Reading the water

Yesterday was a day for the connoisseurs and one where those experienced in the art of reading the water came to the fore.

Whilst we had a little rain in the morning, heralding what we thought was a new pattern, the sun won out and by lunchtime it was very hot again. This meant that the best of the fishing was in the faster, oxygenated water and being able to identify those likely holding spots improved your chances no end.

Bill Drury on Duck yesterday

At Middle Varzuga the 12 rods landed 53 salmon with John M on 7, Keith J on 6 and Ian H also on 6 doing well. Hugh did a bit of guiding for Achille C and they landed a stunning 2nd spawning hen fish with masses of spots on its gill plates. They have now got the boats at the top of thr Island and are boating from there to Blue Rock – beyond that it is the beautiful walk up to Pasha’s Rest.

Here at Lower, we were given a master class in guiding from Bill Drury and Eoin Fairgrieve who put their rods on fish every time they were with them. Rods came back in the evening delighted to have learnt new skills and having had the chance to use them to land fish. One man who needs little help at the moment is Gordon S who finds fish wherever he goes and finished with 9 for his day.

Dinner at Lower - a very good team

Upstream at Pana, our 8 rods had 38 fish with Matthew P doing particularly well landing 9 of these. Two rods are going to do the float trip from the Old Bridge down to the camp today and I hope that they do as well as we expect them to.

Kitza continues to fish very well and they landed 48 yesterday to 8 rods. Julian P had 14 of these whilst Ian W, not to be outdone by his son Ralph, recorded 11 for his day.

Gordon S with one of 9 he had yesterday

Dare I say it but we have had quite heavy rain for the past hour and the temperatures are much cooler. It is unlikely to be enough to raise the water height by any great degree but it will at least hold it steady and perhaps more importantly will increase the rate at which the water temperature falls.

All of our rods have headed downstream with a picnic this morning and it was a heartening sight to see them needing hats and jackets as opposed to sun cream and short sleeves.

Charlie White