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KHARLOVKA AND EASTERN LITZA
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The next day we fished upstream from the camp. No hatches and just a couple of fish seen rising. Just one fish caught by the whole group. In the evening we paddled to the next camp. That campsite is at a beach were a tributary enters the lake. This is one of the nicest campsites I have ever used. We stayed here 24 hours, but just one trout above 1kg was caught in the small river.
The next camp was planned to be where we were forced by the wind to stop last year, and where we had caught several very nice fish in the river. This is a short 150m stretch of river between two lakes. This year only one fish were caught in the river here, but we had a great caddis hatch around real midnight (0130 local time) at the neck at the outlet from the lake. Morten caught the trip's largest fish, a beautiful trout at 3.5kg on a dry fly during this hatch, and several other fish were caught.
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The next day we moved to the last camp, above the start of the trophy stretch of the Pina. Our campsite is by a beautiful stretch of the river, but we saw not one fish rising in our home pool, and only very few rises upstream during the whole stay. The pool is so nice that a common topic while eating and looking at the river was: why don't we see rising fish here, everywhere else we have fished such a nice pool a fish would be showing itself from time to time.
The hatches we experienced staying at this camp were in the last lake on the Pina (5,5km upstream from Litza, 100m downstream from our camp). These caddis hatches started about 0100 at night local time and lasted for a couple of hours. The last two nights we had little wind during the hatches so we had a lot of fish rising in the lake every time the lake was calm. Morten and Tom decided to fish from the canoe together, they had a lot of fun, and caught quite a few fish these two nights. If they had discovered this hatch and the rising fish on the lake a bit earlier the first night, the result would have been much better.
The total number of fish above 1 kg was only 32. For a group of experienced Kola fly fishermen this is very disappointing on a week that would normally be considered prime time. (The two trout groups on the Litza/Kharlovka each caught about 120 this same week). The weather was, in our opinion, good fishing weather. One day however, was very hot. The water temperature was around 17 degrees C during the last few days of our stay.
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It was a great canoe trip, the group had a lot of fun together, and no one was grumpy about the fishing. I would really like to take this group on a trip again. Everyone agreed it was a great trip, but was naturally very disappointed about the fishing.
Trout report week 3b July 10th – 17th, 2010.
Bush Pool Litza and Dream Pool Kharlovka
Group: Niklas, Dan, Super Chef Vasiliy, Erik, Geir, Magnus, Jan
After a long wait, October 2009, and then some, we touched down at Bush pool Litza late 10th of July with modest expectations. And that turned out to be a smart thing. We measured 15 degrees in the water, and a little higher in the air.
At our stay in Bush, we, (Geir, Magnus and Dan), caught in all 8 fish passing the 1 kilo mark, where the biggest one was weighing in at 2,3 kg. During our stay, the river temperature raised to a staggering 17,5 degrees. There was hardly any fish rising, but Dan found a few and caught them on E12. Vasiliy kept our moral up with awesome food.
With hope for better conditions in Dream Pool Kharlovka, the chopper was highly appreciated on Tuesday at 3:30 pm. Flying in over Kharlovka was great, if the fishing would be anything like the looks of this river stretch, it would all be good.
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Before long, we where into Kharlovka trout. There was both caddis and mayfly hatching going on, and it looked like we would have a little luck. We found rising fish, but it seemed that the only thing they took was Caddis Pupae’s sub surface. The results after great effort the first 2 days was 23 fish, where Magnus caught his personal best with a beautiful trout weighing 3,1kg. Dan lost one that just parked at the bottom, and despite that, it looked a little brighter. Magnus’ fish surely lifted the mood for the whole group.
The last 28 hours started with a hysterical Swede running from tent to tent at 2:30am waking everybody up, just because he had landed the trout of his lifetime, after chasing it 150 meters downstream. Four – point - two, (4,2), had suddenly a very special meaning for Niklas. Great job!
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The next and last day, Kola Peninsula showed us why so many fly fishermen has taken the trip, and keep coming back. Erik and Jan managed to land their dreamfish as well, while Geir just kept on catching fish, many fish - in light of the difficult and selective feeding. Magnus more or less walked around with a very content smile on his face, where Dan became more and more focused and looked like a man with a sole mission in life.
Vasiliy just smiled and made one dish after another that just became better and better. It might be that our taste was affected by better fishing, but still, he made GREAT food. Thank you Vasiliy
As most of us know, fly-fishing is for fools and geniuses’, and mother earth still does exactly as she wants when it comes to making the bugs behave like we want them to do. Sitting in the Dingy across “Home pool”, and seeing a LOT of big tails waving at you, knowing that none of the fish weigh less than a kilo, is just fantastic on it’s own. Thank you Kharlovka.
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The total for Week 3b:
| 1-2kg: 31 | 2-3kg: 17 | 3-4kg: 3 | 4-5kg: 1 |
52 beautiful Trouts might not be the world record, but it sure feels close in the company of this group.
Thank you Dan, Erik, Geir, Magnus and Niklas.
Jan Aa Gjeterud
Dream Pool Kharlovka / Running Pool Litsa week 2a started 3. July
Kai Finbråten (groupleader), Peder Oppegård, Anders Wennevold, Finn Amundsen, Peter Wulf, Eivind Hagen, Igor (chef) |
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Again we were gathered for the trip of the year, and again everything went perfect from Stockholm and all the way to the Tundra. The staff and crew have every reason to be proud of the work an effort they put in to make us feel welcome and taken care of.
