My wife and I knew that the fence along the road at Brautarlækur had been damaged over the winter, and the sheep from Hóll had already started wandering down the valley. Consequently, there was no choice as to how this weekend would be spent. Work clothes were packed, and we headed up to Norðurárdalur. At the last minute, I decided to grab my fishing gear, just in case there was any energy left for a bit of fishing in Hreðavatn on Saturday evening. It felt like spring had progressed too far without me having tried for any lake fish.
The priority this weekend, however, was the fence. Every year for the past thirty years, I have maintained this particular fence—initially with my father-in-law, who was then quite advanced in years. The fence marks the boundary of the land around Brautarlækur, which is 1.7 hectares and was formerly a paddock where cows would sometimes spend their summer days. This wouldn’t be considered a major fencing job compared to maintaining a fence around an entire farmstead. One spring, I mentioned this to my father-in-law. He agreed that fencing could be a troublesome business and recalled an old encounter with the farmer from the neighboring estate. They had agreed to repair the fence between their properties, from the river Norðurá up to the lake. One of them made a trip to the Co-op and arrived with excellent fencing materials, but the other must have scavenged a scrap heap, as he showed up with barrel staves. That’s how it was back then. People had very little money, so everything usable was put to use.”
After a solid day’s work on the fence, I took an afternoon nap followed by dinner. By then, my body was ready for some fishing. Around nine o’clock, my father-in-law’s grandson and I drove down Norðurárdalur to Hreðavatn. We pulled over across from Lambhagi, which is in the middle of the lake, intending to fish around it. The water was calm, as the southeasterly wind that had dominated the day had died down. It was warm and just the most pleasant fishing weather.
I put on a red Nobbler and cast about three meters from the bank. As I was stripping more line off the reel, the first fish struck. Shortly after, the second and third followed. All of them took the Nobbler. Then there was a brief lull, so I moved to a small point east of Lambhagi. There, a fourth fish took a Peacock pupa. The boy was using a lure, but the fish preferred the fly; however, he did manage to land one small fish. Three of the fish were brown trout and one was a char. My wife noted that this was roughly the same ratio found in the nets back when she worked as a farmhand at the lake as a teenager. The char in the lake is very small, though in this case, the char was the largest of the three. I consider this a very decent start to the fishing summer.”