fly and disabling you from seeing anything happening out there.
In spite of the tough odds, we managed to perform both streamer-, nymph- and dryfly fishing, catching several fine trout.

A break

Unfortunately Jon's wife was taken ill, and we had to break off fishing. We almost decided to join him back to Reykavik, but changed our minds last minute. We took him to the airport, did a bit of shopping and returned to the last few hours of fishing in Laxa.
And had things changed? They sure had. The rain was gone, the wind had calmed, and we even had a bit of sun as it was setting. Our evening turned into a great fishing adventure, where we followed local customs and fished streamers down and across, stripping them back at high paces. And we had fish in the surface, fish following and fish taking. Casting to a spot with surface activity almost surely brought a fish's attention and we both had a ball.
Wish we could have stayed!
But we had to stop. I called to Asger that time was up, but he was busy reeling in a nice trout. I was literally breaking my rod down and on my way to pack the car, while he was fighting the last fish.
Wish we could have stayed! Really!

A typical brown trout

Asger's last

Black Bead Nymph

Bleka

Martin Joergensen - Jón Eyfjörð

The last rush

But we had to leave. There was a plane to catch and a rental car to return first. And we had to fill the tank and clean it out a bit - and maybe get our stuff just a little more organised before checking it in at Akureyri Airport.
We flew low through the beautiful landscapes and hit a gas station on the way into town. I cleaned out the back of the car while Asger filled the tank.

We hurried to the airport where I tried to compress the luggage and stuff rods into rod tubes while Asger dropped off the car.
As we checked in, the final call sounded in the speakers, and the engines were running as they pulled up the stairs behind us.
We were off to Reykavik, where we once again would be picked up by Bjarni and enjoy his hospitality before leaving for Copenhagen the next day.

Troutfishing Iceland

Trout fishing in Iceland is as well regulated as the famous salmon fishing, and as good indeed. You'll find that there is space enough, allowing for fishing a river almost without meeting fellow flyfishers a whole day. The trout are truly wild, and there are more off them than in most other rivers in the world, and some rivers host really huge fish. It's comparatively expensive though, but quality does cost.
For more information about this great fishing, go to Trophytrout.is where you will find packaged trips with or without guide at reasonable prices. 

 

Our sucesses

Golden drops

Self Timer

Bjarni and Jon - good friends make a fishing trip tenfold better!
Litla - what a perfect water!
Beadheads - nymph fishing works everywhere!
Landscapes - Iceland has more than you can consume in a lifetime!
Our last night in Laxa - fantastic after a somewhat dismaying and very rainy afternoon.
Asger's first salmon - a pity he lost it!
Two hand casting in Yttri Ranga - a great experience, and the only way to get two Snelda flies anywhere!
Breakfast in Akureyri - with warm coffee, morning papers, computer and digital images... and Danish pastry!
Hardfiskur - that infamous Icelandic salted and dried fish. Chips with fish taste... and smell!
Our arrival at the airport in Akureyri - more precise than ever, minutes before take off!

Saved by the fishing limo!

Our mishaps
Long drives, short nights - that's what you can expect from a five and a half day fishing trip.
Wind and rain - come on, this is Iceland. What did you expect? Summer? In August?
Lunch by Ranga - a very wet lunch break in the rain with our yellow plastic bag posted next to the road as a signal to Jon.
Mosquitoes - Jon kept saying "This is nothing. You should see when they are plenty!"
Lousy sweets - we bought them, we tasted them, we hated them... but we ate them!
Green stuff - why of all places and times, did Laxa have to be drenched with weed and algae just when we were fishing it?
Jon's wife taken ill - he had to leave us in such a hurry that we hardly managed to thank him.
Rush to the airport - we probably didn't adhere to all rules and regulations regarding speed limits.
Fish left on a gas station - the two fish we killed and took for Bjarni... Martin put them in the trash by mistake when cleaning up the car minutes before leaving Akureyri.
Burgers - the worst burgers on the surface of the planet are probably served on the gas station in Husavik.

Our fishing

Just beaded!

Almost no dry flies - it can be done, but don't go to Iceland with only dries in the box
Streamers and deep nymphs - that is what works and what brings the big fish in
Down and across - this is sooo classical, so relaxing and so efficient
Woolly buggers - don't they just work everywhere
Bead head nymphs - well, not much to say there
Black Ghost with eyes - remember the Black Ghost?
Snelda - some fly!
Two hand rods - if you go salmon fishing, go two handed

Travelling in Iceland

Almost intimidating

Jón Eyfjörð

High prices - expect everything to be expensive, not only the fishing. Iceland has a very high standard of living, and we tourists pay our part of that
Kind people - Icelanders are really nice people and the majority speaks English.
Good, but long roads - most of Iceland's cities can be reached by car on well maintained roads
Rough nature - the landscapes are beautiful but rough. Be prepared.
Four wheel drive - a good four wheel drive car is a must if you want to go on adventure.
Water, ice, fire, rock - four things you will see in plenty in Iceland. They formed - and still form - the country.
Flights - use the domestic flights. Fly in to Reykavik and on to Akureyri. It's fairly inexpensive.

