A muggy day yesterday with heavy clouds threatening rain. At 4 p.m. there was a bright flash of lightening and a massive clap of thunder right over Generator Pool where I was with Peter D and Peter J. Being thoroughly British, neither of the Peters' wanted to be seen making a hasty retreat from the water; their guide, Sasha, sensibly saved any loss of national face by declaring it time for a cup of coffee.
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| Peter J with a good salmon taken on the small skater |
Peter D showed that uncanny ability to find fish that regular guests on this river have and had seven salmon from Generator whilst Peter J did well with four, his last of which was on the small ½” skater – a first for him. Generator is the most extraordinary pool, it does not look much, indeed there are many other places here that look more appealing to the salmon fisher, however it produces salmon consistently in any height of water. At the moment, in low’ish water, we are catching salmon from right at the top by the mid-stream pyramid rock all the way down to the direct track from Camp to the lower section – a distance of just under half a mile. It is also the most perfect pool for a skated fly and a great place to experiment. Fishing Generator with a small skated fly after dinner, with the arctic sunset/sunrise at midnight as a backdrop, is pure salmon fishing heaven.
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| Scott's at the top of Yovas yesterday |
Middle ended the day with 31 salmon taken well spread out throughout the Camp Beats although no one fished Simmons yesterday so that is well rested for Tim and Michael this morning. Kitza again out fished us and on the radio Tom is sounding rather smug nowadays! The team had 34 salmon for the day, the water level remains steady and the fresh fish continue to run in from the White Sea.
At Kitza young Jamie, aged 12, has taken to fishing like a duck to the water (I may have mixed metaphors there) and after landing his first salmon within an hour or two of arriving, managed to net four yesterday taking his total to eight in two days. These are the sort of figures that make people at home choke over their early morning coffee as they look to see how we are getting on - and, I hope wish that they were here and not in the office.
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| Sonya (aged 7) helping me measure water height |
Pana had a much better day with 27 salmon, a good day by any accounts but not great for Pana I know, but there was an audible upbeat tone to Damian’s report over the crackly HF radio last night. Guy R and Willie G had had seven fish from the float trip and had had much more action than that number would indicate. The water on Pana is up 6” since this team arrived on Saturday evening and today they will try and boat further down river.
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| Tim I in action with Vova |
Here at Middle the river has risen steadily by an inch or more a day since the rain of Friday; yesterday the guides got the boats all the way through to Scott’s right at the top. We have had heavy, steady rain since dinner last night and we went to bed with the rain pattering on our tin roofs, just the sound needed to send a salmon fisher off to sleep content that all will be well. This wet spell should secure us enough water to keep us topped up well into next week for Rob W’s group. The water height here moves so slowly, a great advantage as we do not often get radical changes, but difficult to predict as the high ground is some 100 miles to the North and we do not know what is happening up there in terms of rainfall. So, as usual up here, it will be ‘all change’ and we will adjust to the new water levels over the next few days.
Christopher Robinson
