802 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
Oct. 11, 1896. 
FISHING IN ICELAND. 
Aftee our long day's ride it was a relief to see, across 
a waste of black sand, the parsonage farm of Sirra Arni. 
The grassy roofs and low walls of turf and stone could 
hardly be distinguished from the surrounding "tun" or 
home fields, but the little black church stood boldly out- 
lined against the distant bcacts of lava. No other house 
was in sight; to the ncJrth lay Myvatn ("lake of midges"), 
surrounded by five scarred craters^ and dotted by many 
islands, volcanoes in miniature, where thousands of wild- 
fowl were circling and screaming. On the east and south 
was the great desert of the Odadahraua, and still beyond 
the snowy heights of Askja — Iceland's largest volcano — 
could be dimly seen. 
My arrival was attended by some confusion, Five sheep 
dogs rushed down the trail to meet us, and barking furi- 
ously assailed the heels of the ponies; they promptly 
kicked and shied, and in a disorderly tangle of animals 
we reached the farm just as Sirrsi Ami's pleasant face 
appeared in the low doorway. Fifteen minutes later the 
packs were removed, the ponies grazing in the wild pas- 
tures, and the pastor and I, seated on the churchyard 
wall, were discussing the prospects of plant collecting 
and fishing. 
His report of the latter was discouraging. In the lake 
were plenty of char, but* they could be taken only by 
nets; there might be a few trout in Gronavatn — a small 
river a mile and a half away — but he had never fished in 
it; indeed the only good fishing he knew of was in the 
upper waters of the Laxa, several miles from its source, 
in Myvatn. To reach the river a guide and two ponies 
would be needed, and as these were diflioult to hire in 
the midst of haymaking I decided to be content with 
Gronavatn, 
The principal object of this visit to Myvatn was to col- 
lect flowers, and not until the third morniag did I treat 
myself to a half day's fishing. I found Gronavatn a 
charming little river, whirling with many a rapid through 
the old lava fields. The air was calm, sweet and so clear 
that long after the parsonage was out of sight I could hear 
the haymakers' voices, and the singing of a small Ice- 
lander, who was driving the milking ewes to pasture. 
As I tied on a March-brown and a butcher I saw a trout 
rise near some rushes across the stream, and felt that my 
fishing line was to fall in pleasant places. 
A i-pounder was hooked at the third cast, and a double 
catch of pound trout quickly followed. As I was fishing 
and having "a beautiful time," a rough-looking man on 
a pony came ambling up, stopped, smiled a broad, be- 
nignant smile, dismounted and came toward me. In 
America I would have been disturbed had a dubious char- 
acter accosted me in a lonely place a mile and a half 
from home, but not here with these honest, kindly Ice- 
landers. I only said: "Godan daginn" and awaited de- 
velopments. He took the rod from my hand, examined 
it with a critic's eye, and without a word began to fish. 
Four trout he caught in rapid succession, the look of con- 
tent deepening on his countenance, then said; "Tak! 
takl" returned the rod and, leaving the trout, mounted 
and trotted briskly away. 
At the end of two hours I had taken fourteen fish, 
weighing from -Jib. to l^lbs. There is such a thing as be- 
ing too successful when one is far from home. At noon 
the farm people saw across the moor the spectacle of a 
sunburned, disheveled "Ameriku kona" lugging a botany 
box, sketch book, fishing tackle and a string of eighteen 
trout, and sitting down every few minutes to rest on a 
piece of lava. A relief expedition was dispatched by the 
kind-hearted pastor, consisting of a small boy with a box 
for the trout strapped on his back. 
They were all ot the same species: the Salmo fario, or 
river trout of Great Britain. But here in these clear, 
swift waters they have much lighter colors than those of 
England, I did not see a single yellow brown fish at 
Myvatn; all were silvery below and halfway up the sides, 
wliile the back was a dusky green or blue-black with many 
small black spots. The flesh was a light pink, and deli- 
cious eating. 
