This article first appeared in The Mid-Atlantic Flyfishing Guide.
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An Icelandic Adventure
Getting a Second Chance
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It is a fishing guides dream come true…guiding and instructing on one of the world’s finest Atlantic salmon rivers. Each year I am employed to teach the fundamentals of fly fishing, at a week- long business meeting, held in a lodge on The River Vatnsdalsa in Iceland. Of the 25 or more guests attending the annual meeting very few have ever had a fly rod in their hand. Most of my instruction consists of lawn casting and after the first day I usually guide on the river. Two or three days into the week most of the participants are involved with business meetings and interest in fishing wanes– often leaving more guides than guests who want to fish. It is then that the guides and I have an opportunity to fish.
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| Gusti |
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| Years ago, when I first fished the river, I was taken to its largest tributary by Agust Sigurdsson, “Gusti,” a full-time guide on the river. The Alka is a small crystal clear stream tumbling down the mountainside, for the most part, through sheer walls of granite. In some places it narrows to 30-50 feet in width and gouges a channel some 20 feet deep. After fishing a few readily accessible runs at the lower end we hiked upstream along a precarious sheep trail that at times had me scared stiff. With a rock wall to my left and a drop of more than a hundred feet to the jagged rock lined bottom on the right I tried to fix my gaze on the ever narrowing trail in front of me. It was worth it though. After what seemed like hours we reached a spot where the rock wall on the left gave way to a sloping slide of skree - gravel, rocks and boulders - that opened access to the river below. As we traversed down the slide I saw a lovely deep, narrow pool formed by a waterfall 150 feet upstream. On the far side of the pool a perpendicular wall of rock plunged straight down to the bottom. The current was swift…more of a run than a pool. And there against the far wall, three or four feet below the surface, were 15 salmon suspended in the transparent water.
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When first fishing a pool in the River Vatnsdalsa’ the usual drill is to begin with a small fly – a #12 black bear green butt being my pattern of choice – swung through the pool just below the surface in arcs three to four feet apart progressing downstream and covering the pool. If unsuccessful the pool is often fished again in the same manner with larger flies fished deeper. If the pool is a deep one and known to hold fish…a large fly tied on a heavy walled copper tube is used to dredge the bottom. I began fishing the pool in that manner but it was hard to get a proper presentation. A strong current in mid-stream bellied the line and no amount of mending or reach-mending would give the fly a proper swing by the fish. By the time I switched to a heavy tube the fish had seen enough and drifted from their holds melting into the depths. I fished the water blindly…but to no avail…any fish that might have taken had been put down.
We started back. But the journey that had been a frightening experience coming in was to become even worse getting out. In my youth I had broken my left leg badly and it was for me an Achilles Heel. And now my bad leg was on the downhill side. I just couldn’t support myself on it. I told Gusti to go ahead without me…I would slowly hobble/crawl out and meet him at the main river. I didn’t want to see him lose precious fishing time. But Gusti said no, he would get me out. Walking on boulders and rock just below the trail he supported me as I leaned my weight on his right shoulder…using him as a crutch. I was amazed at his strength and agility…I still don’t know how he did it. We made it out.
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| In the years following, when speaking with Gusti, I would refer to the incident as the time he tried to kill me. Once, I asked him if he had fished that pool in The Alka lately and he said that no he hadn’t. ‘Why not,” I asked. “No victims” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.
Years went by and I often thought of that pool below the falls…the salmon hanging in the crystal water as if suspended in mid-air…replaying the scene in my mind. How could I have fished it more effectively I wondered, but it was all in vain…mental masturbation…there was no way that I would ever be able to navigate the trail. “You can’t go back”, I thought.After all those years it still nagged me and so this past summer, in Iceland, I confided to Gusti my frustration at never being able to have another chance at that pool in The Alka because of my inability to get in and out. Gusti is a man of few words…he looked me in the eye and said “we can drive there.” I was dumbfounded, “how can we do that” I blurted. “There is a farm lane that parallels the Gorge we can drive up, park and hike down to the pool” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that before” I demanded. “You never asked me” he said, his face breaking into a broad smile.
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Hiking in was no easy matter but it was doable and I was psyched. We traversed down through the wide opening in the wall of the gorge…alternating between the slide and rocky outcroppings until we reached the stream. There it was… exactly as I remembered it with salmon holding in the flow against the far wall. But this time instead of casting to the visible fish I took time to survey the whole pool. It was very deep and although the water was super clear and the sun was right I could barely make out the bottom…a shimmering jumble of boulders, some the size of a small car. The falls upstream were framed by sheer rock walls and had gouged the bottom to a depth 15 to 20 feet. Surely there must be fish there, I thought. I decided to start with a Red Francis, an Icelandic shrimp pattern tied on a two inch long copper tube. Tube flies are great…in addition to the copper tubes sinking rapidly they offer the advantage of fighting a fish on a short shanked hook. With a fly this size tied on a long shanked hook the fish would have leverage and a much better chance of becoming unhooked, especially if the fish were large and the fight long.
Casting the fly directly upstream as far as I could and then throwing a quick upstream mend enabled the fly to sink quickly and probe the depths of the pool. I stripped line quickly and “high sticked” the fly down the length of the pool…it had sunk to the length of the 12’ leader, and then some, as it drifted by me in the center of the flow. The red thread splicing the loop at the end of the fly line was easy to follow in the clear water even when submerged a foot or two. I tried to keep the slack out as I focused on that red dot. On the second cast, as the fly was directly in front of me the line stopped for an instant…I struck quickly and the salmon shot to the surface and kept on going; bright silver, fresh from the sea. Six, times more she jumped before being brought to net. In the course of the next hour four more salmon took the fly and three were landed. The pool quieted and the salmon sulked. I had my fill and began to climb up and out of the gorge, exuberantly.
Half an hour later I was at the vehicle, still too excited to be tired from the arduous ascent. I thought it would be best to replenish the body fluids sweated off during the climb and as I popped a cold one I thought to myself, “sometimes you get a second chance…sometimes you can go back.”
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