Friday 17 May 2019

Vintage fishing

I wrote yesterday that I wanted someone to go out on Wednesday night to catch 3 fish to take Middle Varzuga over the 100 mark for the day but by yesterday evening I was trying to cajole a few people to go out to take us over the 200 mark for the day – extraordinary fishing.

Nick T
Between the two camps of Lower and Middle Varzuga, our 18 rods landed 187 fish between them during the day. 

Jonathan B on Heli at Lower Varzuga
To say that there are fish everywhere is an overstatement but when you find one fish, you find very good numbers of them.  We always advise people to fish the river very quickly and as soon as you have a touch, to back up 5 yards and fish slightly more carefully.  This approach is paying dividends as when the river is as big as this, you can fish a lot of unproductive water as it is tricky to see exactly where the fish are running and so you need to skip bits until you find some action.

Hugh L with a deep fish from Middle
At Lower our 7 rods accounted for 63 fish with Mick M the top rod with 14 of them.  Lee B, on his first salmon fishing trip landed 10 of which 8 of those came before lunch at Beach.  Robin M landed 13 across the beats and fished hard all day.

Lee B on Beach which is just beginning to show
After fishing, we arranged a trip to the village so everyone could see the church and to understand a bit more about the lives of our Russian friends.  It is quite an experience and it rounded off an great day.

Tim T wrapped up against the cold
At Middle Varzuga 124 fish were landed.  Top man was Paul O’D who put 24 in the book whilst Donald S accounted for 16.  Brian McL fished four pools during the day and had a pleasingly symmetrical 3 fish from each to give him 12 whilst he and Hugh were also visited by a bear.  After a quick snap, they allowed the bear the right of way and decided to fish somewhere else!

First one of the season
We are still fishing sink tips (Type 3 or T-11 imow variations) with mainly copper tubes of around an
inch and with a cold day ahead today I suspect it will be more of the same from us - we can only hope that the fish remain as cooperative.  There won’t be a blog tomorrow as it is changeover day but I will report back on Sunday to round up what has been an excellent week.

Charlie White