Spring tides for week three brought huge excitement for the guests who had already completed one week on Cosmoledo Atoll. With lots of fish seen over the neaps, guests and guides were preparing for a great week.

The fishing around Alphonse and St Francois has been exceptional over the last week and some brilliant catches have been reported. Anglers were able to fish a neap tide for most of the week. The beginning of the week started with excellent weather with the wind swinging between east and west. Towards the end of the week, the wind finally settled in a westerly direction which brought with it some amazing GT fishing as well as the bonefishing being on top form!

Week two started with a bang! All guests, except two, were seasonal returners to this incredible part of the world, so expectations were high and we were so excited to see the results of this full-week neap tide.

Perfect weather, brilliant fishing and amazing people are all good ways to describe Alphonse Atoll over week eight of the season. Anglers were lucky enough to fish a full moon spring tide over the week which allowed anglers to fish for all species and walk the surf.

The start of the Cosmoledo season will be one that is spoken about for a long time. We welcomed some familiar faces and some new faces for the opening week for arguably one of the most amazing weeks which was coupled with great tides, wonderful weather, and sensational fishing.

Alicja, Lenka, Gunnar and Jonas have been working hard these past weeks to complete the renovation of the guest rooms at Aurora Lodge, the East Ranga fishing lodge, and I am delighted to report this is done.

It has been a brilliant start to the season on Alphonse and St Francois Atoll. From day one anglers have been treated to fantastic sightings of fish and once in a lifetime catches. During week seven anglers fished a neap tide just before the full moon which made conditions exciting and the fishing interesting.

A great week of fishing started off on a spring tide with a 0.3 m low tide in the morning pushing to a 1.9 m high in the afternoon. The high tide continued to get higher throughout the week peaking at a 2.3 m high…

Week five of the season was met with cloudy weather and passing squalls which cleared by midweek. Tides were in the latter-end of the neap cycle and spring tide arrived by the end of the week…

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.

We are now in the final days of the 2020 season. As of yesterday 8,544 salmon and a few hundred sea trout have been landed in 115 days to an average of around 16 rods per day.

The ’prime’ season at East Ranga has ended, the all time record catch of 7,473 has been exceeded, and the lodge has now closed for the winter. The final month of fishing will become increasingly autumnal, and numbers of fresh fish entering the river will decrease to a trickl

We have been very lucky. The run this summer has been extraordinary, the season has gone past 6,500 salmon and still the river is receiving fish fresh off each tide.

As the total catch for the East Ranga passes 5,000 for the season, maybe its as good a moment as any to take a deep breath of fresh Icelandic air and reflect on the past 2 months.

It has rained so heavily, with sustained strong winds, that any fisher would have been forgiven for not venturing outside. Luckily no forgiveness was required as our intrepid fishers put (large) fly to water and landed over 600 salmon for the week.

This week we lost a couple of days’ fishing to impressive storms and rising coloured water. So to end the week with 680+ salmon landed to 12-17 rods was a great result.

July 26 saw records fall on East Ranga. The guides had whispered that if conditions were kind we could see a record daily catch. It happened. 223 Atlantic salmon landed in a single day

Thursday and Friday last week were all but written off due to huge rain, but Saturday saw the sun return and the fishing go utterly crazy.

The truth is we just don’t know why so many fish are running at this time. To land 900 Atlantic salmon is a week is not normal

This has been a staggering weeks’ fishing. Great conditions and very strong runs of fresh fish resulted in 503 salmon being landed