Friday 18 May 2018

Last day of the week

It shouldn’t come as a surprise by now but time really does fly up here.  It seems minutes ago that we landed with our first clients of the season and were faced with a very high river. 

The ice break date was about perfect but warmer temperatures than we would expect in early May led to all of the snow in the tundra melting into the river over just a few days rather than just a few weeks.
Ken L with a cracker from Upper Sviats
It is difficult to tell as there are so many ways to measure the river but when I look out of the office here, I would reckon that the river beside the camp has fallen by about 15 feet over this week – things really do happen quickly in the Russian summer.

Robin M on Beach
All of which has led to an improving situation day by day and I had hoped that yesterday would be the first day that Lower would really get in amongst the fish.  It didn’t happen quite like that although I am not sure why.  We saw plenty of fish and an awful lot were hooked but in the end only 20 were put in the record book.  Jonathan B had 6 of those whilst Tim T had 5 for his morning session and then called it quits on the basis that 5 was enough for a day.

Jonathan B on the beginnings of Bear Island
I went up to Middle Varzuga for dinner and found a team reveling in the conditions.  They had landed 71 for their day taking them comfortably over the 300 mark for the week – 400 is the target for today.   Brian M had a stunning day landing 15 fish with 8 from Peartiha and 7 from Birthday. 

A happy team at Middle
Oddly, not many fish are being caught from the home pool so practically all of the fish that have been recorded have been in “office hours”.  I suspect it is still a bit high and lower water should bring Generator and Bear into order.

Andrew T with yet another for his week
It is a very warm and very bright day today but everyone is determined to make the most of the last day and breakfast was a pretty short affair.  No blog tomorrow as we fly to Murmansk very early but I will round up all of the scores on Sunday.

Charlie White