Big fish, grouse and a trip to Pana

After 3 days of helping here at Lower Varzuga, it was time to take James and Kate to Pana to open up that lovely camp. It was a wet day but that did not dampen anyone’s spirits as we were all keen to see how the guides and kitchen staff had fared over the winter.

Tolly and Kate

Tolly, a man who has been at Pana for over 14 years, was there to greet us; as were a brace of heather grouse, still in their winter plumage, which flew into camp just as we arrived and promptly flew out again. The river up there is relatively low for the time of year but is in fact slightly higher than it was on this date last season. Regular rods to the camp know Hippo Rock, slightly downstream of the camp, as a reliable marker and I wandered downstream to take a quick picture of it.

Hippo Rock on a wet day

On the way to Pana, we flew directly over the Middle Varzuga beat and it is surprising that, even in that short window of being able to view them, I did not see them land a fish as they had 130 for the day. The best fish of the day was taken by Brian F - a cracking 19lbs cock fish, measured at 36 inches.

Ivan B, caught in the act of salmon smuggling

Here at Lower Varzuga there were differing approaches to the fishing. David F and Ivan B were determined to make the most of the river and were rewarded with 9 and 6 fish respectively whilst Robert H and Peter S took a rather more sybaritic approach to life. After a great morning in which Robert caught a further 3 fish, the pleasures of camp life proved to be too strong a draw and the rods were put away for the day.

Robert H with one caught in the morning

Kitza had 13 fish to their 4 guests with Joan G and Sue C scoring well in Sasha’s pool in the morning but the afternoon went very quiet and not many fish were added after lunch. The water is still cold over there – 4-5 degrees C - and it would appear as if the bulk of the fish are waiting for the warmer water to tempt them into the river system.

David F on Heli pool

I am going to dinner at Middle Varzuga tonight so I hope to be able to grab some of Hugh’s pictures to show more of that beat and some of the fish that they have been catching.

Charlie White

Changeover day

Yesterday we flew from here at Lower Varzuga to go over to Kitza camp. We took Michael E and his team to swap over with the guys who have been at Kitza for the first half of the week.

The "bumblebee" landing at Lower

We flew at 7pm after a full days fishing and it was a very good day at Lower camp with 42 fish landed to the four rods. Phil W was at the top of the tree with 17 fish to his rod plus another 8 fish lost after playing them for a long time – the Posh Tosh proving deadly. Joan G had her best day yet when landing 8 and whilst Michael E has caught a lot of fish; his stand out moment was when a capercaillie flew straight over his head.

Team Kitza had a better day with 12 fish to the four rods. Peter S had a cracking 15lbs fish from Deluxe pool and Robert H went from landing his first fish on Monday to landing 3 more in the morning.

Upstream from Kitza camp last night

Middle Varzuga had 87 to their 12 guests with Peter W taking 18 to his rod. It was warm yesterday and the water temperature got up to around 12 degrees C by 4pm - John R took advantage of this to have the first fish of the season on a skated bomber.

Back here at Lower, Ivan B went out for an hour or so last night and took 2 fish out of Heli pool and David F has done exactly the same thing this morning before breakfast so I hope they will have a good day.

Joan G and Feoder with one of her 8 fish yesterday

I am flying to Pana camp today with James and Kate, the manager and cook and I will post some pictures tomorrow of the camp and the river to give an idea of how it is looking up there.

Charlie White

Windy and bright

Last night I went up to Middle Varzuga for dinner which was a good call as a) dinner was delicious and b) it was the most glorious evening to be on the river. The morning cloud had burnt off by lunchtime to be replaced with bright sunshine but a strong upstream wind made things slightly tougher than we would have hoped for.

Midnight on the way back from Middle Varzuga

At Middle they had finished with 124 for the day but perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that all of the rods reported losing as many fish again if not more. With the water temperature climbing all day it appeared to make the fish incredibly aggressive and slashing takes and grabs led to many of them dropping off halfway through the fight.

