Trips: Iceland – Land of the Midnight Sun!

It was a trip of a lifetime! Jim Craig and I (Kenny Klimes) decided to grab onto a trip of a lifetime when they overheard Jason Randall say that he was going to sponsor a fly-fishing trip to Iceland. Immediately asked if they could get on this trip to the land of the midnight sun! Jason said “of course” and we started the year long preparation for this trip. What rods/reels to have, what line will be best, what flies should we tie, what fish will we target, etc., etc.

Our trip was hosted by Matti Hakonarson of Arnes Lodge in northern Iceland. We had the pleasure of meeting Matti at the Denver Fly Fishing show for several years. The Arnes lodge is located slightly north of Akureyri, Iceland. Matti was always quick to answer our questions prior to arriving and gave us the best support during the preparation stage of our trip.

Our adventure started with a long drive to Chicago on Monday, June 17^th (a day early before our flight out of O’Hare airport to Iceland). When in Chicago you visit the Berwyn Bear (Ron Fiala) who graciously put us up for the night and drove us to the airport the next day. We flew out of Chicago on Tuesday, June 18^th and did the long trek to Akureyri. Because of the time difference we arrived in Iceland on Wednesday morning, arrived at our hotel for a stay in Akureyri. We roamed the town in the rain and had some unbelievable food for dinner (Iceland is expensive!). On Thursday morning the guides picked us up and we headed to the lodge to get settled in – or so we thought. Getting our rooms, we were then told “Let’s go fishing” and we were gone.

Instead of writing about each day and boring you with all the massive fish we caught, I thought I would just hit the highlights of the trip. So, let’s start slowly at first:

1. The Lodge was set in the middle of northern Iceland. The lodge had bedrooms with two small beds and a bathroom, a dining area, a large area to meet for the social time, a kitchen, and a large porch/room area to gear up each day. The lodge truly catered to the fly fisher.
2. The food each day was awesome. The lodge had a chef who made all Icelandic dishes – lamb, chicken, and more. We ate three meals a day which at first, I thought was going to be too much but with all of the walking we did we were hungry at each meal. Jim and I recorded over 17,000 steps per day. Our meal schedule was breakfast at 7:30am, lunch at 1pm, and dinner at 10pm. Since the sun NEVER went down, at times we truly never knew what time it was. We usually didn’t get to bed until midnight – then up again at 7am – to repeat.
3. The guides were top notch. Each morning Jason Randall would assign guides for us and locations to fish – big water or small water were the choices. Jim and I fished together most of the time but a few days we fished with others in the group. We had two sessions per day to fish – morning and evening. Our guides Daniel, Gilbert, Snaevar, and Vladi were impressive putting us on to fish at each location. Jim and I had Daniel for a few days and with his personality we couldn’t stop laughing throughout the day. One day we set up for a long trip to the ARCTIC circle to fish for sea run browns, trout, and artic char. It was a 2 ½ hour trip with two car loads of fly fishers. Daniel drove us and about 45 minutes into the drive his car broke down and we sat at the side of a lonely road until we could get another car and driver. It just made the trip into a memorable adventure. We did finally get to our destination with a new car and guide (Valdi) and caught some beautiful ARCTIC char. (Thanks to DStag for finding our spelling error of arctic not artic!!)
4. The fishing was truly exceptional. Unfortunately, they had a tremendous snow fall just two weeks before we arrived which turned the rivers colder than normal at this time of year. We think this prevented the big Salmon from coming upstream so only one in our party caught the huge salmon that come up. BUT we did catch some big browns averaging from 17 -24 inches (many on euro-nymphing rods!). We also had the opportunity to catch the arctic char which looked similar to a brook trout (you did know that a brook trout is not really a trout – right?). We fished dry flies (and caught fish), we fished Euro style (and caught fish), and we fished streamers (and caught fish). We caught many big browns on a 3wt euro rod, so yes, big fish can be caught on smaller weight rods. We fished the rivers Reykjadalsa, Myrarkvisl, Laxa, Brunna in Oxafjoraur just to name a few. Check out the pictures of just a few of the fish caught by Jim and me.
5. Our “group” included Ed Engle (a top and well-known fly fisher), Nick Conklin (head of fly fishing for TFO) and of course, Jason Randall (fly fishing educator, author, and euro-nymphing expert). For all that Jason Randall has done for the FATC from teaching us fly fishing techniques at Altar fly fishing events, both here in Missouri and Wisconsin, to answering all of  our fly-fishing questions, we presented a certificate to him making him an honorary member in the FATC. He was both surprised and very appreciative for this recognition.

Our travels included: some sightseeing of waterfalls, Icelandic horses, puffins, canyons and more. Stays at both ends of our trip in hotels in Akureyri. Had long flights from Chicago and back. Two-night stays with the Berwyn Bear – thanks so much Ron for allowing us to crash at your place and for driving us to and from O’Hare airport. And two long drives from STL to Chicago. We arrived home in STL on Friday, June 28^th. The people of Iceland were VERY friendly and of course, spoke perfect English. Will we go back -someday. Would we make it a FATC trip? We are definitely thinking about it. Don’t let life opportunities pass you by.

Kenny Klimes