A Great Start to the Week

Seldom have I seen such enthusiasm from the fishers as last night. It is infectious; and gives all of us who work on the programme a lift. It was a classic Varzuga evening, wonderful light, calm and mild. Heaven.

At Lower Camp the seven rods had 16 salmon after dinner – the two father and son teams both returned to the lodge, quite tired after a long’ish day travelling from Helsinki, but with huge smiles, all had landed their first Varzuga salmon. Great to see them, and the rest of the team, off the mark within hours of arriving.

Robert P with a cracker from Green Bank this morning

A bit of mixed weather today – sun to start then cloudy, wind at times but not bad, foggy and chilly in the afternoon and again a magic clear light this evening.

A much better fishing day with good numbers of fresh fish running through all the beats, particularly down here at Lower. I took a boat up to Middle to see the team for dinner, silver fish jumping ahead of me all the time. The shallows now getting a bit skinny in places, Keith and Dave relieved to see me bring it back with no knocks or scrapes. Phew!

I have got back to find Julian P and Dan R organizing a celebration, they had heard on the radio that Lower had out-scored Middle today with a very respectible 52 fish to seven rods against 66 to 12 rods at Middle Camp. This could be a late night......

Adrian T T

At Middle, Stuart R started in style with his first Varzuga salmon a deep, fresh 12lber. At Lower the notable score went to Julian P who banked 18 salmon. Over on Kitza the five rods had 20, I think they broke a record with one guest losing 14! All camps are reporting some really chunky sized fish in the 10 – 12 lb range. Our Spanish guests at Pana had 32 with a good number of bigger fish, eight between 12 and 15lbs.

Will T-T, one off the tide.

Most rods are using sinking tips with largish flies of 1”+. I’m trying to convert them to more surface fishing, but it is only one day into the week and we can start experimenting once they have a few more under the belt.

Steve Hammond ( at Moscoi Rapid last week) with a good example of the really fit fish we are catching this year on Varzuga

Weather looks good for tomorrow, I'll let you know how we get on.

Christopher Robinson