Final day before our first clients arrive

The countdown now starts in earnest as we tidy the last remaining things before welcoming our first guests of the season.

Yesterday, Terry and Donna had a really good day setting up the camp at Middle.  Every year this gets slightly easier as the continuity in the Russian staff starts to pay dividends.  The guides had been up there since Tuesday and the camp looks in really good shape.

Vova, back at Middle for another season

Big Misha is there this year which we are delighted with as he has not been in the best of health and all of the other guides are there except Anton who has gone to join the military.

Looking down Generator Pool yesterday afternoon

We have been lucky this year as the weather has been perfect for setting up the programme.  Whilst we can cope with any set of circumstance, there is no denying that getting boats in the water, fixing engines, airing linen and generally sprucing the place up after the long winter, is far easier when you can get outside without getting soaked.

Karai enjoying the sun - he seems immune to the ageing process

Not that I expect anyone to believe us but we were too busy to go fishing yesterday.  However, one of my jobs today is to go down to the lunch spot here at Lower to take the tables and chairs for our al fresco picnics which we all enjoy every day.  Much as I will have things to do, I am definitely taking the rod.

Checking one of the boats in front of the dining room

The river and camp look in great order and we are looking forward to getting everyone on the water and enjoying what this place can offer.

More on Sunday when we will hope to be reporting bumper catches.

Bill Drury

Setting up going well

In our second day of setting up the camps things really started to come together. It takes a bit of time to move all the kit and supplies, this is done by boat and with the river clear of ice this year we have been able to crack on well. All the boxes and bags have to be lugged down to the boats from the village, moved to base camp and sorted out, then distributed to the various camps – it takes time, but with an experienced team here we are moving on ‘apace.



Glenn at work in Lower Camp

 The weather was pretty mild yesterday, sun and cloud, but really quite chilly in the wind this morning and Donna and Terry wrapped up warm for the 40 minute boat run up to Middle Camp. For those coming up to Varzuga the forecast we use is the Umba one, about 100 km west of here. It is not always spot on! – but at the least it gives an indication of trends. https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=umba As always this far North please be prepared for really changeable weather.

Terry and Donna setting off for Middle Camp this morning

The river has dropped a couple of inches over the past 48 hours, a bit lower than we would normally expect in the first week, but this is good news for those coming out early. The fish are here and I popped out last night for 30 minutes or so and lost a couple before landing a real beauty of a silver, deep shouldered springer.

The first of many Spring Salmon to come

I hope Terry will get some photos of Middle today and if so I’ll post them tomorrow.

Bill Drury

Supplies

We know when we come out to the set up week that it will be hard work but also great fun catching up with our friends in camp and this year is no different.

Taking supplies out of the new sklad

It has been made easier by not having to struggle through snow but equally certain things in the village have made it slightly harder than we would expect.

There is a fairly fixed routine as to how we go about setting up the various lodges and it involves months of planning in advance.  We send all of the items that we cannot source in Russia up to Murmansk and then ship down huge amounts of dry goods, wine, fridges, chairs etc etc from Murmansk to Varzuga village via huge trucks.  This is then stored in a vast storage shed (sklad) that houses everything that the village needs and we finally take out our kit under the watchful eye of Marina, the sklad overseer.

Taking supplies from the village to Lower Varzuga

This year we had a shock when we came to the sklad to reclaim our goods and the picture below shows the devastation but not the extent of the size of the building before it burned down.

The sklad after a huge fire

Whilst this has been horrendous for the village (years of supplies that have been hoarded have been lost) we were fortunate in that the trucks had not set off from Murmansk by the time it had burned down.  This means that our advanced purchases are all intact but the reserves from the village have been severely depleted.  As ever in Russia, they are at their best in a crisis and the whole community is now working to find out what has been lost and where they can source replacements.  It is extraordinary to see everyone pulling together and making the best of what they can.

Newly racked supplies - amazing how fast they have recovered

As a result, it seemed a bit insensitive to fish very much when there was so much work to do but Terry had a crack at the end of the day down by the boats for half an hour.  He hooked one but lost it, largely I think because he was too worried about looking at the camera!

In terms of the important things for those of you coming soon, the weather remains warm although it is overcast now and the water temperature is 7 degrees.

Terry about to lose a fish

The water level is dropping as we would expect and conditions look set fare.

More tomorrow after another day of unpacking, sorting and trying to find time to have a fish.

