Sea trout in Iceland: The spring fishing has picked up
He's a bit thin but what would this monster have weighed in its prime last year....a 91 cm specimen? Photo by Einar Birgisson.
The spring fishing in Iceland has become more consistent recently as the weather has turned more springlike. At the start og April it was prett y cold and the fishing suffered. At this point of the season you never know in advance and that is what delights the local spring anglers.
Over the past two weeks, we have had 4 to 10 degrees centigrade and only the odd frosty night. Up north the lowland snow fields have started to thaw out and disapear. Still it is not yet summer and motorists driving the Helisheidi from Reykjavik to the southland towns and villages where battered with sleet.
Due to the horrific economy, local anglers are not as active as usual and the spring fishing has of yet not been widely sought after by the foreign anglers. That may change over the next few years but in 2009 it is not the case. Soe there are far fewer anglers fishing this spring, so the statistics are lower. But you cannot keep anglers down for long. There are groups still fishing. Recently a British group fished the Tungulaekur for three dyas and finished with 40 sea trout, many of them very big fish in great condition. They hooked and lost at least as many.
An estimated 8 pounder from Tungulaekur. Photo by gg.
On Minnivallalaekur a recent group had 26 brown trout ranging to an estimated 10 pounds and at one point, when the temperture went up to dizzy heights of 12 degrees centigrade, 2-3 pools seemed to boil under the feeding frenzy that a hatch induced. Another beat, Steinsmýrarvotn has been excellent with three rods consistently catching 20 to 70 sea trout over the space of two days.
Our readers understand that we do not list all Icelandic rivers but of course news filters in from some of the river we do not list. As we are a news desk firs and foremost, we filter out the main news morsels and publish them. For instance, a very prolific sea trout beat called Vatnamót recently had an unusually huge sea trout. Vatnamót is a junction beat. The mother river is the glacial Skafta, mother to our listed river Tungulaekur. Also, a branch of it called Asa-Eldvatn is the mother river to our listed river Tungufljot. Vatnamot is the Skafta junction to four rivers, Fossalar, Horgsa, Geirlandsa and Stjorn. It is a huge fishery and very productive. And, recently a local angler hooked and landed a 91 centimeter sea trout. It was rather thin as seen in the photo, but in its prime this would have been a twenty pounder and probably even heavier.
Spring came a rather late in Iceland this year so the sea trout will probably stay in the rivers up until about mid-May. This is not the case every year, as they are out of here just after mid-April if spring is early.