That delectable morning at Gronavatn was the last of 
our fine weather. A cold storm followed, turning the 
distant hills white with snow; then came dense fogs roll- 
ing in every afternoon from the desert and inclosing us 
in cold mists until noon of the following day. The guest 
room of an Icelandic farm has no fire and no place for 
one. The accumulated chill of years is in it, and only the 
eider down puff on the bed keeps the traveler from per- 
ishing untimely. At night he can be comfortable, how- 
ever he may shiver in the daytime. I found that even 
extinct volcanoes can be utilizad for warming purposes. 
Every morning after breakfast I scrambled briskly up to 
the summit of a cone near the house, down to the bottom 
of the crater, and then trotted around the rim half a 
dozen times; this put me in quite a glow, and I was then 
in a mood to rest on the deep red slag and admire the 
strange beauty of Myvatn seen through the rising mists. 
Several times I returned to the stream for an hour or 
two of fishing, once capturing a 3i-pounder. My stock of 
flies was getting low, and the day before I left Sirra Ami's 
I manufactured one with a large bait hook, a snipe's 
feather, a piece of red Liberty silk and a scrap of tinsel 
from the top of a whisky bottle. It was a wonderful pro- 
duction, tied with shoe-button thread, and I was really 
ashamed to put it on the leader. But it pleased those 
Simple-minded Icelandic trout; one jumped for it at the 
first cast and several followed in quick succession. Then 
a fiish rose languidly, took the fly and turned down under 
the bank. At first I thought it a small one and tried to 
kill it in short order, but I soon found out my mistake. 
Feeling himself hooked, he darted out again, broke clear 
from the water and dashed across the stream. Seeing 
how large he was, I gave one anxious look around me for 
some one who could help me land him, as I had neither 
gaff nor net. No one was in sight, and there was nothing 
to be done but tire him completely out, in much anguish 
of spirit lest he tear out the hook. Then when he lay 
motionless, his broad side turned up on the water, I led 
him cautiously to a shallower place, put down the rod, 
keeping the line taut in my hand, waded in and scooped 
him up in my dress skirt. Five pounds was the verdict 
an hour later, when he was solemnly weighed by fifteen 
of the family, and voted^ to be the finest fish they had seen 
taken with rod and line. I shall always regret that I did 
not spend some time on the Upper Laxa. While at 
Myvatn I heard a story of a small boy at the farm of 
Helluvad, on the river, who went fishing with the fly one 
evening after supper and caught 1301bs. of fish that 
averaged 3lbs. apiece. This is truly a remarkable tale, 
but we must bear in mind that Helluvad is a noted place 
for big trout; there is no darkness in an Icelandic sum- 
mer and we are not told at what hour that boy went to 
bed. 
From Sirra Ami's farm I went to Reykjahlid. on the 
eastern shore of Myvatn, a place interesting from the 
many mud wells, hot water and sulphur springs in 
the neighborhood. There is the Stora Gja, too, a great 
rift made by an earthquake, which I explored by the aid 
of J on, the farmer's big son. In some places one looks 
down to unknown depths, in others the rift is partially 
filled up with fallen fragments and the action of the 
weather, and here grow deep beds of ferns, tall butter- 
cups and crane's-bill, which instead of being a crimson 
pink, as with us, has the most vivid purple hues. 
I visited also some of the islands in the lake, where im- 
mense numbers of birds have their nests. Never have I 
seen so many babies tumbling about, and so many anxious 
TEE STOR^ GJA. 
mothers. There were scaup ducks, long-tailed ducks, 
red-breasted mergansers, black scoters, mallard, teal, gulls 
and snipe. 
The peasants guard these islands carefully from intru- 
sion, and the young birds were quite fearless. I caught a 
baby snipe in my hand, and when released it trotted away 
as calmly as possible. Great numbers of eggs are taken 
for food, and while at Reykjahlid my fare consisted prin- 
cipally of hard-boiled ducks' eggs and char from the lake. 
These when fresh are good enough fare, but the Iceland- 
ers, like the Norwegians, prefer their food fermented and 
a little tainted. 
