9070….AND SEASON OVER.

Happy anglers at East Rangá last season.

When the season finally closed on October 18, Head Guide Gunnar submitted the final catch stats which sat at 9070 salmon. None of us expected this but it was wonderful to experience in an otherwise tricky year for everyone. Equally satisfying was that the river was still full of salmon, in fact some 87 salmon were landed on the final day itself. Testament to how well the river can fish right through September and well into October.

These salmon remaining in the river will obey their instincts, pairing and spawning in the hope of new generations, but as we know the river’s harsh conditions - cold water, highly mobile volcanic sand, scarcity of food for juveniles etc - will mean that only a tiny fraction of those fertilised eggs will hatch, and a further fraction still go on to survive to fry, let alone to smolts that migrate and return to East Ranga as adult fish. Hence the hatchery program that makes the East Ranga such a stable fishery.

However, this spawning effort is not entirely wasted. For example, the Fiska tributary (meeting the main stem on Beat 9) hosts better natural spawning conditions and has the capability for its natural stock to increase meaningfully, equally those fish that do spawn in the main river have a comparatively easy journey back to sea and a further decent chance of returning in following year(s) as larger specimens.

We will see if the huge runs of 2020 are an indicator of larger than normal runs of multi sea winter fish in 2021. Without doubt it will be an exciting wait, and by early/mid July next year we will have a sense of the answer to that question. If you are interested to fish East Ranga in 2021, please contact our managing agent RIPP Sporting on pr@rippsporting.com