Rising River

We welcomed our three new teams yesterday at Murmansk, and headed of for Kitza, Pana and Middle Camp. I was able to spend a few minutes at both Kitza and Pana on the way through and both rivers looked in peak order. There is plenty of water to get the boats to all the beats and it should stay that way this week.

The very damp Varzuga watershed

Flying over the tundra on the way in I was struck by the amount of standing water in the Varzuga catchment area; acres and acres of damp bog glistening in the sun and the feeder streams all running. Up at Pana the river level steadied off over night and this morning it had dropped a fraction. Further downstream here at Middle Camp the level was up again this morning by a couple of inches. The forecast is not too bad and hopefully we will see the level drop off this week.


Preparing the pic-nic lunches this morning

Yesterday we were later into camp than usual and we did not have quite the normal time of bonus Saturday evening fishing. Hugh S and Peter D both landed a nice salmon each from Generator Pool and after a long days travelling most (but not all!)went to bed reasonably early. Lars B from Norway started us off well with a salmon before breakfast.

Lars and James setting off with Danya

It is fairly still and muggy this morning and the wind that dogged us last week is absent and all got under way pretty promptly in the boats at 9 a.m. Four rods will fish the very top beats in Yovas canyon; Terry will go up there this morning and will join them for lunch at Royal Dee. Donna and I will take the main lunch out to the rest of the team fishing the lower beats and we will meet at Snake Pit.

Tomorrow I’ll try and round up last week’s results.

Christopher Robinson