THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

done the same and kept all our fish stocks to ourselves instead of sharing them with the rest of the
European Union.
My next visit, made some years later, was deputising for Sea Angler editor Mel Russ, who at the last
minute couldn't make a trip organised by Icelandair taking a team of journalists from all over Europe
on an angling tour of the country.
I got five days notice on that one. My problem was that my fear of flying had lead me to let my passport
expire after swearing I would never use it again. The promise however of a weeks fishing in Iceland
quickly over-rode any such concerns and had me standing in the queue at the Liverpool passport office.
In addition to that, a word with Cliff Brown, the current Sea Angler editor who was working on a sister
publication back then and also couldn't make it, confirming that he too would take an article from my
boat partner Dave Devine got him onto the trip as well.
We flew in from Heathrow and met up with the others at Reykjavik. From there we were bussed over
to the small internal airport at Keflavik for a flight on a small twin prop plane to Akureyri in a howling
gale, which was an experience to put it mildly.
On landing, despite the relatively short distance, it was
another world. Bright sunshine and hardly a breath of wind,
though that unfortunately wasn't to last. That night we were
treated to roast puffins washed down with lots of beer, then
on to Dalvik further up the fjord for a dose of small cod and
coalfish.
Again, as with Akranes years earlier, the fishing was nothing
to write home about, and not even as many fish. Then around
three O'clock in the afternoon we had to cross to Grenivik
for the onward journey to Husavik where we would
overnight for the following days fishing, by which time a
very stiff northerly wind had got up.
It was horrendous. The fjord sides were exacerbating the
problem by channelling the wind in. How we made it across
I don't know, but relieved and soaking wet, we thankfully
did.
We then fished on in similar vein at a number of other
beautiful fishy looking locations, again unfortunately, none
of which fulfilled their promise.
Phill Williams, Keflavik Cod Finally, we flew back to Keflavik where we did another
overnight in preparation for our final day out from there.
But first, they had booked us in for a viking feast at some posh gaff in Reykjavik, where another
'interesting' food encounter was planned.
By this stage, everyone was quite relaxed with each others company. All except for one poor German
chap called Frank, who I actually already knew as a translator of work I'd done previously for the
German publication Fisch und Fang.
Most of the other journalists were from countries occupied by the Germans in WWII, and despite the
fact that we had all been born in generations after the war, they weren't going to let him forget it, a fact
which became increasingly obvious with every glass of alcohol which arrived at speed each time a glass
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