The mws tendency of the Haffjardara
One of three 20 pounders from the Haffjardara last season. Photo by Einar Guð.
In Iceland, mws salmon are more of a feature in the north and northeast rivers, along with several south coast rivers. The super prolific southwest and west coast rivers are more dominated by grilse. One river though stands out in that matter, that river is Haffjardara.
Haffjardara is a medium volume river on the south coast of the Snaefellsnes peninsula. It is one of the many rivers in Iceland to produce staggering record catches last season. Last season’s total was 2.011 salmon landed, 721 more than the previous record! Obviously a total catch of such a magnitude involves huge numbers of grilse, but there is a bigger percentage of mws’s in Haffjardara than in other westland rivers. “I’m sorry to say that we have no data on this and it hasn’t been checked really, but it is common belief that this is so and I have yet to meet anyone who questions this reputation. The river has earned it, no doubt about it,” joint owner Einar Sigfússon told us in an interview a while ago.
Haffjardara is a very special jewel in the crown of Icelandic salmon rivers. During the middle of the twentieth century it became Iceland’s first privately owned river as the wealthy local Thors family bought out the fishing rights and many of the properties associated with the river. Soon after, a fly only policy was installed, another first for Iceland. The salmon stock in Haffjardara was in a bad state at the time due to netting but the Thors clan put it right. Out went the nets, in went small scale rod and reel fishing. The family also established a natural hatchery, deploying a small stream for the rearing of salmon fry. Yet another first for Iceland as far as we know.
An angler að the Old Bridge. Photo by Einar Guð.
Mws salmon have been dwindling in Iceland as well as in other major salmon countries over the past several years. In Iceland, most of these fish are the first to run the rivers, several weeks before the grilse turn up. The fishing pressure on them has thus been severe. Many think, fisheries biologists among them, that too many have been caught over the years as it is only in recent years that most of them are put back alive. Ergo: Too many have been killed. The genes have been thinned out by this and the spawning has been upheld too much by the grilse. On Haffjardara this has been a vastly different story. Einar Sigfússon again:
“We started agitating for anglers to release the mws’s many years ago. First we asked them to put them back. Most of the anglers obliged happily. But in order to save the rest, we later put in a rule, mws’s were to be released unconditionally. So we were far ahead of the others who have only recently started releasing the mws’s. Two other rivers who copied our tactics show a similar pattern of high mws-percentages. They are the Nes beats on Laxa in Adaldal and Vatnsdalsa. They are both in fact total catch and release rivers, the latter being Iceland’s first in that field. All of these rivers have healthier mws-percentages than most other rivers and all of them frequently produce the oversize salmon, the ones weighing 20 plus pounds. Haffjardara had three of that size last season and numerous mws salmon,” Einar told us.
A wonderful sight! Photo by Einar Falur.
The catch and release has been an issue of debate in Iceland over the past few years. One of the questions to turn up involves if the salmon actually recover from the trauma of being caught. If all the spent energy returns? They seem valid questions as occasionally salmon do die upon being released. But Einar told us the story of when one of his best friends, a well drilled worm fisherman who occasionally used the fly and scoffed at the notion of salmon recovering from C&R, actually had his head turned on the matter.
Einar had invited his friend to fish with him on Haffjardara. On one of the pools his friend hooked a big mws and fought like mad for over half an hour. This was late in the season and the fish turned out to be a big dark cock fish. As it was badly injured during the tussle it was killed and went on the scales that tipped up to 14 pounds. The way the fish had struggled, they had thought that it might well be considerably bigger. But what amazed them more was the fact that the salmon had been tagged. Upon reading the info off the tag it turned out that the salmon had been hooked, landed, tagged and released in early July. The angler, an American fellow, put in this note in the fishing log: “I’d say he was about 15 to 16 pounds and I have never fought a stronger salmon in my life.”
