Grimsa

Excelllent 12 pounder from the Strengir pools. Photo by Þórður Ingi Júlíusson.

Grimsa is a medium sized river in the mid west region of Borgarfjordur, which is Iceland’s most prolific salmon area. Grimsa is one of Iceland’s most important and impressive rivers, one of the real jewels and often named “The Queen”. Tungua is a small volume tributary fished with two rods and leased separately.

As on many Icelandic rivers, floating lines, small fly patterns and hitched tubes are excellent. The river is also easily fished with single handed rods, although given that Iceland is often windy, a double handed rod should be available as well. The river is fly only water with a voluntary, and widely practiced catch and release system. It offers a small but ample quota of killed grilse and every salmon of over 70 cm should be put back to conserve the mws genes.

A fine mws is released. Photo by Óttar Felix Hauksson.

Any given season a normal catch on the eight daily rods is somewhere between 1200 to 1800 fish. Grimsa also has a substantial run of sea trout that starts often in early July. Sea trout periods on the lower beats are available during spring and fall/autumn, following the salmon fishing season. Known salmon pools on the beats are not included though.

Grimsa is one of Iceland’s most beautiful fly fishing rivers and it is one of  a few Icelandic rivers that has tradition stamped all over it. It was frequented by British lords and an assortment of high ranking military personnel as early as the late nineteenth century and whilst, as with most of Iceland’s rivers today, it is primarily a grilse river, during those early days the river was famous for its monsters. Every now and then, the odd monster is still spotted giving vivid memory of the golden days of yester year.

The impressive run below Laxfoss is the top producing pool. Photo by gg.

The Grimsa lodge is not like any other lodge in Iceland. It stands out, stark against the sky, nestling on a cliff above the main falls were you can watch the leaping salmon from both the dining and sitting room. It is a lodge that has caused great divides as anglers either love the look of it or hate it. It was built based on the drawings and ideas of Ernst Schwiebert, the well known American architect who used to fish Grimsa regularly. It is known as Fossás and is run by Egill Kristjánsson, one of Iceland’s most modern and progressive chefs.