Blanda, Iceland
On the North coast of Iceland the Blanda is primarily known as an early season river which has a large run of multi sea winter salmon. This large volume waterway has the added benefit of never experiencing low water conditions even in a drought.
A new lodge has recently been built on the Blanda and it is probably the finest on all of Iceland's rivers.
The fish in the Blanda, which can be up to twenty pounds in weight, run far earlier than most Icelandic rivers and the river is at its peak from mid June to mid July.
The Blanda is split into two beats; beat one covers from the sea to the first waterfall offering approximately two kilometres of fishing. This waterfall acts as a natural barrier to the salmon until the water has warmed up sufficiently for them to ascend it. As a result, only beat one is fished until the beginning of July. At the beginning of July the fish start pushing through and beat two comes into its own. This consists of about 22kms of fishable water, a long beat with a large number of pools and resting lies. Beat one tends to be the most prolific but the sheer space on beat two means that it is ever popular and, when open, rods rotate between the two during the week.
