After the first day of fishing we wondered if we could begin to repeat the scores of Sunday and it transpired that we could. A beautifully bright and hot day was tempered by a strong downstream wind which made life harder but the rods fished through it to great effect.
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| Phil W landing one from Bearlets |
At Lower we put 47 in the book with Eric W having his best ever day of 6 fish. Ken H was also among the fish but his day will be remembered for a bizarre experience. He hooked a really decent fish that cartwheeled several times and the guide and he put it at between 14-16lbs. After a searing upstream run everything went slack and knowing he had lost it, he started to wind in to check his hook. With that, his reel went crazy and thinking that he had somehow not lost the fish he was ready to resume battle. After 5 minutes it was clear that he was connected to a smaller fish which had taken the fly as he was reeling in – 2 fish on one cast is not a bad effort!
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| Eric W with one of his 6 fish |
At Kitza the fishing is improving with every inch that the river is dropping. They had 23 yesterday and with a cold night and the streams on the tundra beginning to recede, prospects are looking excellent. They have reported seeing masses of fish but they have been struggling to find relatively easy spots to wade due to the height of the water so it will be great when we can access the entire beat and really target the fish.
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| Phillip V in his now customary pose |
Middle Varzuga continues to defy belief with another day of astonishing fishing. 203 were recorded to the 12 rods but it is only fair to note that Peter W and his fishing partner accounted for 92 of these. I have a feeling that their guide is going to be an awful lot fitter at the end of this week than he was at the start as he runs in between them to net their fish.
We are still fishing with heavy sink tips and big flies but Jesse, the manager at Lower, raised a fish on a hitched tube last night and with a water temperature of around 8 degrees we should be fishing nearer the surface before too long.
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| Michael E with one of 8 he landed throughout the day |
It is a cold and grey day this morning but that did not stop Sue C going out and landing one before breakfast. In an hour or so I am flying to Pana with Mungo and Kate (manager and cook) to open up that camp for our first guests coming on Saturday and I will look forward to seeing how the river looks up there.
Charlie White
