Thursday 23 May 2019

A big pike – and over 300 fish

I don’t think there are many places in the world where you would walk into a fishing lodge to see 11 people, who had just landed over 100 Atlantic salmon during the day, to find that the main topic of conversation was about landing a pike – that is what happened last night!

Mark and Dania - both required to lift the pike
After a very cold boat journey up to Middle, it was great to see such a happy team tucking into the most delicious dinner.  Our four cooks this year are simply fabulous and everyone has commented on it.
A happy team at Middle
They had landed 116 salmon plus the huge pike that Mark J landed on Peartiha, on a fly.  He says he wasn’t targeting it but no one in the lodge believed him…  I sat next to Peter W for dinner and I asked him how he got on – “oh not bad, had a dozen for the day” A nice throwaway line that was good to hear.

John R
I got back quite late last night and after spending about 20 minutes defrosting by the fire, it was clear that there had been an excellent days fishing.  124 fish have been landed to the 8 rods since they got off the helicopter from Kitza. 

Great to see Artyum back
There have been some extraordinary individual scores with Sean McG landing 34 whilst Paul P has had 30 of them.  Dom F has landed 16 and I hear from Bill that supper was great fun.

A bit of a fuzzy pic but a lovely fish for Paul
Kitza continues to march on and the 9 rods landed 81 for their day.   Michael E has been coming here for over 20 years and that knowledge of the beat helped him to be top rod with 25 fish but the fishing seems to have been very evenly spread across the whole team and it sounded as if there were some sore heads this morning.

Cause for celebration
A late blog as I have been in the village all morning.  The fishing has been great and so have the evenings to celebrate it so a top up of wine and beer is needed in all camps - a good sign.

Charlie White