04/06/08 - The latest from the Varzuga

The third week is now upon us and overall the start of the season has been excellent. However it is clear that spring is taking longer than normal to turn into summer.

The team who fished Kitza for the first half of last week finished their stay on the river at Lower Varzuga and for the final three days accounted for 114 fish to the 10 rods which gave them a total of 228 for the week. Michael Evans' team, also of 10 rods, went to Kitza for the last part of the week but encountered high, rising and cold water which seemed to hold the main run of fish below the beat and they finished with 48 fish for their 3 days and a total of 190 overall.

Brian Fratel's party of 11 rods at Middle Varzuga ended their week with 566 salmon brought to the bank with the best fish of the week - estimated at 22lbs - falling to Trevor Kells.

The first half of this week has seen the 10 very experienced rods at Lower Varzuga take 299 fish which is a great start to the week. The 7 rods at Kitza (who are now at Lower after Monday's changeover) had 87 for their 3 days which was a good effort given the water conditions. Middle Varzuga has started very impressively with the 12 rods taking 382 salmon so far this week with numerous memorable catches. Steven McConnell took 17 fish in one day and Donald Stewart 18. Andrew Templeton also took a cracking 18lber.

Pana has now opened but with the late spring, has been a little slow to start. For the first half of the week the 8 rods have had 28 fish but the number per day is rising and we expect this to continue. The "example to us all" prize goes to Sir Gordon Linacre, 87, taking 6 fish out of the total score of 14 yesterday - simply indomitable.

I thought it might be of interest to pass on an email I received from Christopher Robinson this morning. Christopher set up the programme and has seen the river in all heights and conditions:

"1st June on the Varzuga normally heralds the change from spring to summer fishing and the swap from sinking to floating lines. On the Varzuga the water temperature reached 9 degrees C today but the river remains high and although fish will move to a floating line the best bets remain intermediates and sinkers.

The main run of salmon continues to pour in from the White Sea; all pools in the Middle and Lower beats are fishing well with the high, cool water slowing their progress upstream and the rods are having a bonanza. The Middle Camp is consistently producing over 100 salmon a day while the Lower Camp is not far behind with around 80 a day. A number of rods have had personal best days and on Monday Brian Anderson and David Cosh both had 20 salmon to their own rods.

I went up river to look at the big lake at the top of the Kitza yesterday to find it still covered in a mixture of ice and 'grue'. This is my eighteenth year on the river and I don't recall it ever being so frozen in early June. The water temperature at the top of the river was a chilly 2 degrees C; no wonder that the rods needed to use heavy lines to achieve success twelve miles down the river where the temperature had crept up to 4 degrees C. With high, cold water the fish are tucked into the quieter spots and not all pools are producing fish yet. The rods are averaging around 40 a day using heavy lines fished slowly through the slacks on the side of the main current.

It has been a late start too for Pana, the fish are there although the main runs have yet to arrive in their usual hordes. High water has made the fishing tricky with a number of pools still difficult to wade. We have extended the beat downstream to include the junction of Pana and Upper Varzuga; it is early days yet to fully assess this but it does give us access to the wonderful Junction Pool some 20 miles downstream of the Pana camp. The first team are finding the going tougher than normal but I hope they will pick up 100 salmon for the week.

I'll send you another email next week, by which time I hope summer will have arrived. Christopher"

Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact Charlie White or Lynsey Mair for further details.