Mike B showed me his fly of choice from Sunday, which had caught 12 fish from Clarkes in about two hours and it is fair to say that it amply demonstrated that heavily dressed flies are not a necessity out here as it was chewed to pieces and yet was still catching fish.

Joan G with a nice fish from the Wires

Here at Lower, our four rods had 27 for the day and again lost fish were a feature. Andrew M, our finance director who is out here to see the programme, had 9 additional fish after going out for a couple of hours in the morning. If there was ever a time to get a sympathetic hearing regarding a pay rise it was surely just as he came in for lunch with the world’s largest grin!

Sue C with one from Bear Corner

At Kitza there was great celebration after Robert H landed his first ever salmon. In fact it was his first fish full stop as he has not picked up a rod before, so it was appropriate that it should be celebrated in style. After their 15 fish on the first day, things were tougher yesterday and they landed 4 fish with the wind making casting very difficult.

This morning is a much calmer and warmer day so it should make life easier for everyone.  I have already seen Michael E land two fish after 30 minutes of fishing so I hope it is a sign of the day to come.

Charlie White

Superb start to the week

Generally a week up here starts with everyone tentatively remembering what they did last year and to take a day or two to get the casting up to the standards they would hope – not this week it would seem.

After heavy rain in the morning and lunch back at camp, the afternoon was glorious with bright sunshine and a soft downstream breeze. With the water temperature going up to 9 degrees there was a temptation to go to full floaters but the general consensus was that, whilst that might work, sink tips would probably be more productive – and so it proved.

Michael E into a fish from the bottom of Heli pool

Phil W led the way here with 13 fish for the day and Michael E was close behind on 11 with all beats producing fish although Moskoi Rapids was strangely quiet in the afternoon. We finished with 33 for the day to our four rods as well as 6 fish that were caught on Saturday evening just after we arrived.

Phil W with one of his fish from the Wires

Jesse took Anna, our invaluable helper here in camp, onto the river for the first time last night and within an hour she returned triumphant – a pretty good fish with which to start your fishing career!

Anna with her first salmon

At Kitza 15 fish were landed to the four rods and with all of them new to the beat I expect the numbers to climb as they learn the river throughout their stay.

The day at Middle was quite simply outstanding. 11 rods are fishing with Brian Fratel acting as a floating guide and general mine of information. They had 179 fish between them along with 39 caught on the first evening. It is difficult to pick on individual numbers but I understand that every rod caught more than 10 fish and that all of the beats were remarkably productive. I am going up there this evening and will learn more but we can only hope for more of the same.

Losha, a guide at Lower, ready for action this morning

This morning is quite cold and overcast but all of the rods have gone out with quite a spring in their step - long may it continue

Charlie White

Great to be back

It is great to be back to see old friends, meet some new ones and, this year, to see the extraordinary amount of work that has gone into the new accommodation here at Lower.

Our journey up here could not have been easier and we got to Middle Varzuga by 3:30pm which I think is some kind of record. Having dropped the clients off there we flew to Lower Varzuga and then on to Kitza which gave me a great chance to see the whole river system and how it is looking.

Loading the helicopter at Murmansk

Kitza, as always, looks beautiful and the river appears to be dropping into the perfect height. It is still cold over there with a water temperature of 4 degrees but that is not a bad thing and the head guide, Ura, reports that not many fish have got above the 3rd Island yet which should help concentrate the fish in the pools nearer the camp.

Upstream from Kitza camp last night

It is pouring with rain this morning which has put off any rods here attempting a fish before breakfast but Phil W had 3 last night and Sue C had a fish just after supper to kick her week off in style. I understand from Hugh at Middle that one of our regular rods put his waders on directly after we had dropped them off and had hardly stopped fishing since – he has so far had 34 fish to his rod in little over 18 hours, extraordinary fishing and extraordinary stamina!

Downstream from Kitza camp

Last week was almost as good as it gets – great weather and superb fishing. The nine rods at Middle had 563 for their week and here at Lower, Craig P stopped fishing after his 100th fish which helped the camp score along to 233 to just four rods.

