Vatnsdalsá winds more than forty kilometres down the Vatnsdalur, a glacial trough valley in north-west Iceland famous for being greener and more dotted with small grassy hillocks than anywhere else in the country. The river threads two lakes — Flóðið and Húnavatn — on its way to the Húnaflói coast, draining a broad upland catchment of dark volcanic rock and gravel. Salmon fishing runs over three beats and some twenty kilometres of clear, gentle, meandering water with more than four dozen named pools. The lowest, Hnausastrengur, is the river's jewel: the first stop for running fish and, by repute, the pool that holds more twenty-pound salmon than any other in Iceland. The gradient is easy and the wading kind on firm gravel through the meadow reaches — a river to be read carefully rather than waded hard.

Wading: Soft margins where the river threads the lakes