News
Report from the Salmon Club of Aarau
Dear Harpa
This years fishing in Iceland was superb.
As you know we fished first from the 17th to the 20th of August the river
Hvannadalsa, a small ginclear salmonriver. There was sufficient water in it,
very cool, and fish in the system. Half of the river flows through
canyonlike valleys with very steep borders. From up there you can see every
stone and every fish lying in the water. There are very deep holes near the
waterfalls, but the fish are able to climb up to the top. The pools are very
often short, but the character of the river changes every meter. It was real
fun to fish with everything. The mainproblem was not to be seen by the fish.
We fished mostly with very small flies on very long leaders (9 - 11 ft) and
could attract the fish. They attacked very seldom the tiny flies and the
takes were very, very soft, like a kiss. Hitching attracted the fish in
bigger and deeper pools only in the morning. I got a fish at the hitchfly
with a virulent attack (fly- and hooksize 14) and lost him after 5 minutes
drill between the rocks in the deep pool. A decent control of the fish was
impossible. We all had a very hard time to see the fish, to see them react
on our flies, to see them swim at the surface and have a look at the fly ...
we fished deep with small, heavy tubes, we fished all the proved wetflies,
we fished as mentioned with hitchflies, we fished from both sides, downwards
and upwards, early in the morning until late in the night. We enjoyed the
landscape, the sunny weather and the river, but after six halfdays we still
had nothing real in the books.
Hermann Hermannsson, once more, acted as a masterguide! He was patient,full
of knowledge and experiences.The Veidihus is a perfect honeymoon-location
for two lovers. For grownup fishermen definitively to small. So Hermann
rented a nearby summerhouse and brought a trailer with him for his own
housing. Reinhard spent one day to clean up the house and especially the
kitchen and after that he was happy again. After three days the owner could
hardly recognize his newly organized summerhouse, swept and cleaned in all
corners ...The shower is still used as a trashcorner, so I took my bath in
the countryside (shower and bathtub in the middle of nowhere, only
blueberries, sun and pleasures, as you will see on the picture).
From Sunday, 20th of August until Wednesday 23rd of August we fished quite a
different river in the neighbourhood, the river Laugardalsa. We fished this
river once in 2002 with very good results and were very glad to come back.
This water is quite different! The river comes out of two lakes and the
fishing is possible for 3 km to the seeshore. There are cattlefarms in the
valley and the farmers like to furtilize the meadows. So the water is not
very clean and you will find a lot of weed in the river, but also a bunch of
very healthy salmon. So Sunday late afternoon, when I casted a Black Francis
Fly (10) the first time, I had a heavy attack on it, but I could not keep
the fish. 20 Minutes later finally I got a grilse (63cm, 2,6kg) and a little
later a second one (64cm,2.7kg) just at the same spot. Next morning, a
little more up the river I got another brace of grilse (64cm,2,2kg and 64cm,
2,3kg). So my clan will enjoy some smoked and graved salmon again.
Finally Franz got two grilse and our ghillie caught a fish by hand at the
riverbank, a very special story! Hermann was watching Franz, asked for his
rod and did some casts himself. Franz stood in the river without a rod. So I
gave him my rod(I just came from another pool) and he continued the
fishing.Suddenly Hermann jumped without the rod to the left. Another jump to
the nearby grasbank and within a second he threw a fish on the grasbank.
Later he explained that the fish ran into the gras and was imobile for
seconds, what gave Hermann the time to catch it! (see the picture!)
We were not able to bring the old resident fish of the holding pools to the
bank. They were there, showed up and they took our very small flies, but we
lost them during the drill.Because we changed to very thin leaders we were
perhaps too careful in drilling the bigger fish.
You see, we had a very interesting time and enjoyed Hermanns company very
much.
Maybe you will remember, that I fished the river Borgie in Sutherland,
Scotland for 9 days this May and the river Dee (Park House) for 5 days in
July. Both periods were very dry with extrem low waters and much to warm. So
the stay in Iceland this fall compensated some frustrations ...
Greetings from Switzerland!
Ruedi Witzig
