Varma River

Varma river – Thorleifslaekur is an extremely unique river. It is small, delicate and only a half hours drive from Reykjavík. Despite its appearence it is one of the island’s most prolific sea trout rivers and offers anglers a variety of fish types, ranging from the dominating sea trout to the odd salmon, to stationary brown trout, to a small recently injected flatfish, to a stock of huge non migratory char, to migratory char and finally to a local type of steelhead! One angler even caught the lot in a single day and had an eal thrown in for good measure before the day was over!

Varma river – Thorleifslaekur, the former name applying to the upper part of the river and the latter the lower part, is fished with four daily rods and is exclusively fished on a day to day basis, commuting from the Reykjavík area or the closer lying villages. It actually runs through one of them, Hveragerdi. That makes it an outstanding choice to fish during a short stopover as rods are often available at a short notice. Sea trout are the main feature of the river and it is full of them early on in April and May and again from mid August and throughout the season which ends late in October. Quite often runs of big sea trout start appearing as early as mid July.

Next to the sea trout the stock of big char are held in esteem by anglers as the bigger ones are none less than monsters, some of them weighing from 10 to 14 pounds. They are elusive though and drift in and out of the fishing. Sometimes almost as of they have vanished, only to turn up again and provide someone with outstanding sport. Stationary browns are here and there, some of them of monstrous size, and the before mentioned steelhead are originally escapees from a fish rearing station on the riverbank. Some years ago some rainbows got out and sea run rainbows have been turning up ever since. Only though a few each season but they always raise eyebrows as they tend to be big, the biggest so far being a 14 pounder!

Varma river – Thorleifslaekur is a fly only fishery and it has a strict catch and release policy which has obviously benefitted the river over the years.