The season at Lower Varzuga is normally just 4 weeks long. Most clients, when they see the lodge and set up that we have here for the first time, cannot believe that we would have such infrastructure for just 4 weeks. This year the season has been just 2 weeks - simply crazy and only emphasises the extraordinary spring that we have had.
The river, whilst dropping, is still very high and I would reckon has about 4 weeks of decent fishing left in it but time waits for no man and leave we must.
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| Bill Drury with one from Upper Sviats |
We landed 33 fish yesterday with Jonny C having a fantastic session on Beach with 7 fish and whilst I was in the office all I could hear were the radios going with the guides comparing scores. Our morning was actually much more productive than our afternoon but I am not quite sure why that was.
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| Best pic of the season. Mum with one of four she landed from Bearlets in the morning |
Middle Varzuga had a much more even day with fish across all of the beats and throughout the sessions. They finished with 79 landed, the top rods being father and son team of Michael and Colton with 9 each. Bigger fish were again very much noted and Doug U had a cracking 15lber from Picnic.
We have barely seen a summer grilse yet and it bodes well for the next few weeks.
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| David K-W and Eoin Fairgrieve with one from the boat |
Kitza and Pana are two different stories at the moment. They are both much narrower than the main Varzuga and essentially they remain too high for decent fishing. All of our snow has now melted and assuming we don’t get too much rain (we very rarely do once summer comes) the two rivers will drop away quickly and reveal themselves.
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| William G with a fish from Lower Sviats |
The run of fish we have had through Lower and Middle indicates that there probably are quite a few fish in the other two but getting to them is currently proving tricky.
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| Our season ends. The river is still up in the bushes but at least we have blue skies |
I fly home tomorrow and Jack Selby, manager of the Kitza camp, will be taking over blog duties on Sunday. My thanks as ever to all of our UK and Russian team who make everything work so well. It has been a very tough start to the season, in the office and on the river, but everyone has pulled together brilliantly and I hope that the next few weeks see them get their just rewards.
Charlie White
