Tuesday, 29 May 2012

Rising water temperatures means a switch to floating lines


It is a cliché that holds the further you go North – if you don’t like the weather then just wait for 5 minutes. After a glorious morning the skies started to cloud over and at around 4pm the heavens opened.

At Lower, a few rods started to come in slightly earlier to escape the deluge but Tudor D stuck it out and was rewarded with 6 fish from the Wires whilst losing a further 8 that he had on for several minutes. Losing fish was a feature of the day and after a quick count up before dinner, we worked out that we had lost almost exactly the same number of fish as we had landed.


Tudor D with a reward for his perserverance
Jeremy C led the way with landed fish to end up with 17 for his day and we finally tallied 44 fish to our 9 rods. William D, on his first salmon fishing trip, landed 3 fish after dinner to cap a red letter day for him.

The downpour meant that the Kitza picnic on the White Sea was postponed but that did not stop them thoroughly enjoying their day. Bruce B had a great session on Sasha's and landed 3 fish of over 10lbs in a row. Their final total of 23 was spread very evenly across the group and again, they lost as many fish as they landed. The water temperature over there is sticking stubbornly at around 6 degrees and sink tips with 1inch copper tubes are still the favoured choice


Varzuga surfing
At Middle, their extraordinary season continues with 238 fish landed to the 12 rods. Jeremy H had his best ever day landing 21 fish whilst Maurice McB also had an excellent day with 15 fish. The very experienced father and son team of David and Stephen C were on Clarks for their afternoon session and made the most of it by landing 30 fish between them in about 4 hours.

Karai who has seen it all before
At Pana, the team nearly doubled yesterday’s score and had 11 for their day. There is every chance that  this trend will continue and it was great to hear that some of the bigger fish have already got up there with Antonio B-G landing a silver 14lber along with 3 other fish.   Mungo took a rod out to the camp pool after dinner last night and hooked 3 fish within an hour so they are there and it is now a question of finding them.

Harry M before the rains came
We have an overcast and quite cold day this morning but our water temperature is now at 11 degrees and most rods are fishing with floating lines. Cascades and Flamethrowers have been popular flies in sizes 6-8 and with the bright sun yesterday we put on slightly longer leaders but in the main, being in the right place at the right time remains the most important thing.

Charlie White