How did that happen? One minute we are greeting a new team in Murmansk and then seemingly the next, we are preparing helicopter manifests and discussing the journey home. It may be 24 hour daylight up here but times simply races by.
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| The guide team and Misha, our invaluable Russian camp manager |
As you might be able to tell by the fact I am not rushing too much today, our power has been restored and we are back to normal. It is interesting how the advances we have made in the client cabins actually mean we go backwards in a crisis. Now that we have underfloor heating, power showers, endless sockets for endless device to be recharged etc etc, our old generator, which used to function perfectly well, simply cannot cope with supplying the level of power that we now need.
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| Emergency rations? |
Luckily the generator can keep the kitchen going although I don’t think Maryke would enjoy cooking like that every day.
To the fishing. In my rush yesterday I gave the wrong figure for Lower and we actually caught 18 fish on Wednesday with John D landing 7 of those. Perhaps I was typing through a crystal ball as yesterday we really did land 12 fish with Brendan G (that man again!) and Bruce B finishing as top rods.
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| Gnocchi with sage and bacon - a very good starter |
Over at Kitza, Bob M was the top man landing 7 fish in a total of 27 for the day. James K and Tudor D chased him up with 5 apiece and Ollie reported that they boated to Rackmans yesterday with not too much trouble so hopefully we will be able to take the boats up the whole beat for a bit longer.
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| Milla, our resident lemming nemesis |
Pana had another solid if slightly unspectacular day. 29 fish to 7 rods is a great days fishing but I must confess to slightly higher expectations of the beat for this week given our hot weather, low water and the fact that the ice broke early. It will be very interesting to see if some rain (where is that?) would freshen up the system and move some more fish up the river.
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| He clearly likes his picture being taken |
At Middle the 12 rods landed 32 fish. Jeremy H had 7 of those from Simmon’s in the morning and it is that beat, with its deep channels, that is proving the most productive. Middle Varzuga has a very loyal following and the rods in this week have been fishing it for ages. Historically a lot of their fish has come from out of hours fishing but this week, the home pools of Generator (arguably the most prolific pool in the world) and Bear have not really fished at all and this has made a big dent in the numbers landed.
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| In a low water year Glenn is kept very busy |
As I say, this week has flown by with really good teams across all of the camps making the most of what have been pretty tough conditions. Will changeover day bring new weather? We can only hope and I will report more on Sunday as to whether that is the case.
Charlie White
