A drama of monumental proportions
Thingvallavatn is blessed with some monster brown trout. Photo by Heimir Óskarsson.
We are almost ready for meltdown in the midst of our countdown for the salmon season, starting on June 5th. While spring was cold and late, the last few days have been a flourishing summer. The trout fishing is keeping us occupied and here we have the newest true tall tale, one of monumental dramatic proportions.
There have been some, putting it mildly, huge brown trout seen and caught in the lake Thingvallavatn this spring. As usual, and there have been specimens upto 22 pounds, no less. Many are 4 to 8 pounds and a few far bigger ones as is the norm and rule. Fly fishermen and bait fishermen are both getting bites of the cake and what befell a bait fisher several evenings ago ranks among the biggest dramas of the current season so far.
This fellow had rigged up two rods and baited worms on both of them. He calmly sat with one of the rods firmly in his grasp, the other one he fastened to a „lazy bone“, a sort of twisted iron bar that bait fishers use in Iceland to hold their rods in the preferred position, as well as allowing them to monitor them from the comfort of their close by vehicles or other vantage points they have chosen.
Most of the browns are caught in the twilight. Often the wind has died by then prompting a magical timeless scenarion. Photo by Páll Ágúst Ólafsson.
As dusk approached, nothing much had happened and close by fishermen had left the scene one by one. Finally he was alone, sitting with his rods in a small cove. Then suddenly a commotion stirred....a massive splash at the entrance of the cove. Almost as if a human had fallen into the water. A huge brown had lept clear out, followed by another and there were several sharklike fins cutting the surface as a group of very big browns entered the cove, hunting the smaller char. The only thing lacking from the scenario was the theme from Jaws.
The fisher grasped his rod and held his gaze on the lazy rod. Then there was a violent pull on his rod and a monster brown went tearing deep into his line reserves. Despite fixing the brake almost to a halt, the 28 pound monofilement schreached out and the run was relentless. To the fishermans horror, the rod in the lazybone started to jerk to and fro and the reel started to emit a loud scream.
There was no way the fisherman could handle playing both fish so he resigned himself to fighting the former brown and hope for the best for the rod in the lazybone. Hopefully the trout would respond to not being fought and taunted by slowing down.
Fat chance.
The drama had reached a level of „somethings gotta give“ and it was the line on the fighting rod that gave way first. It snapped like a twig and that was that. Shaking, the angler threw the rod away and ambled towards the other rod, only to watch it, almost like a slow motion scenario, fly out of the lazybone, which had been pulled out of the earth and was bouncing towards the lake. A quite simply disapear into the dark emerald depths, never to be seen again!
Shaking even more, the angler tried to rig up his intact rod again as the trout were still clearing the surface and finning to and fro in the cove. But when he was finally ready, all was still. The trout were gone and darkness decended.