Already when the helicopter hovered over dream pool Kharlovka we could see rising fish in homepool, and we knew right away that dryfly fishing for trophy brown trout were just minutes away…? We started to set up a camp, and I can tell you that tents being set up with rising trout all over is not a good combination…..let's just say the tents needed a "facelift" later that evening…
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We had light rain and 8-10 degrees in the air, and 11 degrees in the water. We all spread out, and it didn't take long before the first rods where bent, several nice brown trout were landed the first evening with an average of around 2 kilos. Mayflies and caddis where hatching in big numbers, but the trout seemed to be most keen on caddis.
Sunday and Monday the temperature in the air went up and so did the water level, but the fish did not care. The fishing was outstanding and I don't think you find better fishing for brown trout in the world. The fish where rising and we had world class dry fly fishing all three days and ended up landing 100 brown trout in dream pool with three fish over the 3 kilo mark. The average was around 2 kilos.
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Tuesday is moving day, and the pickup was set to 15.00 hours, and on the clock the helicopter landed and we went off to running pool Litsa. And what a day….for bikinis and shorts….but the millions of mosquitoes would probably have the feast of their lifetime if we took our clothes of…33 degrees in the air and no wind….say no more..!! Running Pool was about 40 cm below normal, and had 17 degrees in the water which made the fishing hard. We found some rising fish, and landed some nice ones, but compared to Dream Pool Kharlovka, the conditions was not on our side. But then we have Peder, the most novice, and probably the most positive of us all, managed to land a 3 kilo Litsa trout and followed up with a 2,1 kilo fish right after. I helped him out with my net on both. He opened a bottle of Braastad XO Cognac that night! Tasted perfect by the way……… And he/we did not smile any less after that…
So after three great, but challenging days in Running we ended up with 30 landed trout with an average of about 1,8 kilo. I need to say that 30 trout with that average in three days IS world class and tells a bit about the fishing in this area.
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And then we have Igor, who has become a good friend and he is a great ambassador for the Kharlovka company. He is an excellent chef, is easy going and always smiling! Thanks my friend!!
Tight lines,
Kai Finbråten
Report from week 1B
The participants were from France (Christian and Bruno), and from Norway (Trond, Geir, Erik), group leader Pål and cook/guide Igor.
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The expectations were great when the helicopter landed at the Swan Islands camp on the Litza in the afternoon of Saturday June 26th. From the helicopter we had seen a few fish rising, this looked very promising.
When we set our tents up the wind already had started to pick up, and for the next three days it was howling. One of the days we where almost unable to cast from the right bank and had to cross to be able to cast at all. We had mayflies hatching, but saw almost no rises. Most of the fishing at this camp therefore was done with streamers or large Streaking Caddis dry flies. Most of the fishing was done around the islands close to the camp, but we also tried further downstream where the current is much faster. We caught quite a few nice fish, but wanted less wind and more rising fish.
The number of fish above 1 kg caught at Swan Islands was 27.
On Tuesday June 29th we were moved to Scones. The camp there is situated by a part of the river that is not excellent, so usually you either walk or row upstream a couple of km, or use a boat to go downstream to fish. In the afternoon this day we all went upstream to look, and we saw the first steady rising fish of our trip. It was a number of fish just outside our reach at the other side of the river, just above the Sami cabin (about 3km above the Scones camp).
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We decided that the next day we would bring a boat to be able to cross.
The next day we split, the French guys went up to the Sami cabin (Igor carried the boat for them), the Norwegians took the inflatable with motor and went downstream. Downstream from Scones you cross a lake about 2 km, then you have a very short stretch of current with a neck between two lakes, and then another km to a part of Kharlovka with about a 100m river between two lakes. The neck and that run looked very promising. At the first short stretch of current between the lakes we found a couple of rising fish in an eddy, and we caught a couple of nice fish. Geir caught a fish about 3.1kg, nice! The rest of the day we concentrated on the next stretch of the river. We had a lot of action with quite a few rising fish, but bad luck, barbless hooks and a bit of inexperience kept us from getting a lot more than we did that day. Erik alone lost 5 fish he had almost to the net. I don't think he will use barbless hooks anymore, but press down the barb on regular hooks
The French guys had a very good day with a caddis hatch and a lot of rising fish. They caught 12 fish this day.
The next day we switched and the Norwegians went upstream and I went downstream with the French guys. Downstream we had very little action with very few rises. The French guys concentrated on blind fishing while I decided to wait for rising fish where we had seen a lot of rises the day before. Finally I saw a really nice fish rising once at the neck. Christian and Bruno were downstream so I decided to try and catch it. I had a hook 10 Rackelhanan dry fly on my leader. On the first cast at the right spot, the fish took my fly. After a long fight the fish was finally in the net, it was a fraction above 4 kilo, my personal record on a dry fly. Christian came running up to me and took a few pictures.
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The Norwegians who had gone upstream caught a few fish, but this day none of the two groups found a hatch and steadily rising fish.
The last day Christian and Bruno wanted to go upstream and the Norwegians wanted to go downstream. Christian and Bruno did the right thing because they had a great mayfly hatch with a lot of rising fish at the neck by the Sami cabin. We had a very slow day and only found a few rising fish. We also tried the next the part of the Kharlovka further downstream where it splits in two. Here Geir and I had some fun with a couple of fish taking mayflies. Geir caught one above 2kg on a No-hackle dun imitation.
The total number of fish above 1 kg at Scones was 53, which gives a total for the week of 80 fish. This is OK, but not great for this time of the year. The weather is always a factor when you are fishing, this time we were somewhat unlucky at Swan, but the next time!
We were pleased with the fact that we got to the tundra on Saturday and were picked up in the morning the next Saturday, this gives us a feeling of much more fishing time. We were also very pleased with Igor, a lot of thanks to him.
The group functioned well even though we had some language barrier. I enjoyed the week very much and the participants tell me they were very pleased with the trip and the way it was organized. The Norwegians want to go with me again next year, the same week.
Pål Krogvold