Fly fishing in Iceland with a -Sea Mouse?
The original, the black and the pink variety. Photos by Heimir Óskarsson.
Fly fishing in Iceland has by now a degree of tradition. Icelandic fly tiers have come up with some pretty useful patterns over the years. One of them is probably the single most productive sea trout fly used in Iceland with only the local sea trout varieties of the Black Ghost comparing in deadliness. This is the Flaedarmus streamer fly.
In Icelandic the spelling is Flæðarmús and a Flæðarmús is, according to a dictionary we referred to, a mollusk by the name of: Sea Mouse. The author of the fly is a well known local, Sigurdur Palsson, known as Siggi Páls. In a recently published book on streamer flies frequently used in Iceland Siggi of course reserves a place for his beloved Sea Mouse. He tells us that he sat down by his tying vice in June 1986, bent on tying a fly unlike any other fly he had previously constructed. The outcome was this unusual outlandish streamer he instantly named the Flaedarmus, -Flæðarmús-.
Here they are, the Sea Mice, all three varieties.
June is off season for sea trout fishing in Iceland but he did not have to wait any longer than to the autum the same year. He was then, along with a close friend of his, fishing the glacial Skafta river in the central south, the main realm of the highest quality Icelandic sea trout. Skafta has some compelling hot spots where the clear rivers spill into it, making up the outstanding junction pools. One such junction is were the Tungulaekur mingles with Skafta but this tall tale originates further down Skafta where different rivers spill into it.
Siggi now tells the story: “We had done ok but close to dusk something happened. The place suddenly filled with sea trout. Some of them were huge. I was using my new streamer, the Flæðarmús, and these fish kept hammering the fly, the big ones churning up the sand and mud as they followed it into the shallows. Some of them were in the twenty pound league and we hooked a few of them. With the gear we were using we however had no chance with them. We did land several fish though on this memorable evening, the biggest ranging to nine and a half pounds. Since then myself and many others have lived remarkable adventures while using this fly. Fly fishing in Iceland it catches everything, sea trout, stationary browns, sea char and salmon. Big fly for the glacial water, smaller fly for clear water. That is the rule. It has recently been tied as a tube fly with and without a cone head. Other anglers have also experimented by tying black and pink varieties. They have also worked well.”