Craig P on his way to 100 salmon for the week

Whilst the river is relatively low for this time of year, this rain will help in the long run but it might put the dampners on numbers today as I imagine that we will have lunch back in camp as opposed to being on the river.

Charlie White

Great First Week

I will have to be brief today; I head back to UK tomorrow morning. Charlie White takes over up here for a couple of weeks and will keep you posted with fishing results and conditions on the Varzuga.

What an amazing first week! Low’ish water but the level is holding up well with the recent rain. The water temperature remains a constant 6⁰C, our only problem being some dirty water washed in by the side streams off the Tundra.

Craig P with his 90th salmon for the week

At Middle Arnaud F-M landed 24 salmon today taking him over 100 for the week. At Lower Craig P is still out there, on 97 and determined to get over the three figure mark. Henry G has retired gracefully on 73 fish for week, all caught ‘in office hours’.

Unless we get a really cold spell we should be on course to be on floating lines by early June.


Midnight this evening

Always a sad moment to leave the Varzuga, but I will be back in a couple of weeks – and to catch up with Tommy the Toyota – who awaits our next journey to Lakselva in Norway in late June. Local kids have written ‘Clean Me’ in Russian on him; I quite want to make it back to Hungerford with that still there. I suspect I will not - but I will take home more memories of this remarkable river.

Christopher Robinson

Storm

Yesterday started clear and cold, it just did not feel that ‘fishy’. We had an extraordinary sun captured well by Hugh at Middle.

A fierce sun above Middle camp

By the afternoon it was blowing a gale from the South, and then the rain came; really heavy, mixed with sleet and bitterly cold.

In poor conditions the rods struggled a bit. At Middle they had 81 to the nine rods and at Lower 25 to four rods. All relative in salmon fishing terms as I mentioned yesterday, no other river could match that score given the weather.


Simon P on watch


At Middle, Tim S tried a floating line all day, with a Sunray and had good success albeit less fish than he might have had on an intermediate line. With the water temperature still at 6 degrees we remain on the threshold putting on the floating lines. But that is what this river is about – a very rare opportunity to challenge yourself and the text book.

Anton landing yet another from Clarkes

Keith and I ran a boat up to Middle to take boat spares, see our guests and have general catch up with them all. An awful run home, the worst I have experienced, into the teeth of a gale and driving sleet. Hugh gave me a memory stick with his latest photos - really good.

A good scrap from Snake Pit

Christopher Robinson

P.S. This morning the after-storm calm. Overcast, mild at 10 degrees, river up 2” and still at 6 degrees. Craig P landed three salmon from Heli Pool before breakfast – think we’ll have a good day.

A perfectly formed springer

Rise in water

We had more heavy rain yesterday morning, much welcomed by us as the river is a touch lower than normal. The many streams feeding off the tundra coloured up adding peat to the water, at both Middle Camp and here at Lower we noticed the change in the water colour and we all felt it put the fish off in the afternoon.

That said – it is all relative up here – Middle had 98 salmon to nine rods and at Lower the four fishers had 43. Not bad in slightly adverse conditions!

Arnaud F-M led the way at Middle with 17 for the day. He has also kicked off our annual International Swimming Championships, taking two swims for France both of which required replacement life jacket gas canisters. Simon P had a paddle for the UK team with Hugh our Middle Camp manager, representing the Home Team, having a ‘bit of a dunk’ while exploring new water.

Clarkes Corner was reported to be ‘stuffed’ with fish waiting to go up the Yovas Rapids, Patricia S had 10 salmon in the afternoon there. Four rods went above the rapids to Scotts in the morning catching 17, proving that the fish are now on their way upstream to Pana.

At Lower there was some experimentation, Craig P tried a surface Bomber, on the limit with the water only at 6⁰C, he rose several fish, one of them three times, before changing back to a sub-surface fly to take them. Alan J stuck to his favourite Ally Shrimp and landed 9 from Janaways in the morning.

Yellow and black, tied by Jesse. Deadly!

