Saturday 25 June 2011

The last day

The last day

A brief blog; sadly we close the camp down today and last night hauled all the boats out of the water and secured them well above (we hope) next Springs river ice break.

We ended the season on a happy note here at Middle Camp with another excellent day, although I know the fishing in this low water has been tougher than normal up on Pana.

At Middle Camp we had a strong upstream wind all day, not easy fishing at times and in Yovas Rapids there were strong gusts from all directions. Despite that our six guests landed 42 salmon with Richard D catching 12 to take him to over 50 for the week – not bad for a youngster who had only caught 3 salmon before he came here!

Ian C at Royal Dee in Yovas Rapids
Middle ended the week with 230 fish to six rods, much better than last year and well above the long term average. At Pana I’m afraid the team struggled slightly in very low water conditions, even so they had 119 for their team of eight.

Shortly the helicopter arrives to take our guests back to Murmansk and thence to home. Tiffy and I will go to the village this afternoon, find our car and retrace our steps back to Norway to see our friends on Lakselva.

This is always a sad moment – how the season flies by. A huge thank you to Genadiy Nagirniak and all the Russian teams in Kitza, Pana, Middle and Lower Camps for all their hard work, support and friendship this year. I look forward to being back in May next year.

Andy B with one of his 50 salmon for the week
 Charlie will summarise the season on the blog early next week. In the meantime we will all take home wonderful memories of this remarkable river, the stunning scenery and the warm hearted people of Varzuga village.

Christopher Robinson