The rebirth of Icelandic sea trout fishing
October 11th by Chad Shmukler
“So, where are you guys fishing?” the voice rang out from a few stools down.
Anglers have a way of outing themselves, even when in less-than-revelatory settings, like The Lebowski Bar — a touristy watering hole in downtown Reykjavik that pays homage to the iconic movie and character of the same name. A hat or some other piece of garb had given us away, and our pop-in for a Caucasian blossomed into fishing chatter.
The query about our destination had come from Ármann Kristjánsson, who, we shortly learned, is an outfitter and leaseholder on the Big Laxa, a beautiful brown trout and Atlantic salmon river on Iceland’s north coast and one of the island nation’s more well-known fisheries. It would have been perfectly normal, even expected, for Kristjánsson to regale us with tales from the Big Laxa. But, once clued into our plans to fly fish for sea-run brown trout on the rivers that flow beneath the gaze of Battle Hill — a tuft-sided, 150-foot tall mound near southeast Iceland’s coast that marks the site of a historic 10th century Viking battle — talk centered squarely there.
“We’re really excited about what they’re doing. No one’s ever done anything like it,” Kristjánsson remarked. It’s not every day that an outfitter takes the time to extol the virtues of someone else’s fishery ...
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Kirkjubæjarklaustur
Battle Hill Lodge
European sea trout fishing is in the midst of a rebirth. Though sea trout populations in many of the storied rivers of the British Isles and Baltic Sea region continue to dwindle — sending anglers to the far reaches of the globe in search of sea-run brown trout — in Iceland, sea trout populations have quietly endured. All the while, fishing for the beloved, anadromous fish has inexplicably flown under the radar.
