Thursday 13 June 2013

Sunshine and Showers

A day of all seasons yesterday, at times bright sun and pleasantly warm out of the wind and then hammering cold rain for 20 minutes. The water temperature was settled at 12⁰C which is about perfect and the height although very low was steady with no drop overnight.

Anton and Gregoire with one of 11 for the day
Sometimes the fish gods do not reward the deserving, why I know not and there is sometimes no rhyme or reason to it. Doug and Ian, right up there with the strongest fishers we have, struggled a bit and just could not get into fish. Doug had a particularly lean day with only one salmon, so on return to camp he had a quick 45 minutes in Generator before dinner (this pool is normally as much a guarantee of success as you can find in salmon fishing) but without so much as a touch. Immediately after dinner Gregoire and Jean Christophe had a scamper down the same stretch and landed seven between them. Doug took it well, although we did do a bit of red wine over the de-brief, this morning he is up in Yovas so I just hope the fish gods are smiling on him today.
Peter J at Bear and his second salmon that fell to the tiny skater
In the afternoon I took Peter J down Simmons, nothing happened although it had fished excellently in the morning. With an hour or so to go we went to Bear Pool, which in this low water resembles a small pool on any one of the classic Scottish spate rivers. We tried the small ½” skater and almost immediately a cock fish of 10lbs hammered it, coming clean out of the water on the take – just an electric moment. With that fish landed Peter proved the technique by landing a second fish of 8lbs.

We closed the book for the day at Middle with a healthy 49 salmon landed, Jean-Christophe with six to his name to beating his best daily catch and with Gregoire top rod with 11.

Kitza too fished really well, topping us again with 52. Harry B had a cracking day with 12 salmon closely followed by Richard G with eight. Pana reported a better day as well with 26 although they did not do the float trip which I gather is on for today.

Discussing tactics this morning
This morning has dawned soft and fairly still, it seems quite settled and calm. The water temperature starts the day at 10⁰C and after the heavy showers of yesterday is up a fraction by 3mm or so – not significant really, but when it is low anything will do!

We are much looking forward to seeing the teams on Middle, Pana and Kitza next week. Please be prepared for mixed weather, layered clothing is the answer; this week we have fished in air temperatures from 28⁰C down to 3⁰C. Even if it pours down with rain we will still have low water, so please be prepared to walk a bit where we cannot get the boats through; a day bag you can sling over your shoulder or a small ruck sack is quite useful.

I will leave you with a photograph of the extraordinary arctic light that we fished under after dinner last night, catching salmon with that as a backdrop is really quite special.


Christopher Robinson