Iceland: The Beautiful Struggle

Iceland:

The Beautiful Struggle

Fly fishing isn’t always rosy and butterflies… but isn´t this exactly what we´re looking for? The extraordinary. The tad bit out of the comfort zone? Isn´t that what makes us feel alive?

By ANNE WANGLER, via FLYLORDS // Photos by ANNE WANGLER and MARKUS BROWN

8 weeks of solo travel in Iceland. 8 weeks living in my van. Well, let´s say Iceland was an experience. I´d be lying if I said that the trip was just “awesome”. It wasn´t exactly like what you get to see on Instagram daily. No, travel is a constant up and down, especially when you travel alone. Rain was pounding sideways for weeks. Always being wet, always cold. The moisture in the van turning into ice at night. But there´s also beauty in it. I like to call it “the beautiful struggle”. You learn, you grow every day with every challenge and when waking up to a beautiful sunrise in the middle of nowhere it all feels worth it. It all makes sense again.

Trips like the one to Iceland make you return to yourself, open your senses, help you focus and reassess.

Why Iceland? Well, I wanted to get to know the island since I´ve never been there AND I did want to catch a proper fish. The kind of fish Iceland is known and famous for.

Home waters

I come from 4wt waters where we mostly catch 30cm browns and occasionally grayling. If you´re lucky and know the water well, you might catch a 40-45cm fish but nowadays this is rare and very special. I fish 99% of the time with dry flies, usually something around #20 CDCs.

The last two years I basically spent both full summers in my home waters in the Ore Mountains in Germany. I got injured while skiing and fishing was basically the only thing I could do without a whole lot of pain. So, I picked up a rod and, similar to everything else I do, it was all or nothing. I went all-in and became a little bit of a nerd. I spent almost every day in the river and well… loved it!

Fishing felt like this little getaway, a break from daily life, just very calming. It helps me find the balance, it teaches me patience and I´ve found this great connection to nature that I find in skiing too but in a very different way. The two simply move at a different pace and so do I.

Plans form

I felt I was ready and hungry for a new fishing experience. I had big expectations and zero plan. I hopped on the boat from Denmark to Iceland relaxed and knowing that I would have to spend the next 3 days on the ferry with plenty of time to make a plan. Honestly speaking there wasn´t a real plan at all because I didn´t need one. Rather, I wanted to focus on the “here and now” and simply “go with the flow”, do whatever “floats my boat”.

The first couple of days were challenging. I found out how difficult and expensive it was do get permits. I then was told to try ring doorbells at the farms in closest proximity to the water I wanted to fish. I found it weird at first, but it seemed to be the way to do it.

Shortly after my arrival, I connected with Maros, (@jungleindatrout) who´s a guide in the Southern part of the island. Originally from Slovakia he decided to move to Iceland in order to chase (and of course catch) big trout. That´s what he does.

That´s what he´s good at - but hey, he´s a good human too. He helped me a lot, gave me advice and much needed beta.

A change of scenery – and weather

It had been super dry for weeks, but then it started pouring down just as I arrived. So, we basically went from no water to a lot of colored water and didn’t catch what we hoped for. I then went to the Southwest because I was lucky enough to connect with the local fishing club, SFVR, whose manager and guides were super helpful and happy to work together. I got to fish some of their truly magical rivers and, certainly, some of the most beautiful waters that I’ve ever fished. Such as the river Leirvogsa with its 30km long winding bends, rapids, and pools.

This river is located just outside the capital Reykjavik. It’s small enough that you can read it but holds incredibly big fish. I went there the day before to scout and get to know the river a little bit. For some reason, I put so much pressure on myself to finally catch THAT fish that I could barely fall asleep.

I woke up, being super nervous just like before a big competition.

“Calm TF down, Anne. It’s just fishing and it’s fun!”

The fishing trip begins

I packed up and went down to the pool I liked the most when I walked by it the day before. I fished for approximately 30 minutes and got a first strike on a simple black and silver Sunray Shadow and heck, what a strike it was!

“He quickly turned and released himself from the barbless hook”

After fighting the fish for about 5 minutes it jumped and showed its full size and beauty. Holy crap! This was the biggest fish that I had ever seen… and hooked. My heart started racing. Since I was alone, I knew that the only chance to land this monster was to make him

tired but, obviously, I still wanted to make sure to do it quickly so I could release him as fast as possible. I fought the fish for about 20 minutes, and when I thought he was finally tired enough to land, I reached for his tail. He quickly turned, released himself from the barbless hook and managed to escape. Wow! Soooo fricking close! I had just lost the fish of my life and was in quite an emotional state of mind.

A 100 cm male salmon, as my friend and guide Arni (@icelandic_ troutbum) would call it, is a “fricking crocodile”. I couldn’t help it and cried like a baby.

I get that most people won’t understand, and that’s okay. But for me, in that moment… well, it plain sucked! And with the fishing that was under way for me, it would suck gradually more and more…

Time passes

The last couple of days were tough, physically as well as mentally.

I had crazy bad weather for two weeks straight. Still, I tried hard, and I must’ve made at least 10.000.000 casts trying to catch THE fish. But it felt like nothing was coming together. I had nothing to show for my efforts. However, despite the shitty weather and conditions, I kept going.

“I must’ve made at least 10.000.000 casts trying to catch THE fish”

At some point I started feeling like it was me there was something wrong with. I had put quite a bit of pressure on myself, and it just did not work out in my favor. After the huge one that morning, I fought two more really good fish. The 2nd one jumped and ran like crazy. Beauty of a fish, bright silver! My leader broke.

The 3rd one took a lot of line raging upstream. Then it swam into some rocks, my tippet got stuck and the fish broke off. “Well, f*** that sh**!” I was tired and sad. These fish were just too big to land by myself I thought.

Assistance required

But then I finally managed to catch my first two salmon thanks to my friend Arni, who joined at night and helped netting. These two salmon were both on the small side and nothing compared to what I had experienced earlier, but hey – salmon are salmon.

Thinking about the monsters I had lost it was all very bittersweet. But at least – I figuredI must have done something right.

In summary

Apart from fishing, this is how I’d sum up the trip to Iceland. I met more sheep than people, got to see the most mind-blowing places, experienced winds so strong you couldn’t open the car door, visited a gazillion gorgeous waterfalls, hiked up to mountain tops that came with stunning views down to the deeply cut fjords.

I fished perfect waters, watched the Northern Lights sitting in a hot spring. I went up Fagradalsfjell, the active volcano, 5 times, until I finally got to see the lava flowing. And damn! - what a feeling that was! Like having a one on one with nature, feeling the forces, so rough, so pure, so fierce.

I like giving myself the time and really diving in with what surrounds me. This is where photography comes in for me. It gives me that extra purpose, that reason to push a little harder, experience a little more. I use fly fishing in a similar way too. Similar but different. It slows me down. It gives me this physical, tangible connection to the water, to nature, that’s unmatched by anything else.

Adding that little extra

I think by adding extra pursuits into your exploration of the world, you create a far more compelling and fulfilling connection with the outdoors. It puts you in places you otherwise wouldn’t reach and grants perspectives that could simply slip you by.

I experienced a place that’s still so wild and vast. The kind of place that makes you feel small and humbled. A place that doesn’t compare to anything that I have ever seen before… And the thing is, I more than experienced it. I felt it. The extraordinary and the butterflies.

“The beautiful struggle”.