Final day at Lower

I am aware that regular blog readers will have heard all of this before but the season here has just flown and I can hardly believe that we are now packing up bits and pieces to move our base camp to Middle Varzuga, which will run for another 3 weeks.

Lower Varzuga will close down today which always seems a shame particularly as we had a much better day yesterday and recorded 37 fish for the team. Grant I and Phillip T were the top rods with 7 fish apiece but it has been the dedicated instruction and help that everyone has had from Eoin Fairgrieve and Bill Drury which has been most talked about.

Eoin with a fish from Jannaways

They are both utterly atypical in that they don’t grab the rod from your hands and show you how they would do it; rather they stand back and just offer the odd really helpful hint that allows everyone to seriously improve their casting, wading and all round fishing. This instruction combined with prolific fishing is something that we believe is unique and we will be running the "Ultimate Atlantic Salmon fishing course" again next year.

Keith C taking a slightly more relaxed approach

Pana is dropping quite nicely now which is opening up more of the river and the 8 rods there finished with 42 for their day. Ponzoi was again the most productive beat but the home pools and above that are all fishing well.

Kitza has been the model of consistency and 30 fish to the 8 rods was the score yesterday. With lots of water in the system, we should be able to boat to all of the beats until the end of the season and this will give everyone the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful upper stretches of the river.

Maryke with her annual fish of the season late last night

Middle had another great day and put another 85 fish in the record book. JP C and Ian H were the top rods with 11 and 13 fish respectively. This camp has the longest of our seasons as it holds the fish so well and things are looking very good for the latter part of the season.

Stephen C in the seemingly rare sunshine

Today will be a busy day as we make inventories, plan for next season and ensure that we have put everything neatly away. Bill Drury and I will be back in September for two weeks to target the Autumn run and there are still a couple of rods left for the week of 26 September to 3 October, please call the office for more details.

He is as old as the hills but we hope to see Karai in September

I am of course looking forward to going home but there are very few places in the world as special as this and I know I am very lucky to be part of it.  We will raise several glasses tonight as we celebrate another very successful season and thank all of our Russian friends who make the experience so wonderful.

Charlie White