New rivers open up on Saturday morning
Elliidaar opening day 2008, top guide Ásgeir Heiðar pulls something out of the hat for former mayor Ólafur F. Magnússon. Photo below is a few minutes later as Heiðar tails the mayors grilse. Photos by Heimir Óskarsson.
We‘ll soon be updating the fishing reports with more frequency as many of the top rivers will be opened up over the next week to ten days. The fun starts on Saturday morning when the mayor of Reykjavík dips a worm into the fosspool on Ellidaar, in downtown Reykjavík. It is an annual thing and more often than not the mayors have ended up catching a salmon.
Over the years the starting day on Ellidaar has been pushed further back in June than before. The same has been done on very many rivers as the mws runs have dwindled. However, on Ellidaar sightings of salmon started already during the final days of May. Since then quite a few salmon have run the river upto the counter just above the Seafoss and have been fining in plain view in several pools, as the counter has not yet been opened.
This year a new mayor has the honor of trying to catch the first salmon, mrs Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir and if she looks like running into trouble, one of Iceland‘s very best guides, one Ásgeir Heiðar, is usually at hand to pull something out of the hat. Everything he touches while fishing seems to turn to scales!
Ulfarsa, also inside the Reykjavík boundaries, also opens on Saturday morning. Certainly a more low key affair but the river quite often yields a salmon on opening day. We will also be reporting on Langa and Laxa i Adaldal.
Of the rivers already open, experts on the Nordura tell us that they have been seeing the first signs of impending grilse runs, fresh run grilse have been seen and caught in previously fishless pools and things seem to be hotting up as the tides start to grow again tomorrow. At this point last year the fishing had been very much like this and still ended up as a record as we keep reminding you of!
