salmonjunky
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Despite the dark clouds that settled over the north coast of the Kola peninsula last weekend, team Kharlovka managed to pull together and produce some of the best results of the summer.
Returning for back for round three, it was a pleasure to see our energetic Norwegian friends back again. This small group of veterans were accompanied by Jimmy and Charlie from Britain and the USA, in addition to a few eager Danes that included young Cornelius (12yr) who turned out to be the star of the show.
With the exception of Monday morning's fog delay, the weather conditions were perfectly overcast and cool throughout the week. Air temperatures ranged from 7 to 17 degrees C while the river temps were stable at approximately 15 C. There was even enough mist and drizzle to freshen the rivers back up 4 cm during the week to a current level of -11cm on the home pool scale. Despite the record low water conditions this summer, new fish continue to arrive everyday on the tide.
Using mostly single handed rods, light lines and very small flies along with some skilful casting, fancy downstream mending and a bit clever twitching - the boys did well to pull in 140 salmon on the week. In addition to many new personal bests, most of the salmon were bright silver again with good numbers of fresh sea liced fish into the middle teens.
Honourable mention must certainly go out to all the Norwegians who despite their viking spirit behaved liked gentlemen and fished like the pros.
Happy birthday to young Alf who had a dozen nice salmon and a lot of fun hitching his small tubes with his new friend Big Alex. His proud father Gunnar probably deserved credit also for his skill with the hitch which earned him his new PB 23 pounder from the Kharlovka Falls.
And a big thanks to Calix for bringing the team together again. In addition to taking a full day off with his buddy Trond to test out one of our special creeks where they managed to find 40 sweet tundra brownies up to 2 kg - Calix along with our young new guide Revda led the way last week with 23 salmon on his single handed rod that included 11 one memorable day with his small red francis off the lower Kharlovka.
Old fishing buddies from the USA and England, Charles and Jimmy had a cracking time with more than a dozen salmon including that one cloudy morning up at the Litza falls when they each went back to back to back with fish up into the high teens with their sunrays - unfortunately a couple of Jimmy managed to get off before they reached the net.
Special mention must go out to those great Danes including big fish Morton who managed to break his PB a couple of times with salmon of 20 and 29 pounds. Shame we don't have a photo however all of Morten fish were taken on his sneaky little red bead with a monkey tail.
And last but far from least there was young Cornelius who after taking the first couple of days to learn how to stand in the river and handle the big rod then quickly moved to casting further than his dad and breaking personal records. Although Cornelius was certainly pleased with his first parr and then delighted to follow that up the next day with a small brown trout, both he and his proud father Ulrik were literally overwhelmed after losing a few previous attempts, young Cornielius landed his first three salmon ever on the last afternoon down on the lower Litza.
Justin
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