salmonjunky
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Youth springs eternal - Driven by wild expectations along with plenty of cola’s and chocolate bars, we were delighted to entertain 14 young international fly fishers that arrived from seven different nations last week to the Kharlovka camp to participate in the ASR youth programme.
After enjoying several weeks of cool cloudy conditions, our last rowdy bunch unfortunately arrived to a heat wave. It all began without a cloud in the sky with daytime temperatures soaring to 30+ degrees. Before the weekend was over the river temps had shot back to a concerning 20+ degrees C. Bright skies and hot temperatures would stay with us for the remainder of the week eventually bringing the water levels down to their lowest recording ever at -18cm on the home scale.
Giving it their best shot to fish and party around the clock, the team's hard work and enthusiasm eventually paid off. Armed with their Bombers, Sun rays, nymphs, wooly buggers and just about everything else in the box, these young whippersnappers did amazing well to pull in 79 salmon on the week.
Creativity and perseverance seemed to be the key. Despite the tricky conditions there were daily reports of amazing surface action as nearly half the salmon were taken on bombers and dry flies. In addition to multiple new personal bests, all the lads will be leaving the mighty Kharlovka twice as confident as they arrived.
One of the goals of the ASR is to introduce, inspire and create a new generation of passionate salmon fly-fishers. Anglers are the life-blood of sustainable salmon fishing worldwide and it is hoped that by facilitating the next generation to fish in an environment as pristine as the ASR that all will be inspired and some may go on to become the future voice of conservation for salmon fishers worldwide.
Honourable mention goes out to this entire group for along with all the laughs and bright silver grilse, they also managed to locate a few monster trout along with some larger sea liced salmon up to 20 pounds.
And then there was Arthur who after landing back to back to back salmon down in Marks Pocket including his new personal best 21 pounds - could not stop talking about his Bombers for the rest of the week!
We should also mention Freddy's early morning assaults down on the home pool which provided a couple of great salmon of 20+ pounds - unfortunately the large fresh silver one that was landed about four in the morning managed to escape without getting her photo taken.
The subtle signs of autumn are upon us - faint yellows and reds have started to appear, tundra berries and mushrooms are being gathered by the bucket load, reindeer are again disappearing to the south. With the dark of night quickly approaching to hopefully cool the season off, our large coloured spring salmon will soon be on the prowl.
Justin
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