The river came up an inch or so and remains at 6⁰C. Just on the cusp of floating line territory but not quite there yet. The most successful fishers are using sinking tips, a shortish leader and a fairly eclectic mix of flies ranging from the Green Highlander through the colour spectrum to black. The safe bets being Ally Shrimp, Cascade and Willy Gunn. Jesse reccomends a yellow fly with contrasting black, ask him for one of his specials - tied with a cone head. Deadly!

Great fishing so far – and only 4 days into the season.
 
Christopher Robinson

The river settles down

We woke up to heavy rain yesterday, a damp but warm start to the day. Craig P went out here at Lower before breakfast and landed his customary 3 salmon. Up at Middle, Didier F-M managed to bank 7 salmon before his bacon and eggs.

The weather gave me an excuse to catch up in the office whilst Feodor’s faithful camp dog, Karai, sat on the office step looking mournful as the rain dripped on to the veranda. The milder damp air brought on a huge hatch of stone flies. The pied wagtails, now here in numbers, feasted on them. So did my printer and this Saturday's helicopter manifest has half a dozen stone flies imbedded on it. Last week we had mouse droppings in the printer. Such is life up here; close to nature.

The river steadied off; I guess a combination of the rain and the slightly milder air releasing the water frozen in lakes and soil. For those who know Lower Camp,the water is 5” below the top of Sharks Tooth rock. The water temperature is constant at 6⁰C. Really great conditions for Lower and Middle.

Up at Middle they landed 106 fresh salmon for the day. Today Hugh and Misha will send two teams further up to try Pashas and Scotts, we all want to open up those great top beats – such wonderful fishing up there. The run up through Yovas rapids really re-enforces the feeling of being so fortunate to have miles of freedom and space on this wonderful river.

Losha at Bear Island

Here at Lower our 4 guests landed just under 40 salmon, with the guides having a few too. It really is so rewarding for us to see clients handing a rod the guide and saying ‘go on, have a go’. David H gave his rod to Losha for 10 minutes down at Bear Island (our current hot spot) and bingo! Losha landed a great looking 14 lber, straight off the tide. He is still wearing a smile 18 hours later.
 

Our new accomodation lodge 



After dinner Anna took the guests up to the village where Sviat's legacy is evident in the restoration of the three churches. Well worth seeing when you are here.

Our new accommodation at Lower is a huge success – really comfortable, warm and with great views over the river. No doubt the best on the Kola.

Christopher Robinson

P.S. Mild again this morning. Air temp 9⁰C and water 6⁰C, water height steady.

Mild weather, great fishing

Yesterday was a perfect fishing day. Our first ‘soft’ day after 10 days of early spring weather, the biting cold breeze dropped, cloud cover came in and the air temperature remained above 10⁰C well into the evening. Our guests at Middle and Lower made the most of it, what a great days fishing!

David H at Lower Camp

At Middle camp they landed 99 salmon to nine rods, with the catch very evenly spread between all of them. To date they have fished from Clarkes Corner down steam, below the Yovas rapids which tend to hold the fish up this time of year. I chatted with Hugh our camp manager at Middle last night on the radio, head guide Misha feels that it will soon be time to explore further upstream. I’d like them to go up to Scotts today, but the fishing is so good on the lower beats I’m not sure they will venture that far yet.


Craig P with one of his 26 for the day

At Lower camp we saw the first massive run of fish of the season. The four rods here landed 58 between them with Craig P again leading the way with 26. All the beats are fishing well with the exception of Duck which we have left out of the rotation as it is best in high water. The water level continues to drop slowly, another 1” down over night. It is quite low for this time of year, providing almost perfect conditions for those here now and next week; might need some rain later in the season to keep the level topped up.

Meanwhile in camp Keith has moved his workshop table outside to enjoy the warmer air and Jenna, just back from 10 weeks in Antarctica, is training to climb Mont Blanc in late June, Keith’s container door provides part of our new gym!

