In the early hours of Monday morning, I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed my lunch, and headed east to Þingvellir. Along the way, I picked up a friend, and together we planned to fish at Ólafsdráttur in the fair weather the forecast had promised for the day. It certainly looked promising; at five-thirty that morning, the car’s thermometer already read 14 degrees Celsius. During the warmest part of the day, the temperature surely climbed well above 20 degrees.
As usual, I was optimistic about the fishing. In similar weather last summer, I had my best catch of the season at Lake Þingvallavatn—though not at Ólafsdráttur, but south of Arnarfell. This time, the “Goddess of Fishing” was not joining us, as we saw little sign of the Arctic char. My companion caught one rather small char and one murta, and that was the extent of it. Usually, the trout in Þingvallavatn stay near the bottom and rarely show themselves on the surface. During this trip, however, we occasionally noticed movement on the water and heard the odd splash. There was clearly fish there, and it was likely brown trout we were sensing.