Saturday 21 May 2011

Great First Week

I will have to be brief today; I head back to UK tomorrow morning. Charlie White takes over up here for a couple of weeks and will keep you posted with fishing results and conditions on the Varzuga.


What an amazing first week! Low’ish water but the level is holding up well with the recent rain. The water temperature remains a constant 6⁰C, our only problem being some dirty water washed in by the side streams off the Tundra.

Craig P with his 90th salmon for the week
At Middle Arnaud F-M landed 24 salmon today taking him over 100 for the week. At Lower Craig P is still out there, on 97 and determined to get over the three figure mark. Henry G has retired gracefully on 73 fish for week, all caught ‘in office hours’.

Unless we get a really cold spell we should be on course to be on floating lines by early June.

Midnight this evening
Always a sad moment to leave the Varzuga, but I will be back in a couple of weeks – and to catch up with Tommy the Toyota – who awaits our next journey to Lakselva in Norway in late June. Local kids have written ‘Clean Me’ in Russian on him; I quite want to make it back to Hungerford with that still there. I suspect I will not - but I will take home more memories of this remarkable river.

Christopher Robinson