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Paul's Icelandic adventure plus Tongariro Update.
Sat 23rd November, 2013
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  "It's a relatively short flight from Alaska up and over the North Pole and down into Reykjavik Iceland.
When I arrived I strolled into the Keflavik airport bio-security area and had the waders, boots and other fishing gear sprayed down by the bio-security guy.
This is very important here in Iceland because the rivers are very pure and everyone needs to do the right thing in keeping them that way.
I had a couple of days in Reykjavik just having a bit of a look around and booked a tour with Gray-line called the Golden Circle.
It was a good tour, we went to several places including, Thingvillir National Park, The Geyser and Gullfoss which was excellent.
At Thingvillir National Park we saw the site where the North American tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian tectonic plate and subsequently formed Iceland.
The following day it was snowing on the fjords across the harbor ... it looked amazing. I checked out at 8am caught a taxi to Veirdivon ( fishing shop) and bought a few items from the store. Then I got a lift down to Hveregerdi with Ingo, he's a guide that works for Stjani Ben of www.icelandangling.com check it out!!
We pulled up to Frost and Fire at about 9am, it was to early too check in but the lady let me put my stuff in a room and I changed into my waders and went fishing for a few hours.
 
The Varma river was flowing really high, despite this I walked between three and five kms of the upper river but only caught two fish ... small ones.
It started snowing so I headed back to the hotel and checked in properly.
But the rest of the day was a bit of a write-off as it was way to windy to do any fishing.
The next day I made my way to the lower section, the wind was blowing straight down stream which made upstream nymphing hard
Actually it made it impossible to get a good upstream cast in, so I used the other rod which was set up for streamers.
I tied on a a Flaedermus, which is a pretty popular fly for sea trout here in Iceland.
I got a few small ones to start off with and then later that afternoon I got a nice fat brown with beautiful colors and spots.
I fished my way downriver and ran into Ingo and his client who were working there way back up the river, so I was trying water that had already been fished.
We continued on our way, I looked back and his client hooked a nice sea trout in the pool above me.
A couple of casts later I hooked a decent size trout as well but the fly came out moments later.
I worked my way down to the dam but had no luck there, so I fished below it and this is where all the action started.
There was a fresh run of sea trout holding up which must have just come in on the last tide. I hooked and landed several fish, not big but really fun size fish which were a beautiful chrome color.
I thought one of them might have been a rainbow but it didn’t have spots on ts tail so it must have been a sea trout and I noticed many of them had sea lice on them.
I landed seven from this one pool and lost probably about the same amount. I also had a lot of fish follow the fly right up to the bank almost beaching themselves, they were really aggressive.
I ended up with eleven fish from below the dam, it was great.
Before I knew it the sun was setting and I had a long walk back to the hotel.
I actually started to run across the field because I had no torch with me. I would have loved to have stayed at that pool for another hour but I had to jump several barbed wire fences on the way back and didn’t want to do it in the dark.
About halfway back along the river I ran into Ingo again who had dropped his client off at the hotel and returned to fish for the remainder of the day. He gave me a lift back to the Frost and Fire Hotel which was greatly appreciated.
It had been extremely windy and tough conditions out there today, but I was glad I'd done it.
The next day I organized my gear and headed to the river. I started fishing at the waterfall (Reykjafoss) pool and worked my way on to the next run, after fishing that run I walked down to the car bridge.
I spotted an absolute monster lurking against the far side of the bridge. Several casts were made to the fish but I had on an unweighted Flaedermus and the fly just wasn’t getting into the strike zone. So I changed to a cone head Dyrbitur, after a few casts (dead drift) I came up tight and set the hook hard ... it was on !!
I was in a bit of shock really, bridge fish are usually impossible to catch, especially ones over ten pounds.
I played the fish for about 15 minutes and because I'd forgotten the net eased him into a nice little backwater and grabbed him by the tail.
I was over the moon ... this is why I came to Iceland ... I don’t even have to catch another fish while I’m here ... to get a fish like this is what its all about.
After getting a bit of video footage of him in the the trying conditions, (the camera kept blowing over)
I revived him for a short while before he powered off back to the depths.
The next day I got up and had breakfast and then packed up my gear and took the camera and tripod with me to the shops for a walk.
I wanted to send some postcards but forgot that it was a Saturday, so I ended up going to the bakery and buying a chocolate cake instead.
On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the Reykjafoss and tried to get some video of the fish jumping up the waterfall.
I filmed several large trout jumping and also captured a few stills of them as well, I spent about two hours at the falls" ... for the rest of this report plus more great photography tips and video go to : www.iheartthefly.com
 
Back on the Tongariro its already getting pretty slippery underfoot as the mats of brown algae begin to spread across the the edges and river bed, especially in the slower stretches.
Although anglers generally find this a bit of a nuisance the aquatic insects love the stuff and many of them "graze" it like sheep on pasture.
Eventually as the river sticks at its summer level and the growth of these diatoms increase nymphing with conventional tactics becomes impracticable in some parts of the river.
So tweak things a bit and fish your nymphs just off the bottom.
Thats what Mo did earlier this week when we fished together for a couple of hours and it paid off.
Still plenty of recovering fish around but you have to go looking for them. Angling pressure is minimal and most places I've been I haven't seen a soul.
Those fishing the evening rise are also reporting lots of action with some good hatches in the calm, humid conditions.
Right ... its that time of year again and we're off to much sunnier climes.
So I'm out of here before Blue spots us leaving !!
See you soon guys.
Tight lines
Mike |
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