Bill Drury

Welcome to the 25th year on the Varzuga

Welcome back to the Varzuga blog!  This year marks our 25th season on the river and we hope it will be a vintage one.

After a relatively easy bus journey down, we are now here on the river.  “We” is myself, Maryke (our cook at Lower), Terry and Donna (manager and cook at Middle), Ollie (manager at Kitza) and Glenn, our brilliant mechanic.

Unloading supplies at Sobacci Rapids

We got to the village around lunchtime yesterday to be greeted by Misha and Feoder who so many of you will have met in the years gone past.

They told us that the river had begun to break on the 28th April and that it took three or four days to fully clear out which is as we would expect.  Apparently they had much more snow than usual during the winter and beyond the tree line there is a lot of snow still waiting to melt.

Boats in the water and ready to go

Having said that, it has been a very warm week and it continues to be – it feels bizarre to be opening up the camp in shirt sleeves when we are used to digging paths out of the snow in order to get to the lodge.

The river is relatively low for this time of the year but we all know that predicting weather patterns, rainfall and almost anything else up here is a fool’s errand so we will see how it all unfolds.

Glenn, Misha and Nikolai sorting through the supplies

It was Victory Day in Russia yesterday so we probably were not as productive as we might have been but it was a great opportunity to catch up with everyone and the real work starts today.

I will keep you updated throughout the week and I might even manage a cheeky cast today – it looks perfect.

Bill Drury

Varzuga 2015 review

The 2015 season on the Varzuga will go down as a highly successful one but not one that can compete with the bonanzas of 2014 or 2012.  You cannot have bonanzas without having ‘normal’ seasons and that was demonstrated this year.

That we landed over 5,200 salmon in our short season and averaged over 28 fish per rod per week in a ‘normal’ year is perhaps the best indicator of how high our expectations of this river have become.

A fish from the first week of the season

In an era when up to date information is constantly available, it is ironic that we do not really know what to expect from the river until Christopher Robinson and the advance party actually get there and have a look at it for themselves.  Pictures and descriptions from our Russian friends are all very well but rather like Eskimos and snow, there are so many descriptions of ice and what it means to the chances of the river being clear for us to fish, that we still rely on boots on the ground before knowing what we have in store.

The river breaking at the village

The river started to break up a few days later than normal in early May and justified our Russian partners diktat that the season must not start earlier than May 10th. It proved a fairly straight forward break and left behind a cold, high and dirty river which is not always ideal but actually set the season up beautifully.

An early season fish

Lower Varzuga took a day or so to really get going but after that we found ourselves in the unusual situation where the numbers of fish landed from the Lower Camp were greater than that of Middle Varzuga.  It is hard to know why that was, but a feature of the season was to be high water across all of the camps and it is possible that the classic holding pools that makes Middle so productive were too high to really kick in.

The perfect springer 

The first week saw 15 rods across the two camps land 577 salmon, a good start and we knew that the spring salmon run was well underway.

One of the more common questions from rods who are new to the Varzuga tends to be “Is this normal for the river at this time of the year?” – referring to height, temperature and sometimes productivity. The straight forward answer is that every year is very different and that there is no ‘normal’ and you simply have to adapt to what is in front of you – never more was this so than this season.

Adapting is key...

Whilst we know that the temperatures will warm up and the river will drop over the season, this year we had rain in biblical quantities and the water height remained stubbornly high pretty much all year.  This was wonderful in terms of boating the river and we never once had a problem accessing all the beats but it did contribute to some tougher wading, and it spread the fish out more; we had to work harder and a lot of rods commented that they found the fishing more rewarding.

One from the Indel

The weeks two, three and four of the season are when all of the camps are up and running and it is as busy as the Varzuga ever gets.  During this period, 3,512 fresh as paint spring salmon were landed to 108 rods.  It is worth pointing out that this figure is purely the number of fish we got to the net and this year, more than ever, we seemed to lose many, many more.

Pana camp 

The high and cold water may have led them to taking short, perhaps we just were more conscious of it or perhaps that is actually what we always do, but it was something we discussed almost every evening as it was hard to make sense of.  It did mean that action was fast and furious even if it meant that the air was bluer than we might always expect it to be!

