First salmon caught on upper Jokla
The smolt project aimed at turning the Jokla river system into a salmon fishing paradise took a positive turn yesterday when it was reveiled that the first ever salmon had been caught on the systems upper beats.There had previously been doubts as to weather the salmon could run that far up due to obsticles.
Throstur Ellidason of the Strengir company, which has been working on the Jokla project over the past few years was delighted when this came to pass, this being the third season that the project has been in some sort of swing. The salmon was spotted by a local farmer in a bridge pool on the small tributary Hnefilsdalsa and he called up the anglers fishing the lower beats, among them his own son in law. His son in law drove up, had a look and laid out a small Sunray and promptly hooked the fish and landed it. It was a nice bright grilse which was of course released as the outfitters and landowners are obviously hoping for some spawning in the area. In the photo above, contributed by the angling club Mokveiðifélagið, Árni Jóhannesson shows the upper Jokla grilse prior to releasing it.
The fishing on the lower beats has surpassed expectations already and is at this point just about as good as the whole of last season with still about a month and a half to go. So this semi virging salmon fishery is ticking along nicely and well on its way to becoming Iceland‘s newest angling paradise.
