Highlights
Iceland - East Rangį report
Having been to various rivers in Russia and returned with tales of catching either prolific numbers of small salmon or smaller numbers of large salmon, my son Henry was becoming extremely jealous. After getting mediocre mock GCSE results I decided he needed an incentive to do better. Foolishly I promised him a trip to Russia if he did well. This seemed to focus his mind and he knuckled down and exceeded our expectations.
That was 2 years ago and I had been unable to take him to Russia as June is the best time to go, when of course he was deep in AS and A level exams. I was myself ready for something a little less demanding than another 9 day Russia trip (6 days fishing, 3 days travelling) and along with my angling companion, Chris Batterham, a veteran of 11 trips to Russia, we decided to look at a shorter trip to Iceland.
Without too much research we booked a 4 day trip to the East Ranga. This short trip involved 3 days fishing but we were only away for 4 days in all, much more cost effective than another Russian trip (x2) and much more acceptable to the non fishing members of the family.
Once the trip was booked we did some research and established it was one of the larger Icelandic glacial melt milky coloured rivers requiring a double handed rod and big sink tips. Personally I had thought we would be fishing small crystal clear rivers ‘sight fishing’ with floating lines so I was a little apprehensive but nevertheless keen to see what Iceland had to offer. My apprehension started to fade a few days before we left when I found out that in the previous week the camp had caught plenty of fish!
We left Heathrow at 1pm on Tuesday on a direct flight to Reykjavik where we were collected by a camp representative and driven for about 2 hours to a very comfortable camp overlooking a very windswept river. We each had a large twin room with ensuite facilities in one of the 8 large cabins in the camp. These included a drinking cabin and a separate eating cabin; little did we know we would have little time for the former and not much more time for the latter. We were immediately greeted by our guide ‘Kidde’ who encouraged us to get tackled up and on the river.
The Lax-A camp on the East Ranga fishes 16 rods on 22km’s of double bank fishing split into 9 Beats, each Beat fishing 2 rods rotating down the river on a half day basis. Beat 9 terminates at a waterfall beyond which salmon cannot run. I should qualify ‘half day’, each day commences with breakfast in camp at 6:30am, the first session is from 7am to 1pm, lunch is served at 1:30pm and you return to the river for the second session at 3pm until 9pm, dinner is served at 10pm and the bar closes at 1am just before your alarm goes off at 6am!
Because we were a party of 3 one of us had to join another Beat and we had drawn Beats 8 & 9. As we were being driven the 10 minutes down the dusty tracks of luna landscape (in our guides 4x4) to the river, we learned a little more about the unusual East Ranga.
The river emanates from a large glacier which keeps the very cool water flowing all year (circa 6C for our trip). The constant cold water supports very little natural life so I am told that until recent times the river only had a very small run which produced a catch of about 200 salmon a year. This was before an enterprising individual stepped in with a hatchery and started to catch and strip the eggs and milt from a few salmon. Anybody read ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’? An appropriate and recommended read.
This experiment produced what is now a prolific salmon river. The hatchery grows the young salmon on in release ponds which have been built on the banks of the river. Here they are fed until they mature into smolts when they are released into the river. They then seem to follow the Atlantic salmons natural instincts by migrating to sea, eating voraciously and returning to the river from whence they came as fat, hard fighting, bars of silver with an average weight this year of 2.7kg/5.9lbs. Because any naturally produced parr die in the river through lack of food, all rod caught fish are taken. Most are coshed for the anglers to take home via the smokery but anglers are encouraged to save large hens for breeding by placing them in strategically placed ‘coffins’ in the water. These receptacles are oblong shaped with a top opening, a grill at the front and back and are placed facing upstream in a good flow of water. Anglers who place hens in the coffins are rewarded with a side of smoked salmon. The hatchery staff periodically visit the river to collect hens for the breeding program. When I was told about this I was at first a little concerned that we were not fishing for the natural quarry but for some kind of stocked fish. The reality is that the smolts go to sea, naturalise and return to the river in the normal way of things.
Our guide then told us that the lower Beats were holding more fish than the upper Beats and our draw meant that our fishing would improve on each session as we made our way down the river. We had set up 14’ 6” or 15’ rods with long sink tips and some of our Icelandic flies. They only seem to use 3 types of fly, Frances, Snaelda and Sunray Shadows. We were told that Beat 9 was catching more fish than 8 so we put Henry on 9 and Chris and I opted for Beat 8. It was now about 7pm so we only had a couple of hours of our first 6 hour session to fish. Chris and I fished some classic fly water in a fierce oncoming wind until 9pm but unfortunately didn’t see or touch any fish. Henry managed to catch one and lose another on Beat 9 so we were all encouraged given that we were moving down river for the Wednesday morning session. On returning to camp I was surprised to see a number of spinning and worming rods on some of the guides vehicles but apparently both methods are allowed, if not openly encouraged.
