Our friends in Iceland have been getting into some seriously cool fishing as their salmon season opens up. In doing so they’ve been showing us just how accessible salmon fishing can be in Iceland, with dime-bright Atlantic salmon being caught within Reykjavík city limits.
Iceland Fishing Guide
If you fish with Outside Wild in Iceland, it’s very likely you’ll be fishing with Iceland Fishing Guide – Birkir Hardarson, so we wanted you to get to know him a little better! To start, it’s pronounced like “beer-keer,” but you’ll often hear him introduce himself as “Biscuit.” Hard to forget! Birkir was born in Reykjavík and has been guiding around Iceland for 6 years, but it’s his latest angling obsession from his home island that has really caught our attention…
“In the past two years, I’ve been obsessed with seatrout. In the southwest of Iceland, there are so many crystal-clear, glacial seatrout rivers. It is Lord-of-the-Rings-esque. It’s pixieland.” Birkir describes how relatively new lava flows have carved out rivers that are just now being explored by him and his friends. As he states, “we don’t know if there’s fish there until we start hooking 65cm fish, and then we find that those rivers are full of them.”
That’s a 25” trout, and Birkir says that a 4-pounder is on the small side, with 20-pound sea-run brown trout not being out of the question. These are the sorts of fish that you see being caught in Tierra del Fuego, but this time it is in the Northern Hemisphere and much more rapidly accessible.
Don’t get us wrong: Outside Wild’s summer Highlands’ fishing trip with Birkir is a great way to see Iceland and experience a wider range of species in mild weather. You’ll be catching great brown trout and Arctic char in amazing surroundings.
But if you have waited long enough already and it is now time for you to go nourish your fisherman’s heart somewhere refreshing… then put on your jacket for this September – October: there are opportunities at truly giant seatrout – with a deeply passionate and light-hearted Icelandic Fishing Guide.
We are more than happy to share a conversation and help clarify what your fishing trip options are given your preferences and responsibilities. Let us know and let’s get the ball rolling.
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