Eoin Fairgrieve on a rare break from his tuition

Our mid-summer weeks in Kitza, Pana and Middle are very sought after and again, lots of familiar faces filled the camps until the season end. The river is at its most beautiful then with extraordinary colours and skies that seem impossible to imagine in the slightly bleaker, early weeks.  Less fish are normally landed per rod in these weeks but the numbers are all hugely relative and the chance to fish floating lines in stunning, pristine wilderness surroundings is just not really on offer in many places these days, so the rods tend to be jealously guarded.

Father and son hook up

Having said that, this year’s rain and cooler weather meant that right into July we were fishing intermediate tips which was again very unusual, but ensured all of our rods had masses of fishing room and that they could reach all the beats until the very last day.

Paul R and "that" hat

On reviewing the above it is clear that the theme is one of the season being unusual from a water height and fishing perspective – but even with unusual conditions the season was a reminder that no matter what,  the Varzuga remains an extraordinary salmon river.

Douglas proving that age is no barrier

Thank you as ever to all of our clients who fished with us and to our Russian partners who make it all work so well – it is a very special destination and we look forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary on the river next year.

Please do contact us should you wish to experience the Varzuga for yourself.

Charlie White

The Last Boat In

Another season here on Varzuga has flown by. It seems only yesterday that we opened up the camps, kicked the mice out of their winter quarters and prepared for our first guests. It is just seven very short weeks fishing on this remarkable river.

Middle Camp on 14 May

Fishers back at home find it difficult to believe when I say we are closing Middle camp tomorrow - until the 14^th of May next year. Lower Camp will stay open for tourists and we will fish there for the autumn run of salmon for a week or two. But other than that, all the camps, Pana, Kitza and Middle (Pond Ostrov) are now closed. The boats and engines are secured out of the way of any spring flood, the doors of the log cabins will be padlocked tomorrow and the guards are now here for their long, lonely winter.

Terry and Donna on the last lunch run

Charlie will summarize the season next week, in the meantime a brief glance at the figures shows that we have landed 5,190 salmon so far - and with eight keen fishers out there on our last day, plus Finn the Fish, we should get over the 5,200 mark. It has not been a bonanza year like the vintages of 2012 and 2014, but better than 2010. It is quite a lot of salmon landed. 

One can never have too many rods

And now peace returns to the river - for 10 months – no more fishing - the salmon are left to complete their life cycle.

Up here you get a ear for helicopters and boats – I’m as deaf as a post as my family will readily tell you – but I can hear a helicopter from miles away and can tell, by the sound, which boat is coming in. I was lucky last night to catch a photo of our last boat coming in (Gordon S had had a lean day so Terry took him out after dinner and they avoided a blank). It was nearly midnight and a huge, full moon was rising from the South, contrasting against the midnight sun lighting up the stand of fir trees opposite us. Quite surreal. I guess one of the reasons this river gets under your skin.  

Sonya selecting wild flowers for her dining room arrangements

As always a huge thank you to all our Russian friends on Varzuga. Here at Middle Camp, Big Misha, Vova, Anton, Danya, Ivan, Sasha, Uncle Vova, Luda, Genna, Natasha, Arina and young Sonya.


The last boat coming home

I hope you might join us for our 25^th year on Varzuga in 2016, either here on this magic river, or just via the blog.

Farewell until next year.

Christopher Robinson

Rocks

With the water now dropping towards summer height we are having to sharpen our concentration when driving the jet boats. A week ago the river was high, those of you who know Generator Pool will understand the height when I say that the pyramid rock at the top of the pool was fully under water.

 

Middle Camp 'phone rock

 For me this was slightly alarming, the rock is such an obvious marker as to the route through the shallows and without it showing it was easy to become disorientated. Now, a week later, the rock is out of the water by over a foot and with shallow, ripple’ly water it is much easier to read the route, albeit skimming through the skinny sections on the plane might temporally concern those guests not used to the drill.

Ivan and Michael H in action

Rocks in camp play a part in our lives too. We get mobile phone reception, only just, from the huge mast in Varzuga village 15 kms down river from here. Having a decent conversation involves balancing on a rock. The best place is just behind the banya – in fine weather this is sort of OK, if it is pouring with rain or if it is a still, mosquito’y evening the call can be short. After a few weeks here you get quite good at balancing on a rock, mobile in one hand and swatting flies with the other. Taking notes can be challenging.

