Finally we saw the sun yesterday, a glorious day, bright blue at first and then one of those extraordinary, huge skies you get up here crept in - high up in the stratosphere a massive ribbon of mackerel clouds seemed suspended over us all afternoon.
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| Maryke with lunch at Bear Corner |
A wonderful day to be out fishing albeit not ideal conditions from a catching point of view but we all enjoyed the first taste of summer on the edge of the Arctic Circle. In the evening I went up to Middle Camp to see how they were getting on. The water temperature had climbed to 9⁰C, the team reported seeing a great number of fish moving through but they were harder to catch than previously.
They are pretty keen up there at Middle Camp as Varzuga blog watchers will know and by the time Jemima brought the cheese to the table there were only 3 of us left to enjoy it – the others had politely excused themselves and were scrambling back into waders for a last go down Generator and Bear before the air temperature dropped too far. Hugh did not have a definitive score for me this morning as a few had had another cast or two before breakfast but reckoned they were over 50 again for the eight rods.
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| Johnathan B at Lower Camp with a beautifully marked hen salmon |
Charles H at Lower also had a cast before breakfast this morning and gave us encouragement by banking a cracking fresh fish of 9lbs before his fried eggs and bacon. Yesterday we had 53 salmon at Lower, a good day capped off by a master class of guiding by Feodor. At 18:00 prompt, when the other boats were parking up he dropped anchor off the camp lawn and Michael and Alan had three double hook ups with a gallery of spectators cheering them on.
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| Double hook up for Alan, Michael and Feodor |
Tom at Kitza had an hour on Heli Pool yesterday afternoon, the water temperature, as always on Kitza, was a touch cooler than here at 5⁰C, he landed two fresh salmon on an intermediate tip and a Cascade. There is every prospect of Kitza getting off to a really good start this Saturday.
We depart early tomorrow morning for Murmansk, I’ll try and get a quick update through before we go. Charlie will take over from me and I’ll be back in England for a couple of weeks, deeply envious of those up here on this magic river.
Christopher Robinson
