Iceland 2024 for Sea Run Brown Trout at Battle Hill Lodge

In September 2024, I spent a week in Iceland fly fishing for sea run brown trout with the incredible Robert Hansson ‪@FlyFishingbyRobert‬ as my guide. We fished from Battle Hill Lodge which is a 3-hour drive east of Reykjavik in the southern part of Iceland. We fished two different locations each day, so we explored a bunch of different rivers including the Vatnamót, Geirlandsá, Þverá, Tungufljótt, and Fossálar.

The variety of fishing was one of the highlights of the trip as we used 8 and 9 weight Spey rods to swing flies, as well as an 8-weight single handed rod to euro nymph, throw streamers, and try traditional nymph setups as well.

These fish were easy to spook and beautiful to see with stunning shades of gray and blue. It was also encouraging to see that these fish are incredibly healthy and strong. The other client that fished with us each day (Niall) was far more successful in hooking up and netting fish, but I still managed to land some beauties (my two biggest were 10+ lbs.) thanks to a lot of coaching from the very knowledgeable and patient Robert!

My video recaps often make it look like I catch loads of fish because I focus on the catches. This time, I included lost battles and a quick montage of the fishing spots where I caught nothing (and there were plenty).

I captured the video footage using the ‪@DJI‬ Osmo Action 4 which I mount on a great little product called The Action Hat (https://actionhat.com). The Osmo Action 4 camera continues to perform flawlessly for me. I captured the drone footage with the ‪‪DJI‬ Mini 4 Pro which also was more than up to the task. Robert also captured some drone footage using the DJI Mavick Pro. I edited everything together with the amazing ‪@DAVINCIRESOLVESTUDIO‬ from ‪@BlackmagicDesignOfficial‬.

I’m grateful to ‪‪@FishPartner‬ who runs Battle Hill Lodge (and a variety of other locations in Iceland) and also to ‪@SportquestHolidaysDestinations‬ who I used to book my trip and patiently answered all my questions.

Big thanks to ‪@SimmsFishingProducts‬ and ‪@Fishpondusa‬ and ‪@Sageflyfish1980‬ and ‪@ScientificAnglers‬ and ‪@RIOPRODUCTS‬ and ‪@GalvanFlyReels‬ for making the great fishing gear I used on the trip.

And finally, a huge thanks to ‪@redsflyshop‬ in my home state of Washington, and to ‪@Madriveroutfitters‬ out of Ohio. These two fly shops produce the highest quality fly fishing teaching content on YouTube and Instagram (and they also run great online retail operations). They have improved my fly fishing by leaps and bounds and I'm grateful!

Timecodes
0:00 - Introduction
0:04 - Vatnamót River
2:04 - Geirlandsá River and the “Tourist Pool”
04:59 - Vatnamót River with the big catches
08:00 - Þverá, Tungufljótt, and Fossálar rivers montage of not catching fish
09:27 - Drone Montage
11:16 - Picture Montage