Jenna training in our gym/workshop

A great start and today looks good too. Overcast, little wind and the air a mild 10⁰C at breakfast. Craig P had 3 before breakfast in just 30 minutes - you will seldom have seen scrambled eggs go down so quickly as everyone rushed to get out to the boats!

More tomorrow.

The season starts

We had another really hard frost on Saturday night, no cloud cover at all and the air temperature plummeted to - 5⁰C. Despite the chilly air our new guests were determined to give it a go. At Lower, we persuaded Craig P to come back inside at midnight, his reel frozen and line iced up to the rod rings; but he had landed 7 salmon in a few hours and seemed pleased to take a break and warm up. The radio came to life at midnight to report that Julian T had just come in from Bear after landing fresh run 15lber.

Anticipation

Yesterday was our first full day on the river and the boats left on time, our guests eager to get fishing. The water temperature started at 3⁰C, a bright day with a chilly breeze from the North, fairly typical for this time of year. By the evening the water had risen to 5⁰C and had dropped an inch or so.

Result

On Middle they had 60 odd fish to 9 rods with Tim and Leticia S, guided by Misha, leading the way landing 18 salmon between them, mostly off Clarkes which, as old hands know, can be a hot spot this time of year.

Henry G at The Wires

I went up there last night to see them all for dinner, a really happy team, delighted by the first day and looking forward to the rest of the week. The slight rise in water temperature at the end of the day had made the running fish more active and they reported quite a large number splashing through the pools on their way upstream to Pana.

At Lower, Craig P continued his success of the previous night landing a total of 20 fish for his first day. Bear Island and above it, the 3 ‘Bearlets’, fished particularly well as did Larder, Green Bank and of course The Wires. Moskoi Rapids and the Beach were a bit disappointing, we thought we’d have more from there. We ended up with 50 salmon landed at Lower on the first day to 4 guests. Not a bad start.

Bearlets

There is a huge sense of relief to have the season now under way – a great deal of hard work goes into getting the camps opened, staffed, supplied, and running. Now we can settle into a routine and really enjoy this quite remarkable river.

Christopher Robinson

P.S. This morning we have sent Henry G down to Moskoi, at the last count (11 a.m.) he had landed 3 and lost 3 which sounds quite encouraging.

Blog out!

We had a Blog Out! - apologies - the main Google Blog site crashed for some reason on Friday, yesterday I went to Murmansk and now, Sunday, have finally settled down, our first guests are out fishing and I have a chance to catch up.

Friday was pretty busy putting the finishing touches to Lower Camp; the ‘lawn’ in front of the new accommodation is, frankly, a mess, but that is what happens after a major construction project. We have done our best to level it and we hope the grass seed will take soon when the weather warms up, if the lemmings have not eaten all the seeds by then.

Sergei with an 11 lber off the tide

Jessie took our the new guide at Lower, Sergei, down to Bear Corner for more instruction and familiarization. On his third cast Sergei landed a fresh 11lber!

Tiffy, Anna and I drove a spare outboard engine to Kuzamen in Tommy the Toyota – his first experience on sand dunes – sand dunes with deep snow on them are bizarre, and quite tricky driving too; pleased I put a decent set of new off road tyres on before leaving UK.

Kuzamen, two wild ponies grazing on dried winter grass

Kuzamen is as remote as it gets, there are 30 residents living in nowhere amongst the sand dunes at the mouth of the Varzuga. The White Sea light and air is always extraordinary – it seems to the visitor (and there are very few) to be on the edge of the world, I guess it nearly is.

'Tommy' with his back wheels in the White Sea (I nearly got bogged getting out!)

We met Ura on the White Sea beach and boated up to Kitza camp to be met by Sergei, Victor and Luba. The camp looks great, lots of new paint, all the boats and engines up and running and some salmon are already up to Heli Pool and beyond. Wonderful to be back at Kitza and to meet our friends there – a very special place looked after by even more special people.

Luda gave me this shot of the Kitza river ice breaking up on 28 April. If you have never seen this, believe me, it is noisy, awesome and frightening.

