Counting down for sea trout!
A beautiful spring sea trout from an Icelandic river. Photo by Einar Falur.
Today, there are a mere two months until we start fishing up here again. The weather can be harsh and volatile but the fish are there, big ones. Very, very big trout.
Several sea trout rivers open traditionally on the 1rst of April and so do a few watersheds with stationary brown trout and char. Some of our clients indeed manage some of these rivers and as there are always openings, lets look at the main options:
Strengir outfitters just overtook the reigns at Tungulaekur, the small south coast sea trout river which easily rates as one of the worlds best. It opens on April the 1rst and is usually stacked with fish, big spawners from last year and smaller juveniles that may though range to 5-6 pounds. Traditionally the first weeks of April are the best, however we ourselves have experience into the first week of May and have found the river to be very productive even at that late stage of the retreating runs.
The outfitter G&P who operate the famous Vatnsdalsa salmon river also have a very cool sea trout option for spring fishing. It is a complex and captivating river named Eldvatn, or literally Fire Water and the name stems from the lava field that it originates from under, the Eldhraun, which in the late seventeen hundreds was belched from the Lakagígar craters for the most awesome lava flow in recent times. Eldvatn has only recently been opened up as a spring option. It is by no means a small river and in fact it is made up from three branches. Anglers are still finding the Eldvatn out as a spring river. This river is in the same southeast region that harbours most of the finest sea trout rivers. They all have the same huge, old ice age brown trout, only these are sea run.
And finllay for sea trout, Tungufljot, which is perhaps not Iceland‘s best river for numbers caught, but beyond a shadow of doubt the most famous for big, big fish. All the rivers have them, but Tungufljot has the biggest ratio of them compared to smaller fish.
As said, the weather is volatile. You might be fishing in a warm breeze for an hour, only to be engulfed in a blizzard with sub zero centigrades the next hour.We will pick out some excellent stationary trout options later this week, and remember, it by no means to late to book an unforgetable trout fishing trip to Iceland this spring.
Looking at the three smaller photos, the first one is from Tungulaekur, the second from Eldvatn and the bottom one shows a fine springer from Tungufljot.
