Sometimes, there is simply nothing to report. That was certainly the case for the trip to Lake Þingvallavatn this morning. There was just absolutely, positively nothing to report. The weather was decent for fishing; the sky was partly cloudy, and there was a slight breeze from the southwest or perhaps even due west. The wind wasn’t so strong, however, that I couldn’t cast my fly against it, even using my number five rod. I started by trying the two spots on the eastern bank south of Arnarfell that have previously yielded fish.
I gave these two spots a good two hours. The only thing that happened was that I stepped off a lava shelf at the wrong spot and sank into the water almost up to my neck. After that drenching, I was quite cold, as water had—of course—poured in through the neckline and down into my waders. After two hours, I was getting bored with the lack of bites, so I walked back along the bank and around the bay by Arnarfell.
I had begun to wonder about the absence of the Great Northern Diver, which usually frequents these parts. I hadn’t seen it anywhere. I had planned to fish the gravel bank west of the bay at the bottom of the eastern shore. On my way there, I ran into the pair of divers I had been missing. They were drifting calmly in the bay with one chick, right up against the bank. They seemed so relaxed that I decided to see if they would let me get closer. The pair seemed completely indifferent to the fisherman and just went about their business. I watched the birds for a while before I started fishing. As I was fishing the bank heading west, I spotted something bobbing there at the water’s edge. It looked to me like an insulation mat, and I assumed some camper had lost it. Around noon, I decided to call it a day and headed for the car. On my way, I grabbed the mat, as it was just sitting there like any other piece of trash. The mat turned out not to be a sleeping mat at all. It was a large rubber mat designed for the trunk of a big SUV. It is a complete mystery to me how it ended up there, as no car can get near the water. Regardless, that rubber mat was the only catch of the trip.