Last summer the fishing in East Ranga was spectacular and the river finished the season with 9070 salmon caught.
But how was the fishing divided over the river? Which beats are the best? What is the multi winter salmon to grilse ratio? Why is the sky blue?
Why will answer those questions in articles with detailed stats about the fishing in the East Ranga this summer, maybe not the last one though, you will have to google that.
Gunnar Skuli – head guide deserves a lot of credit and thanks for reading maaaany pages of log books to create the stats.
The first month is June. Then the big fellows arrived with a few grilse in the mix,
| Size | Beats | Beats | Beats | Total | |||||||||||
| -69 | 70-79 | 80-89 | 90+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |||
| 15.06 | 5 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 17 | ||||
| 16.06 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 17 | |||||||
| 17.06 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 12 | ||||
| 18.06 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8 | ||||||
| 19.06 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| 20.06 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||||||||||
| 21.06 | 0 | ||||||||||||||
| 22.06 | 0 | ||||||||||||||
| 23.06 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||||||||||
| 24.06 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 15 | ||||
| 25.06 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||||||||
| 26.06 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 14 | ||||||||
| 27-30.06 | 20 | 9 | 12 | 5 | 19 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 46 | ||
| Total | 28 | 34 | 72 | 13 | 39 | 2 | 25 | 40 | 8 | 14 | 9 | 13 | 3 | 147 |
As you can see those number reveal many interesting facts. Most salmon caught in June were in the size bracket 80-89cm or 72. The first grilse was caught on June 17th and after that one and one grilse was caught until June 27-30th when they arrived in bigger numbers.
Salmon in the size of 90+ cm were 13 in June. The largest one caught and landed was 98 cm, there were many that escaped that were estimated well above the 20 pound mark, the big ones have a bit of a tendency to get away!
If we look closer at the best beats, beat 1 and 4 were the best by far. Beat one held the spot throughout the summer as the best beat in the river, beat 4 blew hot and cold and was in the average bracket overall. Beats two and nine were the least productive. It is not surprising that beat nine which is the top beat is slow in the beginning but more so with beat two which is in the lower part of the river. The salmon seem to have run through without stopping!
All in all June 15-30 gave 147 salmon which is an acceptable result.
The photo with the article shows guide – Reynir Sigmunds and his daughter with a 90cm+ salmon from beat three.
Go fishing!
Johann David – johann@kolskeggur.is
