Sunday 9 June 2013

Summer Fishing on Varzuga

Early June normally heralds the start of genuine summer fishing here on Varzuga. Spring fishing, with intermediate lines and larger flies, changes to Summer kit with full floating lines and smaller flies; skaters and bombers come into their own and single handed rods come out for a bit experimentation and fun. Generally this happens sometime in first week of June, 1st June being my own date in the diary, and one that has been pretty reliable for many years, when I advise guests that they can expect to fish a full floating line with confidence.


Lower Varzuga on 7 May
This year, as you will have noted, the seasons are running well ahead of schedule and when I look at the river level and development of birch trees leaves here at Middle Camp it feels more like late June. The salmon though are running to their own calendar, and despite the low water, fresh fish continue to run – it was really encouraging to see the team at Lower camp on Friday catching tide fresh fish on the Beach and at 39 Steps, the first stopping spots on the river.

Lower Varzuga on 7 June
Talking of timings, the changeover yesterday went well and all of our guests were in camp by 4.15 for a quick cup of tea and some fishing before dinner. Up at Pana they had 7 salmon from Junction and Ivan’s Stream, over at Kitza Bryan P landed a bar of silver within 5 minutes of starting in Heli Pool. Here we had half a dozen before tucking into Maryke’s delicious roast chicken.

Jean Pierre C at Bear on Middle Camp
Despite the warm conditions last week the results were really creditable. Middle Camp landed 467 salmon and Kitza 301. I don’t have the final score yet from Pana, it was not a good as we might have expected given the strong run of fish we have had this year, however the fish do have an uncanny knack of arriving in Pana at the same time as the current group arrive, so we shall see what this week brings.

Jean Pierre's father, Achillie, with a beauifully spotted 2nd time spawner
The forecast looks more changeable this week, I’m not quite sure whether to trust it at the moment as it is saying current conditions are light rain showers, but have bright sunshine and hardly a cloud in sight! No one is complaining though, just enjoying the wonderful green of summer here, and the amazing wild flowers that are in full bloom.

Charlie is back in the office next week after a ‘pretty busy’ three weeks here and I look forward to keeping you posted on the fishing through June.

Now where did I put my fly box with the Bombers?................

Christopher Robinson