The tundra definitely does something to your body clock. It feels like yesterday that we were flying in with our first guests of the season but the river definitely tells me that it was 3 weeks ago. 24 hour daylight accelerates everything and it never fails to amaze me how this place can change in such a short time.
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| Lower Varzuga three weeks ago |
What has not changed is the fishing. My telephone was ringing constantly yesterday with updates from the camp managers and it took me a bit of time to sort everything out but it was clear that it had been a very good day across the river.
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| The same view this morning |
Pana has really started to kick in and the team up there are making the most of it. 56 fish to the 7 rods was the final result and with some cracking fish amongst them, it was a very happy sounding Matt that I spoke to on the satellite phone.
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| Chris C on Middle |
Rock Face and White Rock are fishing very well and it was interesting to hear that they are fishing smaller flies and trying to take the fish away from the main part of the pool as soon as they hooked them – a very Icelandic way of looking after a pool and making sure you can maximise your chances.
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| A double hook up on the boat |
At Lower we landed 27 to our 6 rods. Wading and casting are key at this height of water and it will be fascinating to see how they get on next week. Every year we run the Ultimate Atlantic Salmon Course where Eoin Fairgrieve and Bill Drury are on the river all day with our guests to help improve their all round skills. There is simply nowhere else in the world where you can learn so much about salmon fishing in such a short period of time and it is always a great week – I will be sad to miss it.
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| Enric in the sun |
I was concerned to get a message at around 3pm, from Jack at Middle, to say that they were having a “very slow day”. I was slightly less concerned when he had counted it all up and found that they had landed 83 fish between them. Relativity is often in short supply up here!
Kitza is simply bouncing with fish. 96 was the final tally and Hamish couldn’t really tell me which beats were the most productive – it seems to be from Sasha’s to Beaver Pit. I am sure that Brendan G accounted for a few of those out of hours but it was nonetheless a superb day of fishing.
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| David M with one from the boat at Middle |
I am flying home tomorrow and as a result, Jack is taking over the blog. He has a very busy camp to manage as well as the small things that I have to do and so we will be changing the format of the reporting. He will do a round up of this week on Sunday and the next blog after that will be on Wednesday morning.
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| Bill and the excellent team of guides at Lower |
As ever, it has been a privilege to be up here and it has been lovely to be part of it. Not a record season but a really solid run of fish and it has been a lot of fun.
Charlie White
