Yesterday was full of goodbyes, hellos, laughs and questions on the week ahead. It was fun to see everyone and the bar in the airport was positively buzzing. The wise only have the odd beer as they know that two hours on a helicopter can be a long time but there are always a few who throw caution to the wind and their best bet is to fall asleep on the long way down.
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| Craig C on the Larder pool |
We got to the camps around 4pm and as ever, the first thing that most people did was to check the catch records from the last week to see where they should focus their efforts. What they saw was that fish have been caught all over the various beats and that certain individuals had done really well.
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| The team at lunch |
Middle finished their week on 366 fish to the 12 rods but whilst people who have not been here before will struggle to believe me, that was actually a bit disappointing in term of hard catch stats. However, the team who were leaving all told me that whilst they had had to work hard for their fish, fishing floating lines and small flies was really enjoyable as opposed to fishing Skagits and heavy tubes regardless that in the latter type of conditions they would probably catch more fish.
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| Craig P with one he had on a single hander over at Kitza |
Lower and Kitza finished with 174 and 323 for their respective weeks. Respectable by any means but conditions have been against us from the start here at Lower and there is no doubt that a lot of fish have already run through. Fresh fish are coming into the system every day but they have their heads down a bit and you simply have to put the time in to be at the right place at the right time.
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| Our starter last night |
This is perhaps best evidenced by the start that Pana made last night. The 7 rods up there (one sadly missing) landed 15 fish in just over an hour last night with Joe M leading the way having had 7 to his rod before he went in for a well-earned beer. I would guess that this camp will have some fantastic fishing over the next few weeks.
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| The heli in bright sunshine this morning |
Fish have been landed in all of the 4 camps before breakfast this morning but the various telephone calls and radio chatter was more a sports bulletin than it was a fishing report as Kitza wanted to know the cricket score whilst the Spanish guys at Pana were distraught at the penalty shoot-out results.
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| Lower Varzuga at 7am this morning - beautiful but where is the rain?! |
Needless to say it is boiling today and the rods here at Lower are walking to their beats as it is now too low to use the boats. Lots of sun cream, water, endless flies and a whole heap of enthusiasm have been taken onto the river so we hope for another good day.
Charlie White
