Stora Laxa: Stunning late show
A 102 cm cock fish, approx 22 pounds!
For a while late on, it looked as if the Stora Laxa would perhaps register a record catch, but in the end, slow fishing on the upper beats pulled down the amazing fishing on the lower beats. The total nevertheless was the rivers third best ever total and a raft of huge salmon were landed in the closing stages of the season.
And another big one....
Stora Laxa is a local favorite on the south coast. It flows into Hvita at the famous Ida beat an hour and a half‘s drive from Reykjavik. The river tends to infuriate as runs often stall during the high season if the water levels dare receed. Which they did in a big way this season. Despite that, the fishing was ok on the two lowest beats, that are sold together and fished with four rods. The middle beat and the top beat were, on the other hand, slow. As the September rains start, the salmon, that have held somewhere in the glacial Hvita move out and fill up the two lowest beats and usually pep up the middle beat as well. This is an annual occurrance and this season there were a lot of fish on the move. As it turned out, more than usual.
And another one!
The beats 1 and 2 were packed with fish and their September total, at the end of the day, stood at 340 salmon, 224 of which were landed in the final ten days! All in all, the two beats produced 508 salmon according to the Angling Club of Reykjavík. All in all, the river produced 640 salmon which is the rivers third best ever total.
What was perhaps most notable, apart from the size of the September runs, was the numerous big fish. Dozens of salmon were ranging from 80 to 102 cm, 10 to 22 pounds and every group was landing a twenty pounder. Even more than one, some of them. This was somewhat of a mystery, as the large numbers of big fish were not in the river early on and were not encountered in the glacial river Hvita either. Yet, most of them had the colouring of fish that had been in fresh water for several weeks, although some were fresh run.