One learns to venture on new strange dishes in the far 
north, I have eaten the eggs of eider and scaup ducks, 
gulls, guillemots and four other kinds unknown to me, 
ICELAND PACK PONIES. 
raw salmon and wild goose slightly smoked, raw herrings 
sliced with onions, sheep's milk and butter, "skyr," or 
sheep's milk curdled by rennet, sheep's head pickled in 
whey, blood and meal sausages, angelica roots, and later, 
in the Faroe Islands, I graduated proudly on whale. 
Puffins, I am glad to say, were out of season' 
One morning Jon called me to see a fine lot of char 
which they had taken with gill nets during the night. I 
was faily startled by the brilliant tints. Fifteen great 
fish lay in the bottom of their boat, the lower part of their 
bodies gleaming with the most brilliant orange and yel- 
low. Above they varied from a soft gray to a very dark 
green, almost black. All had faint gray spots on the 
sides, with here and there a red one, while the lower fins 
were reddish bordered with white. In weight they 
ranged from 2 to 9ibs. Filled with enthusiasm at this 
sight, I went trolling with Jon, using a small spoon which 
I had found very taking in Canada for black bass and 
lake trout; but not a bite did J have. Jon, indeed, had 
assured me that it was useless to try, that the char are 
only taken in nets; but as Jon spoke no English, only a 
little Danish, and I still less, I had not felt sure that I un- 
derstood him correctly. 
Reykjahlid is a fair type of an Icelandic farm. In front 
are five little wooden gables connected by thick walls of 
turf and stone. One is used as a guest room; in three 
tools, harness and stores are kept; and the fifth, the cen- 
tral one, opens into a long, dark passageway which ex- 
tends to the family living rooms at the rear of the house. 
Here is the "feld-hus" or kitchen, the milk and skyr 
rooms, and the general living rooms, where men, women 
and children eat, and sleep in open bunks about the walls. 
The people are very reluctant to have a foreigner explore 
these rooms. He is conducted on his arrival to the spare 
room, which is seldom wanting, and there he eats, sleeps 
and lives during his stay. 
The Icelanders are kind, honest and hospitable, and I 
never had the least fear about traveling alone among 
them. I went very slowly, made short journeys, and so 
dispensed with relays of ponies. Nor did I have a regu- 
lar guide. On my arrival at a farm where I was to spend 
several days I sent back the man and ponies, taking 
others from the place when I resumed my wanderings. 
Many English tourists complain of extortionate charges, 
but 1 did not meet with a single instance during the nine 
weeks of my stay. Perhaps my simple outfit and shabby, 
weather-worn appearance had a lowering effect upon 
prices. Usually 1 paid 3 kroner (56 cents) a day for board 
and lodging, and at Reykjahlid, where I remained nine 
days, the farmer flatly refused to accept more than 49 
cents a day, for he said, "You have eaten very little." 
After leaving Reykjahlid I took a week's excursion 
with a friend of Sirra Ami's as guide to the great water- 
fall Dettifoss, the Speaking Rocks, Asbergi, and over the 
mountains to Laxamyri, near the seaport of Husavik, 
Here is one of the finest farms in Iceland, Two causes 
of its prosperity are seen in the carved and painted wooden 
figures of an eider duck and salmon over the front door- 
way. Above the farm the Laxa (the same river that flows 
from Myvatn) rushes in fierce rapids and little falls, then 
widening divides into many channels, eddying deeply 
about low, grassy islands, where the eider ducks breed . 
From Myvatn north to the Arctic Sea the river abounds in 
trout. Salmon are plentiful in its lower course, but lava 
pillars about twelve miles from the farm prevent the fish 
t rom ascending beyond that point. Five farmers have the 
right to fish in the neighborhood, but only two avail them- 
selves of it— Sigf us, the farmer at Laxamyri, and Thor- 
grimur, at NasB. The latter place is the better for rod 
fishing. One year two Englishmen spent six weeks there, 
taking about 125 salmon. Another season only four 
were caught, but this was one of the cold years which 
occur about once in every ten, when the pack ice from 
Greenland drifts southward, shutting in the north coasts 
Of Iceland. The ice does not actually enter the rivers, 
but blocks the fjords and the fish do not seem to run. 
