After another “Costa Del Varzuga” day on the river, the weather men were finally proved correct and the weather changed dramatically. At around 7pm the skies darkened and we were treated to the most extraordinary thunderstorm. Very picturesque but not exactly safe for after supper fishing with the amount of lightening that we had!
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| The Varzuga village choir |
At Lower Varzuga, fishing after supper was not on the agenda anyway as we were treated to a visit from the Varzuga village choir. The 9 strong team sang beautifully, with a range of songs about men going to war, boys meeting girls and finally a charming song offering prayers to the river itself. We were very grateful that they came down as they had braved lashing rain on their boat journey from the village.
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| Marina, on the left, in charge of the village stores and the choir |
The fishing yesterday was quite tough everywhere apart from Middle Varzuga where they had a bumper day. The 12 rods had 136 fish with Stewart L taking 15 salmon from Pasha’s Rest in just over 3 hours – a wonderful spell of fishing. Jeremy H lost a fish that twice took him to the end of his backing and had him running down river to try to keep up with it but eventually the fish won.
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| Alan M with a nice one from the boat |
In the rest of the camps the morning session was the most productive whilst the afternoon was made more difficult by burning sunshine and a very strong upstream wind.
It tested even the most competent of casters but here at Lower, Alan M and Alistair W fought valiantly through it to end the day on 7 and 6 fish respectively. Mike T had a cracking double digit fish from 39 Steps which he thoroughly deserved as he was casting into a gale down there. A very respectable total of 39 fish was the tally for the day.
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| Alistair W into one of his 6 fish for the day |
At Kitza the team had 31 mint fresh fish with several rods deciding to call it a day slightly early in order to save their backs and shoulders. Tom, the camp manager at Kitza, said that he and the guides had seen a big run of new fish coming into the lower part of the system yesterday afternoon and we can only hope that they catch up with them today.
At Pana it was slightly slower and again, the weather played its part. I know that they had 22 fish but unfortunately, slightly I suspect due to the change in atmospherics, our radio call this morning was not very clear and I could not hear any more detail than that. I will try to find out more for tomorrow.
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| Ian E with one from the Wires |
It is still raining this morning and whilst the river has dropped slightly overnight I would expect it to have risen by this evening as this rain runs off from the tundra. Bob M woke early today and has had 4 fish from Heli before breakfast whilst the wind has almost completely died down so I am hoping for an excellent day.
Charlie White
