Henry Gilbey - Ultimate Fishing Adventures: 100 Extraordinary Fishing Experiences Around the World

This edition first published 2012

2012 Henry Gilbey

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ISBN 9781119962663 (pbk.); ISBN 9781119968009 (ebk.)

ISBN 9781119968016 (ebk.); ISBN 9781119968023 (ebk.)

Graphic Design by Holly Ramsay

Cover image: Henry Gilbey

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Dedication

To my wife and two girls travelling the world and doing what I do is just amazing, but the best bit about it is coming home and being enveloped by my family when the front door opens. You are the best and I am the luckiest man alive Henry Gilbey

Chapter 1

Arctic char, Greenland

Time it right and the sheer numbers of Arctic char you can catch in Greenland can literally take your breath away. Generally, anglers interested in fishing for these char will fly in from Reykjavik in Iceland, so it is more than possible and also well worth combining a salmon fishing trip in Iceland with an Arctic char extravaganza in Greenland.

It is actually possible to fish for Arctic char from the coastline in early summer. From June to July, when the char have moved out of the rivers and lakes and into the fjords, you can fly fish or spin for these fish close to the river mouths. But from July into August, these vast waves of Arctic char migrate up the rivers on the high tides, so for the most part you will be fishing the areas around either the river mouth or more typically where the river meets a lake. The best all round time for chasing these prolific fish is in August when the greatest concentrations of fish have moved up the rivers and, importantly, when there are fewer mosquitoes around. On the whole, a Greenland Arctic char is going to weigh from 1-5lbs, but they can reach nearly 10lbs from time to time. Although the best of the fishing is in the middle of summer, local temperatures average around 10C; hardly on the balmy side, but wrap up warm and this might well prove to be one of those world class fishing trips that is for some reason not well known about.

A river such as the Kangia is very cold and very clear, and in season there will literally be thousands and thousands of char in here. Fish of over 10lbs have been caught, and you will be able to see the fish you are going for. To fish many of the best char locations in Greenland will often require a combination of vehicles and then walking in, with fishing camps mainly being very remote. When the fish are on, they will happily take both wet and dry flies such as the Silver Doctor and Polar Shrimp. Char are known for very aggressively taking an unweighted fly that you skip across the surface, so you need to make sure that you up the breaking strain of your leader to cope with such savage takes. It is not considered desperately hard to catch over 100 char in a days fishing.

Summer might well be short, but the reason that Greenland is such a prime destination for Arctic char is the sheer number of healthy rivers full of so many fish. A local nickname for an Arctic char with those red bellies and dark backs is Father Christmas.

Chapter 2

Gasp Peninsula, Canada

The Miramichi river system might well be the most famous Atlantic salmon fishery on the east coast of Canada, but the stunning and wild Gasp peninsula is utterly unique when it comes to its own salmon fishing. This peninsula extends around 220 miles into the Gulf of St Lawrence, and what makes the salmon fishing so different and attractive is the fact that the main rivers fished here are incredibly clear, to the point where you are actually sight-fishing to salmon most of the time. Dont make the mistake though of thinking that just because you can see the fish they suddenly become much easier to catch, because this is not the case at all. However, to see individual fish and indeed shoals of them hanging in water sometimes so clear that it looks like there is none there is just incredible. To actually know that the fish are there certainly helps boost the confidence levels when chasing Atlantic salmon, yet for some reason this wonderful part of Canada does not seem to receive the same kind of salmon-related publicity that other parts do.