The keen north winds check the growth of the grass, snow 
falls even during the summer months, and much misery 
is caused. In Iceland the farmers' flocks are their main- 
stay, and when the scanty hay crop fails most of the sheep 
must be killed. This last summer, however, was a good 
one for the Icelanders, Young and old, all were at work 
gathering in the short, fragrant grasses. And while the 
men worked late into the light nights, the nets in the 
river gathered a harvest of trout and salmon. Not only 
were the gill-nets used, but once, at midnight, the farm- 
ers' sons with a seine took fifty sea trout. Beautiful fish 
they were, weighing from ^Ib, to olbs., and shining like 
burnished silver. The sea trout run to about the first 
week of August, while the salmon begin about June 1 and 
continue .until the last of September. 
The largest trout I caught at Laxamyri was only 3+lbs. 
The water near the shore in many places was shallow'and 
weedy, I had no waders, and my rod was too heavy for 
me to cast far with it. The wind too blew almost a gale 
during most of my stay, fairly whisking the fly from the 
water. I hoped that some properly equipped and skillful 
angler would happen along, that I might at least see the 
capture of a salmon. I had had a faint, wild hope that I 
might capture a small one, but this was too great an am- 
bition to be realized. Still, there might have been a 
chance for it had I gone to the best places further up the 
river, but there a bull was roaming at large. Several 
times I started in that direction, but my courage failed 
me before I reached the spot. It is astonishing how many 
black bulls the feminine eye can see in the strange, dark 
forms of the lava fields. 
One day, after catching two fish of 31bs. each, I hooked 
one which went the way of many big fish and escaped. 
The manners of salmon are unknown to me, and I have 
often wondered if it could have been one. I had cast a 
grilse fly at the head of a rapid when something took 
the fly, and as I struck the line looped itself around the 
tip of my rod. I could not reach it, for the fish dragged 
heavily and positively refused to yield an inch. There 
was nothing to be done but to await the final catas- 
trophe. Four times the fish went up and down, the 
dripping line slowly cutting the surface of the water, and 
being jerked reluctantly out, inch by inch. Then with a 
rush he went down the rapids; the tackle was strong and 
the hook tore out. Could it have been a salmon or w^s it 
a giant trout? There are big fish in the Laxa. The very 
next morning Joannes, the farmer's son, called me out to 
see a 101b. trout taken in a net near the fjord, with three 
fine grilse. It looked at first glance like a female salmon, 
having the same small head, thick body and silvery 
sides. The best of all was a 321b. salmon — the largest, 
Joannes said, that had been taken, in his recollection, on 
the farm. ' 
In looking at a large map of Iceland, fifteen rivers 
called Laxa are to be seen. These are or have been sal- 
mon rivers, as the name indicates— "Lax," salmon, and 
"a " river. 
Trout abound in all rivers which do not drain glaciers, 
but the best fishing is in the Myvatn Laxa, the Sog near 
Lake Thingvellir, the fishing lakes of the Arnavatnheidi, 
in Svinavatn, and in the tributaries of the western Hvita. 
On our homeward journey some Englishmen showed 
me their salmon flies. The Jock Scott and silver doctor 
were the favorites, though the Childers, snow-fly, butcher 
and Durham were also used. 
For trout I found a grilse Jock Scott was a favorite at 
Myvatn and Laxamyri; in fact, most of the grilse flies 
would be good, and a large March-brown should be in- 
cluded. 
The Icelandic fishermen on the Laxa make their own 
flies, and use almost altogether one with a rather dark 
brown wing and red body. 
During my week at Laxamyri there were few hours 
when the weather was even reasonably good. A bitterly 
cold, high wind blew from the Arctic Sea, bringing a 
dense sea fog, while a heavy rain continued for four 
days, It was impossible to fish. My numbed hands 
