This is my first time to Iceland on a guided trip and I was told to expect big brown trout?! As a New Zealander with recent experience of fishing the big rivers of New Zealands South Island I had some reservations... but that quickly changed!
This river is in the far north of Iceland, some 30km from the polar cap, so already you get the feel of an adventure. The Litla river is an oddity, something you might expect to come right of Norse Mythology. In 1976 a lake formed underneath frozen farmland, after a massive earthquake, from the Mt Krafla eruption. They named it Skjalftavatn Lake. The farmstead close to the river also has a hot spring that joins the river approximately 500 yards downstream of the lake. It runs into the Litla at 20 degrees c and most days we saw steam rising off one side as the river flows downstream.
I had three amazing days of flyfishing on this river. It has many great glides, riffles and pools and as expected lots of big hits as the fly swung around to the tailof some of the highly promising pools. The primary method is to present dark stickleback patterns, the brown trout gorge themselves on stickleback. Despite the cold air temperature, we also saw good hatches of chironomid midge, so a s16 - 18 CdC midge is a deadly pattern.
The river holds a very good population of Brown Trout, Artic Char and Sea Trout. However in the early season, we primarily were targeting the big brown trout.
Stjani Ben is the guide and a trained chef he also looks after your appetite! Stjani has access to several high quality rivers so an excellent combination package can be arranged to fish for big brown trout, sea-run char, artic char, sea trout and salmon
We even tried a few days on another river 20 minutes from the Litla, despite it being out of prime Sea-run char season, we managed to hook up with resident char up to 3lb, fresh run sea trout up to 6lb and had some classic big brown trout stalking in the deep gin clear pools on the upper beats.
Stjani has a very close relationship with Fly Odyssey in the UK, so at the drop of a hat you can be in Iceland in 3 hrs and be fishing for trophy brown trout,hard fighting sea run Artic char, Sea Trout or Salmon! all on a single hand fly rod!
In total I had 41 fish with resident char up to 3lb, Sea trout to 6lb and trophy browns up to 9 lb! Getting there is so easy, your quickly through Reykjavik Airport, met by a rep of the company and taken straight to a good hotel, the transfer is under an hour to the internal airport in the north and there you are met by Stjani and driven across the northern coast to the Litla Lodge. Its very good standard of accommodation and well maintained by the farm owners, with the added bonus of a large hottub in a pagoda style outbuilding.
Once again, many thanks to Mat at Fly Odyssey for another excellent trip!
Best wishes
Tony Hooley
If you are interested in fishing in Iceland in 2012/13 we have a comprehensive range of options for salmon, sea trout, brown trout and char to suit all budgets. For more information please email us or call on +44 (0)1621 743711.