Kitza ice breaking on 28 April

Yesterday we flew to Murmansk to collect our first guests and they were all putting up rods by 6 p.m. I have not heard the Middle Camp first result yet, but here at Lower, Craig P landed 7 salmon after dinner last night and had 3 more before breakfast – not a bad start.

A bright blue sky today but chilly after an overnight frost of -5⁰C. Water temperature remains at 3⁰C. I’ll have much more on the fishing front tomorrow when we hear how everyone has got on today.

Christopher Robinson

Setting up...

The set up week here has been full of surprises, some good some not so good. Kit that we carefully put away last year has been dug out and inspected, the ‘last winter many mices’ have had a field day in the main store container - they must have been hungry as they have had a good go at anything with electric cables.


Keith

A huge re-supply of engine spare parts has arrived from the USA via St Petersburg. Boats and engines are launched and tested, a continual trickle of guides go to Keith in his workshop container with bits to be mended or replaced. After 14 years up here there is little that Keith has not fixed or made – last week Jemima (Middle cook) sprained her ankle badly but Keith soon had her up and running on home-made crutches.


Eagle Rock



I went up to Middle to spend some time looking at the camp, and more importantly to look at the whole beat. The river has dropped a few more inches and where the spring flood has left ice, there is room to get along the banks. Much of the beat is ice free; Birthday, Generator and Bear look excellent. Above the camp Eagle Rock, Snake Pit, Fortress and Beach are fishable. Clarkes has quite a bit of ice on the bank in the top half, the lower half is clear. Pasha’s and Scott’s also looked good.

  





Snake Pit



While Hugh and I looked at the river, Tiffy fished Generator and lost three in succession, all at her feet – using a 14’ rod, floating line with a sinking tip, short leader and a smallish black fly (about 1” overall) with a tungsten cone head.



Sviats

 Really looking forward to greeting our first guests tomorrow, the fish are here – now we need keen rods on the river!

Christopher Robinson

Visited Middle Camp

Snow flurries first thing yesterday morning and a decent frost overnight. A typical early May day on Varzuga, a mixed bag of weather and at times large snowflakes drifting over us on the wind, illuminated by bright sunshine – quite surreal.

During, these first few weeks we watch for Nature's signs of spring – last year one pied wagtail arrived, it was quite warm, the next day we saw four; shortly afterwards the ravens who nest opposite camp arrived along with the Middle Camp fish eagles. Yesterday I saw not even the one pied wagtail that was here on Tuesday, nor any of the saw billed ducks that will soon been feasting on the smolt run.

The lemmings are emerging from underneath the duck boards and the mice we turfed out of our storage container (they ate and nested in all the nice napkins I left last year!) are now eating the grass seed that has been scattered over our lawn damaged by the building work.



Loading up supplies for Middle Camp

We flew the first load up of supplies up to Middle this afternoon. The camp is just as we left it last year and looks good. While we were there Tiffy popped down to Generator and in 20 minutes landed one and lost two with quite a few other ‘pulls’. I was not able to take a run up river beyond the island, but the bank at Generator is clear of ice and very fishable. Later this week we’ll have time to take a look further upstream.



Generator bank, clear of ice

We have the same team of guides at Middle this year, Misha, Sasha, Sergi, Volva and the brothers Anton and Artum. Hugh Coulson is our camp manager and Jemima Palmer-Tomkinson the cook.



Middle camp from the air yesterday

On the fishing front it looks pretty good. Jesse and Feodor went down to Bear Island here at Lower Camp where they had ‘quite a few’ between them, Feodor lost a huge fish after 20 minutes, the biggest he’d ever hooked. A normal sink tip with a short leader and reasonably heavy fly seems to work well – that is what Tiffy is using. If you cast well a heavier sinking tip might be an advantage, in the cold water the fish are sitting just off the current and reasonably deep. Successful flies are 1” or bigger well dressed tubes of any colour. Jessie likes bright, I like black! - we agree to disagree.

Christopher Robinson