salmonjunky
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Although the weather conditions here on the northern Kola have been abnormally warm since the very beginning of April, our last team of VIPs and veterans survived a spell of the hottest temperatures that any of us can remember. It all started towards the end of the previous week when another high pressure system settled with bright sunny skies and scorching temperatures of 25+ degrees C. Even though we are located on the far north coast approximately 400km above the arctic circle, the temperatures continued to slowly rise up for the next week to a record 31.8 degrees C by Wednesday afternoon.
After dropping down to fresh water temperature of 7 C a week ago on the Litza, we were amazed to record water temps of 23.8 C here this week on the Kharlovka. Thankfully the winds finally switched back to the north on Thursday cooling the air back to 10 C and the river temp down to a final reading of 17.2 C. The river level started out flowing nicely at 23cm however the long hot days have recently taken their toll on the Kharlovka river which is currently flowing at 3cm on the home pool scale.
Our latest team of vips included another small group of Russian friends. Two of them got called away from the Kharlovka house after the first weekend to return back to Moscow. However later in the week their private helicopter returned with his two young sons of 13 years of age who each had their first lessons in fly fishing going onto land their new personal bests of 14 and 15 pounds.
In addition, their were another two gentlemen that each had their own guide that were also still learning how to manage the spey rod. Upon finding several nice salmon each up to 18 pounds, V and R had to slip away half way through the week with promises of returning again next season to continue their Kharlovka fly fishing adventure.
Unfortunately many VIP’s do not take photos!
In addition to having 4 more friendly characters on the team who were just learning about the finer points of fly fishing for the large atlantics, our group of about 10 rods had a wonderful time landing a total of 77 salmon on the week. Most everyone would also agree that despite the extreme heat wave lately there have been plenty of highlights to keep the boys smiling. Although fresh sea lice fish continue to arrive everyday on the tide many of the larger salmon have been difficult to locate with the bright sun and were coming short to the fly.
Honourable mention goes out to all our friends who caught some of their first salmon ever!
Egor and Dmitri also deserve extra credit for finding a few nice salmon a day including the evening Egor decided to sneak down through the pockets below the Kharlovka home pool to pull out a 24 pounder from less than 1 meter of water.
However as they say - 'the more you practice the luckier you get'. This definitely seemed to be the case for the Kharlovka veterans Matt and Gerald who along with the help of their personal guides Big Alex and Kola managed to find an exceptional 30 salmon including a half dozen of larger salmon between 18 and 23 pounds on the week. Fishing small hitched tubes and sun ray shadows they reported fantastic surface action with good numbers of salmon splashing through the day at their flies.
As we all know by now, no matter how unpredictable conditions may be up here, the mighty Kharlovka always has a great time. It must also be said that, there were certainly many more fish hooked than actually made it to the nets. Nevertheless, the boys managed to make up for any loses with their nightly saunas and some epic socializing back in the lodge. "Fishing is about pleasure!" The Russians proclaimed. "There is no rush to do anything. You must make the most of every precious summer day."
Justin
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