Which flies do the trick in Iceland?
Which flies to use in Iceland? You often hear that anglers going to Russian rivers use to great effect the same flies that fish well in Icelandic rivers. But you do not hear the reverse, that flies good on Russian rivers are that particularly good in Iceland. Belief of course plays its part, but there are a few stalwarts that you must use in Iceland.
Over the course of many years, the main favorite has been the Frances, mainly the red one. The Frances was formerly the Black Eyed Prawn(seen here to the right). It is an Icelandic version of the BEP, less fuzzy and no eyes. The BEP is still used on Icelandic rivers and does well but the Frances is a more simple fly(photo third from bottom, the red version). The black version is at least as effective, yet as more anglers favor the red one, it always tops the black one in the countings. There are other colors in the Frances family, green, yellow etc and they will all catch you salmon. But the red and black remain the favorites. They are mainly fished on treble hooks, silver, black and golden, also half and one inch tubes, with or without cone heads according to the conditions.
Hitching is extremely effective on Icelandic rivers and a thrilling way to catch salmon as the strike is almost always visual with a bulge, splash and a flash of silver combining to make it memorable. Most flies are hitchable but the small plastic tubes with puntured sides for the leader are the favories. They have been tied resembling various fly patterns but there is a trend to keep them very simple and call them mainly hitch tubes(second photo from bottom, a typical hitch tube).
Then we have the Sunrey Shadow(to the right, along side a pen for comparisons), a tube fly used in various sizes but most often used floating with very long wings. Sunrey usually has a great effect when used as the salmon tend to liven up. They frequently become very aggresive towards the Sunray and often they will make attack after attack without actually striking it. Several anglers will tell you stories of salmon so totally loosing their cool that they have beached themselves, while wildely chasing the Sunrey! Many anglers will tell you to never start with a Sunrey as its affect is sometimes that of spooking the fish. According to that theory the same people will tell you to always use it as the last fly before you leave a pool. Whichever way you choose to use it, the Sunrey is accounting for very many salmon.
To this we could add the Snælda(bottom photo alongside a grilse). A tube fly of local origin. It has been rivalling the Frances clan for several years now. It comes in various colors like most of the most successfull tube flies. The best ones being the „German“ Snælda, black, yellow and orange, and the black Snælda which usually has several strands of silvery glimmer in the „wings“. The „wings“ are what makes the Snælda different from most others, as the „wings“ start at the end of the tube.
Let‘s look at some statistics from last season. Out of 1.111 salmon caught on the main beat of Vatnsdalsá, 156 fell for the red Frances and 87 to the black Frances, all in all 243 on Frances. Hitch tubes accounted for 143 salmon and the Sunrey Shadow 100 salmon. Out of 910 salmon caugth in Breiðdalsá last season, 112 fell to the red Frances, 26 to the black Frances, all in all 138 to Frances. Sunrey for once topped the Frances with 140 salmon. Snælda had 52 salmon listed.
We could of course name any number of other flies and we probably will in the future. We could tell you about the Krafla family, also a new family of tubes called collectively "Friggi". We will run a article on them in the near future, also tell you how and where you can obtain them. So stay posted.