Some of the flies

Snelda

This tube fly is a popular local variation of the Frances style. Tied on heavy tubes and on occasions fished two at a time - a black and red one - just sliding a second fly on the hook before attaching a tube treble.

Red Snelda

Snelda
Pattern type: 
Modern salmon fly
Materials: 
Tube
1 inch brass tube
Thread
Red
Tail
Red bucktail and a few straws of golden flash
Rib
Oval gold tinsel
Body
Red wool
Front hackle
Red
Skill level/difficulty: 
Easy
Instruction: 

Bleiktogblatt

A great looking Icelandic pattern for Bleika. The color combination is rare as is the beading of a streamer.

Bleiktogblatt

Blektogblatt
Pattern type: 
Streamer
Materials: 
Head
Silver cone or brass bead
Thread
Pink
Tail
Kingfisher blue feather tip or feather fibres
Body
Silver braid
Throat hackle
Pink
Wing
Teal
Collar
Pink chenille
Skill level/difficulty: 
Medium
Instruction: 

Frances

This strange contraption is actually a modern salmon fly. I originally posted it her as a classical salmon fly, dating back to Victorian England and not at all as modern as it looks. That was wrong!
This turned out not to be quite true. Some online sources quote contemporary British fly dresser Peter Deane as the originator, and I have since confirmed this. The Icelandic site The Frances actually has the whole story, which was originally told in Wild Stealhead and Salmon in March 1998, and it tells amongst other things that "The fly was originally made by the imaginative fly tier Peter Deane from England in 1964 and named after his excellent fly-tying assistant Miss Frances Hydon." With that in place I crawl back under my (Icelandic) rock.

Red Frances

Frances, red
Pattern type: 
Modern salmon fly
Another incarnation of the Frances
Materials: 
Tube
1 inch copper tube
Thread
Red
Tail/antennae
4-6 brown hackle stems
Tail
A small bunch of chocolate brown arctic fox
Rib
Oval gold tinsel
Body
Red wool
Head
Brass cone on inner plastic tube
Skill level/difficulty: 
Easy
Instruction: 

Black Frances

Frances, black
Pattern type: 
Modern salmon fly

An odd salmon fly favoured in Iceland.

Materials: 
Tube
1 inch copper tube
Thread
Black
Rib
Oval silver tinsel
Tail/antennae
4-6 brown hackle stems
Tail
A small bunch of chocolate brown arctic fox
Body
Black wool
Central hackle
Brown rooster
Head
Yellow varnish
Skill level/difficulty: 
Easy
Instruction: 

I also used a couple of dry fly patterns on Iceland, namely a CDC&Elk (many times in my own version with a foam head) and the Black Funnel.

Black Funnel, side view

Comments

Iceland is a blast -...

Iceland is a blast - fantastic landscapes and world class trout fishing.
It doesn't need to be that expensive either.
I joined a trip with this guide based in Switzerland last year.
Very decently priced and just awesome.... !!!!
Feel free to check him out:
upstreamflyfishing in Switzerland
Pat

You can do a nice tr...

You can do a nice trout trip for about 250-275 euros per day ( 2-4 anglers together) that will cover guide, transport, fishing license and accommodation. www.flyfishinginiceland.com

Hi guys, very int...

Hi guys,

very interesting page, i would be interested to spend a week during August to fly fishing Brown Trout and char can you provide me any informations about accomodation, guide and rates? No salmon tag

Last year I went to ...

Last year I went to Patagonia to seek their illusive trout and had a wonderful time. I would love to go to Iceland to pursue those beautiful brown trout. This trip sounds like a beauty but having no idea as to the cost of such a venture I will just have to put it on my wish list.

Iceland sure has many great...

Iceland sure has many great fishing waters, both lakes and rivers. Two difficulties is that you have to book in advance on so many places. And with advance bookings I mean like even December the year before. Then we have the price tag on the best rivers. There are other ways you can fish in Iceland. Here is one of them. http://www.rent.is/blog/fishing-in-iceland/

Tight lines!

.

Log in or register to pre-fill name on comments, add videos, user pictures and more.
Read more about why you should register.
 

Since you got this far …


The GFF money box

… I have a small favor to ask.

Long story short

Support the Global FlyFisher through several different channels, including PayPal.

Long story longer

The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this.

See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.