Langa: One of the rivers best ever seasons
An angler is into a hithced grilse during early July. Photo by Jón Eyfjörð.
While the Langa didn‘t crack its newly set record of 2008, the river came pretty close and actually recorded one of its best ever seasons, despite seemingly endless draughts that finally took their toll.
The river closed with a total of 2.257 salmon, compared with 2.972 during last years record season. Not a bad total at all considering that it didn‘t rain for mostly two months and the water levels sunk and sunk as the season wore on. Einar Páll Garðarsson, from the outfitters Lax ehf, told us that towards the end of the draught, the river was so low that it appeared stagnant. The fish were accordingly listless and very difficult to deal with. This was much the same scenario on most rivers in the western part of Iceland and Langa did in fact have one thing going for it, that almost all of the others did not, and that is the water regulating dam at the headwater lake Langavatn. The dam holds the levels presentable for 2-3 weeks further into the season while the neighbouring rivers decline earlier with no such backup. However, the draughts were so severe this year that even the backup dam could not uphold the standard throughout.
Considering the above info, it is a minor miracle how good the fishing actually was. It of course reflects that there were hoards of salmon in the river and had the levels and general conditions been more favorable, it would have been a good bet to put money on a new record the second year running. However it was not to be, but there are no complaints, the fishing was great nevertheless!
