Tungua: Fishing for a project, and for the fun of it!
Biggi is into a good one and Julli indicates how big he feels the fish is. All photos by Einar Falur.
One of our featured rivers is the small and delicate Tungua. It is a two rod tributary to the bigger and more famous Grimsa. Tungua though is prolific and has often been dubbed the mother of Grimsa due to its ultra fertile extra spawning grounds. A curious experiment to enhanch the Tungua salmon stock has been in effect on the river for several years and looks to have been a success.
While the editor and one of our photographers, Einar Falur were fishing Grimsa on the last days of last season we were invited to take part in and observe the experiment in motion. What a fun experiment it turned out to be!
In essence it is a well known ploy in Iceland; mature salmon are caught by rod, placed in holding pens or boxes and then transfered upriver. Usually into the moorlands above unpassable falls were they eventually spawn, thus bolstering the rivers juvenile stocks considerably. It has been tried and done on other rivers with good success, for instance the Hofsa and Sela in the northeast Vopnafjordur.
And here they are, the rain driving down on them, with the fish ready for a holding box.
Tungua is of small volume. If water levels are low during the summer season, the salmon will pack the top two to three Grimsa pools from the junction and downward. It is no coincidence that Oddastadafljot (the junction pool itself) and Efstihylur (the next pool directly below) tend to be the top producing pools in the upper part of Grimsa. When the autumn rains start, the massed ranks of salmon spill into Tungua and the fishing picks up in a big way! If the water levels are good however, the runs are more steady throughout the season.
There are many good looking pools in Tungua and its scenery and terrain is picturesque and friendly. Along with its self catering lodge, it is a haven for family fishing or small groups of freinds looking for total solitude.
So last autumn when we were closing Grimsa the managers/outfitters told us that their Tungua project was not quite finished. They still needed several fish to put above the foss. It had been raining heavily for days but the rain had relented for about 24 hours. Both rivers had been very high and muddy. But on the final day the outfitters set upon Tungua along with some friends.
A grilse is placed into custody.
Einar and myself mostly watched and photographed as the band of anglers went from pool to pool and hooked and landed one salmon after another. The conditions with the receeding water level following a flood, were as good as they can get and the salmon were on the move and willing. They were all over the place, and everywhere we happened upon the smallest of falls, there would be salmon airborn, clearing the falls, heading for home. What a monumental sight!
But it had started to rain again and soon the water level was going back up, the water starting to turn greyish. But there was no relenting and by the end of the day (Einar and myself did not last that long) al least 17 salmon were hooked, landed and either transferred upstream or released. Most were grilse but there were some bigger fish as well. One of our hosts, „Julli“, told us how the project had inspired better runs for Tungua, and of course Grimsa at the same time. He went through statistics that proved his point. He also told us a mystical story that centers on the individual stocks belonging to one river and one river only. During one the early years of the project Tungua was badly devoid of salmon. The runs just did not show up. Late in autumn Julli and friends were getting restless so they aquired a licence from the Bureau of fresh water fisheries to pull a net over one or two pools on Grimsa to get some salmon for the Tungua project.
Doddi, Julli's younger son, is into a salmon in Réttarhylur.
They got their fish from Grimsa without problem and put them into the moorlands of Tungua. Julli told us that spawning was monitored every season and this one was the only year of the project that there was no recorded spawing on the moorland spawning grounds of Tungua. „What does that tell you about implanting different stocks in different rivers?“ Julli asked us.
As the day wore on, the more wet and cold we got. Myself and Einar Falur that is, as we were not fishing. We were spectators and had a grand time until the hammering rain started to get the better of us. As we left, Julli and his friends were still pulling fish out of every pool. He has a habit of calling the top pool at each given time: „Gullið“, or „The Gold“. This time he didn‘t know which pool to apply the name to, as they were all solid gold on this colorful and rainy autumn day. Quote Julli: „Whatever, for good or for worse, even if we had no idea if this project was working or not we would still carry on with it. This is just so damn fun!“
