Finding Trout in the Fog

I work in a tiny little town in the easternmost part of Iceland for all of this summer, cooking up breakfast for all the tourists who come to stay at the hotel. When I am done, I try to get to some fish. The first couple of times I walked the 10 km to a local brown trout lake, which took me over two hours to do. Please do take into consideration that the laws of gravity might be acting more on me than most, as I am quite large to behold.

But now I have a bike! It may be a red female bike with a basket in the front, but it does its job well, and gets me to the lake in under half the time it would take me to walk the distance. 

On this particular Thursday evening, I felt I had the old viking gods at my side, because when I reached the lake, I was greeted with a white fog covering the surface and a slight breeze blowing across the water. 

Simply put, perfect trout weather.

I took my first couple casts off of a shallow drop off zone by a creek inlet. Sure enough, at the same spot as I took the only trout of last trip, another trout attacked the mass of rabbit fur I was fishing and after a short and brutal battle, I brought the gorgeous brown trout to hand. Maybe not the largest fish in the world at 12 inches, but big enough to make me happy.

After that the strikes simply stopped, until about an hour later when I hooked up with a small sea trout on an orange nobbler stripped right beneath the surface.

The colors on these wild and native browns were absolutely stunning, and the takes were fierce, especially for fish this size.

But after these two I didn’t land any more. I lost a couple, including one who slammed my white streamer right by the bank and took a speeding run into the deep, sending the line whizzing across the surface and throwing the hook.

This beautiful lake will not give up its big ones easily, as I saw when the wind died down and fish close to 6 pounds cruised the middle of the lake eating midges off the surface. Nothing I cast at them worked, not that I could reach that far with my three weight rod.