Middle Camp Tundra Art

A couple of years ago I started my Middle Camp rock collection. Each day I try and find a rock or two to place on the sloping, wooden surrounds of the log cabins. Most of the guides think I am daft; however Big Misha seems to understand my concept of Tundra Art and will nod in approval if I find a particularly interesting rock. I normally take a few home to Wiltshire to place strategically in the garden or in the house. Last year I took a whopper home, a beautiful smooth rock, shaped by centuries of river water and ice. It weighed 5kg – (Finnair – my apologies!). This year Tiffinie has banned me from bringing rocks home, and I understand from overheard idle gossip in the kitchen that she has put Donna on full alert to make sure I do not smuggle any rocks home at the last minute.

Steen P and one of his four salmon yesterday

Enough of rocks – onto the fishing. The weather pattern repeated itself yesterday with a good fishing morning and then a bright, sun filled afternoon. We had a long, lazy lunch at Snake Pit and Anton amused us playing with the big boat and firing a vast spay of water across the river from the jet engine. We ended the day with a further 14 salmon landed to take us to exactly 100 for the week so far. This morning Gordon B could not repeat his normal feat of a salmon before breakfast, but his fishing partner Paul R landed good one of about 9lbs before the bacon and eggs.

Anton amusing us at lunch

Two more days to go – I’m off to Yovas where the rock selection is the best (and the fishing is not too bad either!).

Christopher Robinson

Finn The Fish

Some say he eats lemmings for breakfast, others say that he can survive on river water alone – who knows? – all we know is that we call him Finn the Fish.

 

Finn the Fish

He set the bar pretty high yesterday; one salmon before breakfast, then six in the morning – and he allowed himself a Diet Coke at lunch to celebrate.

Michael H at Scotts

The weather repeated the pattern of the past few days and, after a dull start, by mid-morning it was bright and clear; in the afternoon the sun beat down on the river and it became pretty quiet and sleepy. A few rods changed tactics in the afternoon swapping floating lines for intermediate tips and smallish brass tubes and Michael H and Gordon S found that worked for them up at Scotts.


Fortress yesterday

Between the team we managed 14 salmon to take us to 86 at the mid-week point. Finn the Fish is comfortably ahead on the score sheet, as indeed he was last year (by ‘comfortably ahead’ I mean double that of any other rod). We do not know quite how he does it, he seems not to fish that much out of office hours but when he does fish the salmon just give themselves up.

Gordon S and Ivan

We have a much cooler morning today, it is 7⁰C and quite chilly in the breeze, certainly not mosquito weather. Gordon B repeated his daily routine of a salmon before breakfast from Generator, Paul R filmed a bear swimming the river and we watched the video over eggs and bacon.

I’m off to watch Finn the Fish today – I feel I can learn something.

Christopher Robinson

Counting Waders

We are lucky this far north to have 24 hours day light for most of the season. In early and mid May, when the sun dips down towards the horizon in the evening, it can get quite cold after dinner and the fishing can go off. However from early June, when we can expect warmer nights, we can have some of the most productive fishing in the evenings and early morning.

One fisher out

At Middle Camp the veranda of the main lodge looks out over the 6 guest log cabins, each accommodating two fishers in single rooms with a bathroom. My routine in the morning is to start fairly early, grab a large mug of coffee and from the veranda I can count the waders hanging up outside the bedrooms. In the evening too we can see, by the gaps in the waders, who is still out fishing.

Looking South at midnight

The team this week is pretty keen and this morning there were three pairs of waders missing. Finn, Paul and Gordon came back in for breakfast with five salmon landed between them in Generator – a good start to the day. I mentioned yesterday that I thought it felt ‘dour’; and so it turned out to be. The grey morning soon transformed into a really bright, almost painfully glare’ish day. Sunscreen was applied at lunch and in the afternoon we persevered knowing that it was not going to be an epic fishing day.

Looking North at midnight

After dinner I took Stewart and Dominic out in the big boat to fish Generator, both with single handed rods, Stewart fishing a Bomber, Dominic a small skater. Just before midnight a rain shower came through and the most extraordinary rainbow appeared over us. To the North was a setting sun, glowing bright red, to the South a rainbow arch, the like of which I have never seen before, right over us. Magic stuff and the fact that we did not land a salmon became unimportant.

Gordon B with a good salmon from Yovas

We had 18 salmon yesterday, well down on the day before, and I think part of that was due to the heavy rain we had on Sunday night. The river rose an inch or so and it just did not feel settled to me. We have had a much better start to today so let’s hope for a productive day – it feels better to me.

