Last Saturday afternoon under bright, sunny skies and with pleasantly warm temperatures, we were delighted to welcome an eager group of 11 young men to the Kharlovka Camp for our annual ASR Youth program.
We were impressed with the enthusiasm of our international gang from England, Finland, Denmark and Russia and not surprisingly they were full of energy and, following the all important camp briefing, they could not wait to start fishing!
The week began with a warm air temperature of 13.9C and 12.8C for the water with river levels down 5cm. The river dropped steadily until Monday, when northerly winds brought clouds and much cooler air temperatures of 8.3C. As well as the wind it also rained the whole day and night, which caused the river to rise a much needed 7cm – back to a reading of 0cm on the Home Pool scale by Tuesday – making the conditions almost perfect again. Then, on Thursday, we were surprised to face very strong and warm winds from the south causing the air temperature to climb back up to 20C; with sun through Friday it made for yet another unpredictable week of weather beyond the Polar Circle.
One of our new Finnish friends, Jussi had been promised by his friends Klaus and Kalle that he would finally get a really big salmon here on Kharlovka after failing during several attempts in Norway and, guess what? They were right!
He started with nice fresh 14 pounder on Saturday and by the end of the week managed to break his own record with 24 pounder caught on Reindeer Pool of Eastern Litza. All together they managed to land about 30 salmon for the week, they also enjoyed the sauna as well as the socialising almost every night!
The same story was developing with our new young friend Tony. He was so excited after he landed first ever salmon on the fly and seemed to be completed overwhelmed by Friday when he received his ASR personal best diploma for his 15 pounder from Kharlovka Falls. He also caught several memorable fish in between – so a big well done!
Our good friends Nick and Andy did a great job and together landed over 20 fish including personal bests – a 20 pounder for Nick from Litza flat stone and a 21 pounder for Andy caught on Reindeer Rapids on the Litza.
Honourable mentions also go to Charles and Gavin who landed 33 fish for the week and got their personal bests of 19 pounds for Gavin from Barrel on Kharlovka and 24 pounds for Charles.
Having the privilege of fishing alone with his guide, our Russian friend Max had great results every day. Along with another two experienced fishermen they manage to land 50% of the total number of fish for the week. Among them were two 24 pounders caught by Anders and a 31 pounder caught by Thomas on Crack Pool of the Litza.
By Friday all of the guys confessed that they had a fantastic time and the week exceeded all possible expectations with the team landing 178 salmon in total and almost all broke their personal bests several times.
Thank you all so much – it was a real pleasure to meet new young friends and to see a few of our good friends back again – we hope to see you all next year!
This week we are happy to welcome a new group here on Kharlovka -14 anglers from Sportfish – the UK’s leading supplier of fly fishing tackle. We will tell you how they fared next week!
Tight lines! On behalf of all the Kharlovka team – Katya
If you are interested in late availability for the current season and/or making a booking for the 2015 season please contact info@fishandfly.com