It is great to be back to see old friends, meet some new ones and, this year, to see the extraordinary amount of work that has gone into the new accommodation here at Lower.
Our journey up here could not have been easier and we got to Middle Varzuga by 3:30pm which I think is some kind of record. Having dropped the clients off there we flew to Lower Varzuga and then on to Kitza which gave me a great chance to see the whole river system and how it is looking.
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| Loading the helicopter at Murmansk |
Kitza, as always, looks beautiful and the river appears to be dropping into the perfect height. It is still cold over there with a water temperature of 4 degrees but that is not a bad thing and the head guide, Ura, reports that not many fish have got above the 3rd Island yet which should help concentrate the fish in the pools nearer the camp.
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| Upstream from Kitza camp last night |
It is pouring with rain this morning which has put off any rods here attempting a fish before breakfast but Phil W had 3 last night and Sue C had a fish just after supper to kick her week off in style. I understand from Hugh at Middle that one of our regular rods put his waders on directly after we had dropped them off and had hardly stopped fishing since – he has so far had 34 fish to his rod in little over 18 hours, extraordinary fishing and extraordinary stamina!
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| Downstream from Kitza camp |
Last week was almost as good as it gets – great weather and superb fishing. The nine rods at Middle had 563 for their week and here at Lower, Craig P stopped fishing after his 100th fish which helped the camp score along to 233 to just four rods.
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| Craig P on his way to 100 salmon for the week |
Whilst the river is relatively low for this time of year, this rain will help in the long run but it might put the dampners on numbers today as I imagine that we will have lunch back in camp as opposed to being on the river.
Charlie White
