The 2023 Salmon fishing season has kicked off in Iceland, ushering in a wave of excitement and anticipation among fishers both at home and abroad.

East Ranga was one of Iceland’s two most prolific rivers, producing over 3800 salmon in four months to an average of 16 rods.

We recently braved the Icelandic snow storm to catch up with all things Iceland for the coming season. We spend a few days meeting staff and colleagues before heading out to see the hatchery.

Overall another stellar season spent with our wonderful clients and professional team.

As August gives way to September we can look back on a good month of fishing.

We had a great end to July and the teams ariving into early August came with great enthusiasm. We had a crack team in first with top performances from Rob O and Gareth J.

We’ve had a storm, we’ve had a flood and now we have a hell of a run of grilse arriving.

We have had a real mixture of rods over the last nine days. From highly experienced fishing machines to first time salmon anglers.

The party landed 101 fish for their visit to 18 rods. Every member of the party caught at least one fish with a number of first salmon and quite a few first of many.

The first two groups to fish East Ranga with us this year had a slow time of it with a late run of fish and at times challenging weather.

After a lovely dinner on the evening of the 30th June we opened the lodge fishing season on the East Ranga with great expectation.

A stunning fish comes to the sunray.

Despite a reduced over all salmon catch has decreased somewhat since 2020 at East Ranga, the catch figures for 2021 do not show the full story at all.

It was a great pleasure to make the short trip north to visit the Reykjavik office and the Aurora Lodge team this week.

As luck would have it international travel resumed with a list of ever changing tests and forms. As we battled to keep abreast of these the Salmon were making their way back to Iceland to visit the mighty East Ranga river system.

The second half of August saw a mixture of Icelandic, English and Spanish clients at East Ranga. Having worked our way through a month of low clear and cold water in search of rain; in late August we got it. All of it.

The fishing has slightly picked up as a few quieter beats started produce a few more fish. We have had a few days of 50 fish as well as a few 35-40. This has propelled us to 2000 fish.

We are regularly seeing fish in the high teens and early 20s and the percentage of multi sea winter fish so far is around 40%. A staggering statistic.

Yesterday we hit 1000+ fish. The river is in great condition and was carrying a little colour. The kind of colour we like. A greenish tint of melt water but not so coloured as to require enormous fly tactics.

If you compare the ‘headline’ East Ranga catches year on year to 2020, you might think that 2021 is very, very slow fishing! However the quality and size of the fish being landed in 2021 is truly outstanding and certainly makes up in many respects for the sheer volume experienced in 2020.