Hello Friends and clients The season of 2020 is now recently over, the last rivers in Iceland were closed on the 20th of October. Only very few though are open so late, sea trout rivers and salmon rivers propped up by smolt releasing. Generally speaking, there was a marked recovery in the salmon fishing from the sad season of 2019, aside from most rivers in the north and a few in the middle west.
Our rivers were generally in good condition and Jökla actually had it‘s best ever season. Hrúta in the north held its own and our precious Breiðdalsá improved. Talking first of Jökla river. The river has been improving year after year despite a pendulum swinging in other parts of the country. The Northeast has held strong and Jökla along with it. So we had the final total being 870 salmon, the best ever before was in 2015 when 815 salmon were landed.
It is common knowledge that this river would regularly produce catches of 1100 to 1400 salmon at the very least if the coloured water late season would not affect the fishing. We started the Jökla project with smolt releasing but the river is so naturally productive that most of the runs now stem from natural spawning deep in the interior. The upper beats, that have been hardly fished, produced 200 salmon to the final total and we will be including these beats in the coming years, so our clients will be participating in pioneer work.
Taking no chances though, the salmon are already filling up the pools up there. Those fishing the upper beats will for 2021 season lodge in a fully equipped farm house close to the main pools. There are pools up there that have never yet been fished. Never. And we might add, that trout fishing in Jökla was very prolific, 600 trout written into the log book, mostly sea char but also some sea trout and stationary char. Breiðdalsá for some reason crashed a few years back but has been coming back. This year the river was little fished, just as Jökla, due to the C-19 epidemic.
Many of our clients obviously did not arrive. We had a total of 136 salmon landed which is the best total since 2015. There were few anglers fishing the river but those who did found that there were multiple more salmon in the river than for several years. Those who did give it a try were rewarded. So we are expecting more in 2021. Finally, our exclusive trout river Minnivallalækur. It has a smaller total than usual due to the pandemic ravaging our clientele. Locals partially filled some of the the holes and the river did not disappoint. Despite the C-19 pandemic, bookings have started and look promising. Anglers are generally doing what they do, that is, staying positive. So don‘t be shy to give us a call, a message or an e-mail to us. We are there for you and we will find a thrilling spot for you for the 2021 season.
