Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Green Machines, Skaters, Food and Bears

We started our new routine last night and went out fishing at 10 p.m. It had been a blisteringly hot day, 29⁰C in the shade, and there was no doubt that we had made the right call. After dinner we set off with the sun dropping behind the pine trees, it was a bit cooler during the night, all the way down to 18⁰C (that’s not a typo, 18⁰C at 04:00 – Ed). The light was stunning and it looked fishy but the but, and it is a big but – is that the water temperature remained stubbornly at 20⁰C all night.

Gerry S with a good salmon on the skated fly
Our valiant guests did well despite the conditions, Chris C had 5 salmon including a really nice fish of 76 cms (about 11.5lbs), Rob W also had a good night with five fish as well. The Gott father and son team, Malcolm and Tom, had eight between them to add to our total of 21. I encouraged Rob to use the Green Machine, a fly synonymous with the Miramichi and it worked well for him.  After we all got back into camp at about 7 a.m. Tom walked down to the point of the Island and had another salmon from there, again on a Green Machine.

Chris C
The skater did well too, Gerry G had a good fish from Simmons Glide on the skater and two casts later hooked a strong fish that tore off down river and eventually snapped the leader. Malcolm fished his skater a tad unconventionally (he is from Yorkshire) on an intermediate tip and a fluorocarbon leader, but he had three salmon this way and another yesterday – no one is saying much but I did see a couple of people adjusting their kit when we got back for breakfast.

Gerry and Andy, a toast to the Varzuga
On the subject of food, we had a bit of a debate over our eggs and bacon on return. Markye had sent us off into the night with a light pic-nic and I included a reasonable ration of vodka and the shot glasses - a toast or two under the rising sun at 2:30 kind of rounds off the surreal experience of fishing all night. We were not sure what to call breakfast after fishing at night – Rob said it was really dinner, Chris thought it was brunch and Gerry G said he didn’t care, had no idea what the time was let alone which day it was.

NOT the last photo Hugh took
It’s now midday, 30⁰C in the shade and all are asleep. Hugh is fiddling with his cameras as we have a bear that visits the island occasionally and Hugh (a budding Attenborough) places his cameras on the tracks to capture it. He got a cracking photo last night of the bear investigating the camera. We thought we might post it on the blog as ‘The Last Photo Hugh Took’ but that might have spooked Jemima at home.

Off to bed. More tomorrow.

Christopher Robinson