I’ll give you an update on the wader count tomorrow.

Christopher Robinson

　

Sartorial Elegance

As any fisher girl (or man - Ed) will tell you – it is not easy to look elegant in waders. Why do they not make decent, tailored waders? And what about the colour choice? "Yes ‘mam, we have a wide choice of colours – from light grey to dark grey."

Dressed to fish the Varzuga

I can always trust on Paul R and Michael H to set the tone here – if there were a choice of colours in waders they could cut even more of a dash. As it is they do pretty well. Paul this morning in a fetching pink shirt and The Hat. Michael in a bright checked shirt and his newly ordered tweed cap.

Do the salmon notice? – Maybe. We had a much better day, the best since 18 June and put a further 36 salmon in the book yesterday to add to the 18 of the first evening. The results were really evenly spread, everyone did pretty well. Smaller flies and floating lines were working well, but a few guests stayed with the safe option on an intermediate tip.


Michael H and the new tweed hat

Paul and Gordon B came into breakfast this morning after their customary hour on the river before Donna’s scrambled eggs with a salmon each and the chatter over the breakfast table was about trying surface fishing today. It is quite still today, warm’ish, and it feels a bit dour to me. We had really heavy rain for a few hours last night and the river has not dropped – I could do with a few more inches off it yet.


Party Pool and a Kola sky

Last week at Middle the team of 10 rods landed 119 salmon – great fishing in most places but not epic by Middle Camp standards. We had one really odd day, as did Pana. On 25 June we only landed eight, and up at Pana the team of six only had four salmon. The Pana team really do know what they are doing, Guy R, the team leader has only missed one year in the last 24. So it was not ‘operator error’ and I have no idea why the fish were so off that day. Pana finished with 123 for the week. Guy and the team mentioned that although the numbers of salmon compared to the record year of 2014 were down a bit there were many more large fish - something we are seeing too here at Middle Camp.

Benjamin G-B and a chunky Pana slamon

Kitza too had an unusual week – normally it fishes really well in late June being a later river than Varzuga. They recorded 69 for the eight rods – something to celebrate elsewhere but not up to our usual standards here; however it is the most delightful river to fish, probably the prettiest on the Kola and the team seemed content and happy with their week when I saw them on Saturday at Murmansk.

The salmon do seem to have responded to the brightly dressed team here this week. Let’s hope it continues in the same vein.

Christopher Robinson

Changing to Floating Lines

We got back from Murmansk with the new team in reasonable time yesterday and there was the usual flurry of activity, waders were unpacked and rods put up. Terry and I offered our advice as fly box after fly box was presented on the tables we use for tackling up. The river has continued its steady drop and everyone was keen to use a floating line if possible and I feel it has now got to the height at which we can have some confidence with smaller flies.



Paul R at Bear last night

Paul R got the group swiftly off the mark with a grilse from Bear Pool, followed by new-comer Stewart M who caught three salmon in Generator. Gordon S fished down Bear after Paul and had a further three; there was quite a lot of activity in all the home pools and by the time we called it a day there were 18 salmon in the book. An encouraging start and each one of our nine rods had caught a salmon in the ‘bonus evening’ before we start our six days fishing this morning.

The Pana Team last week

The river has dropped over a foot in the past week, and although not quite down to summer level it is slowly getting there. It is easy to fall into the trap of not adjusting the tactics we use or pools we fish if we are not alert to the fact that the river is constantly changing - even though we may not notice it day to day. We have been keen to start fishing a couple of key pools from the centre of the river on the gravel bars, Bomber Ally and Robinsons Folly; but to date the water has just been too high. Terry and Ivan went up river yesterday afternoon to have a look and it does now seem that we should be able to start fishing those pools in the next day or so.

Tom R on Pana last week

Tomorrow, once I have had a chance to go through the record books I’ll summarize last week. In the meantime we have a much cooler day, about 10⁰C, grey and it feels damp. With the river just coming right the last thing I need is rain so let’s hope that it stays away. After the success of the first evening both Paul R and Gordon B had a salmon each before breakfast – on floating lines and smallish flies - and at 9 a.m. on the dot the boats set off. I’ll join them for lunch at Snake Pit and look forward to updating the blog tomorrow.

Christopher Robinson