Conscious that we were getting Henry’s A level results at 7am on Thursday morning ( 2 years after I had promised him a trip for doing well in his GCSE’s) I decided to let him fish with Chris on Beat 7 and that I would return to fish Beat 8, sharing with a pair of elderly Englishmen. 10 year veterans of the East Ranga these guys always share a rod (one of them is 84) and had come equipped with both fly and spinning gear. A good call as it transpired, given that the fierce wind prevailed on Wednesday morning and despite wading across the river several times to enable me to cover water, I nether saw nor touched a fish. My experienced companions had 2 fish (spinning) and did so without having to ford the river. As expected Chris and Henry had more action on Beat 7 but only landed one salmon each.
After lunch Henry and Chris went to Beat 6 which was holding good numbers of fish and I moved down to Beat 7. Here I managed to catch my first 3 East Ranga salmon, all hard won in the prevailing wind. Despite the relatively small average size these are fit, hard fighting bars of silver as strong as any Tweed springer. I was concerned that a 15’ rod with a 10/11 line would be a bit extreme for these fish but I was not disappointed with my selection. These fish give an extremely good account of themselves and a double handed rod was a must in the wind using large flies on a wide and heavy water. I was desperately hoping that Henry would do well on Beat 6 as he was apparently concerned that he might not get the A level grades he needed for his first choice University. That afternoon Chris landed 12 salmon on to Henry’s 11, happy smiling faces all around and the impending results out of mind.
As I departed for Beat 6 on Thursday morning, Henry departed for Beat 5 with Chris but we had still not got his results. However, my mobile rang at 7:10 am to inform me he had got the grades he wanted and I was able to share this news with him before he started fishing. All the pressure was now off for me in that Henry had caught plenty of fish and got into the university of his choice I could now relax - but for the fact that the salmon had other ideas. My morning on Beat 6 was hectic at points and frenetic at others as I managed to land 13 salmon with as many again lost or taking short. This was as good as it gets. When salmon are so prolific you can experiment with flies, tips, hooking methods, fighting methods etc and really have fun, and I did. The ultimate fly was a gold bodied ‘Willie Gun’ on which I hooked and landed about 10 of these fish. A far higher hook to land ratio than the Icelandic flies I had been using earlier. Henry had another good morning with 4 on the bank but Chris was less fortunate falling in (twice) and landing nothing.
That afternoon I followed Chris and Henry down to Beat 5 where I caught a couple more and they moved down to Beat 4 where Henry caught 4 more and Chris added 3 to the bag. At this point a reality check was in order; any session on a Scottish river that produced 2-3 fish per rod would be excellent fishing but here after only two days we needed to remind ourselves that we could not expect double figures for each rod on every session! The little bit of spare time we had that evening was spent packing as we had another short session the following morning before we left for home.
Our Friday morning session had to terminate at 10:30am to allow us to get packed up and away in time for a trip to the smokers on the way to the airport. Chris and Henry were on Beat 3 and I was on Beat 4. I caught and lost a fish fairly shortly after starting but my third take was the best of the trip that produced a spanking 15lb fish, a large fish for this river which my guide said was the biggest he had seen caught this season. I had one more to finish my final morning with 3. Henry managed another 1 and Chris excelled with 5 landed and 5 lost. A great finish to the trip. Once we were packed up, we were presented with 64 salmon packed in several bin liners to take to the smokers, a fantastic result with Henry as top rod with 22 and Chris and I with 21 each. Regardless of the spoils this was a great trip. The smoked salmon is a bonus but I’m not sure I am looking forward to the arrival of the DHL man with 86 sides of salmon in 10 days time.
My summary of this trip was that 4 days is the right amount of time for a fishing trip like this, although we could manage flights better to maximise the time in our first and last sessions. Sharing rods in a 12 hour fishing day is a great option where the cost per rod is marginally over 50% and plenty of fishing can be had by all. I would include a spinning rod on a future trip to insure against strong winds and to try and find a fish at the end of any unproductive session. Unlike Russia, bugs are not a problem so there is never a worry that the ‘mossies’ might arrive. Wading is mainly easy and difficult wading can be avoided. Transport is by 4x4 vehicles directly to the riverside and any walking required is no worse than most Scottish rivers. The accommodation, food and guides are better than most Russian venues which does make a difference even on a short trip like this.
The catch for the season so far to 16/08/07 is 2893 salmon.
I would love to go back next year at the same time with a bigger team which could include shared rods and novices, all of whom would have a great time, catch plenty of fish and return with plenty of smoked salmon to boot.
Anyone up for a trip in 2008? Let me know asap if you are, I am making enquiries about price/availability.
The Lax-A website is at:
/iceland/fishing/full-service-salmon-rivers/east-ranga/
P. S. no pictures yet as I left my camera in the camp!
Richard A. Doyle
