Dropping off

Date: Evening 22 July

Air Temp: 14’C -19’C

Water Temp: 15C
Water Height: +16cm
Number of Rods: 2
Number of fish Caught: 1
Biggest fish: 4lbs Simon Allaire
No 30+: 0
No 20-29lbs: 0
No 8-19lbs: 0
Grilse: 1

Weather: A warm day with sunshine all afternoon and a light breeze.

Managers Comments: Sadly another tough days fishing here today, bright sunshine most of the day but thankfully a nice cool breeze to go with it.

Happy Russian camp manager with guest's lunch

The river is starting to drop off now and I think we will lose water fast over the next couple of days with no more rain forecast. I think this will be a really good thing for the fishing. Lower water is definitely needed and the cooler water will be a big help too.

Simon managed his grilse out of Lyliok, just above the junction itself, again close to the bank. The fish are certainly keeping tight to the banks with the higher water. The Lyliok river is now a raging torrent meaning we can’t wade below to fish the tail. Usually we find that most of the fish are sitting higher up the pool, above the Lyliok river in this high water.

 

View of the Lyliok river before the rise in water

 

I went for a walk up the Lyliok river itself today, there are three fantastic little pools within walking distance of the lodge, I saw a good number of fish moving. Perhaps it is worth taking a rod up at some point! 

Snake Pool on the Lyliok river at normal height

 

Toby Burrell

High Water

Date: 21 July

Air Temp: 12C to 14C

Water Temp: 15C

Water height: +37cm

Number of rods: 2

Number fish caught: 1
Biggest fish: Geoff Barber (4lbs)

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 0

No 8-19: 0

Grilse: 1

Weather:

A grey cloudy morning with the sun arriving in the afternoon along with a light breeze.

Manager's Comments:
The river, as suspected, has rocketed up overnight leaving us with +37cm on the gauge. This means the river has almost come up 4ft over a two day period, the river had a surprising amount of colour to it today as well. Old Vova who has been guiding here for over 15 years tells me that this is the highest he has ever seen the river at this time of the year.

Even though the conditions where certainly not in our favour the two rods worked hard for the day and tried all they could, but sadly the fish were just not having it. A few fair few fish were showing on the river but sadly they appeared to have no interest in the fly whatsoever. However, Geoff did manage to connect with a grilse this afternoon. The fish took him about a foot from the bank. I think that most of the fish in this water are just scooting up the sides of the river, staying well away from the raging torrent in the middle.

On the plus side of the water levels and conditions it has made the river temperature drop by 2 degrees which is a huge bonus and much more promising for the rest of the season. Let's hope the river drops quickly and keeps a steady temperature.

For those of you who are heading to Helsinki tomorrow, make sure you have good variety of kit, sinking all the way through to floating and everything in between. Certainly small flies have been the answer in recent days but if this water stays steady we may need to be on slightly bigger flies. Have a safe trip and look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Toby Burrell

Moose!

Date: 20 July

Air Temp: 13C to 16C

Water Temp: 17C

Water height: +6cm

Number of rods: 2

Number fish caught: 0

Taxi arriving

Weather:
A cloudy cold morning with the odd slash of rain. All the cloud cover cleared by the afternoon giving
up bright sunshine. A strong NE wind all day.

Manager's Comments:
Today's figures reflect the difficulty we had on the water. The river came up almost two feet over night and has certainly still been rising all day today. As you all know, the Yokanga is a vast old river, two feet of extra water coming down the river really is quite a lot. The river did colour up a little bit but had cleared by the afternoon. This obviously had quite an effect on the fishing, not a single fish showing all day. However, Simon did manage to connect with a couple but sadly to no avail. They both seemed to take very slowly indeed then proceed to take a few yards of line before shaking off. Geoff also had a similar experience with a fish in 7 Islands, a soft take that sadly didn't come to anything.

I spent the day up the river with Geoff B at Sand Island, Cliff and 7 Islands, we had a very enjoyable day indeed and experienced a wonderful sighting of two Moose (European Elk), a cow and calf, crossing the river only 50 yards from us. An amazing sight and almost inconceivable to think that they could have swam across the rapids. They came up on to what is left of Sand Island then noticed us watching them and swam the rest of the river and galloped up the bank on the other side, disappearing back into the tundra. A wonderful and very rare sighting and we feel very privileged to have seen them so close up.

A moose on the loose

Water is looking much cleaner this afternoon but even now as I look up boulder alley from the balcony I can see more and more rocks disappearing into the rapids, I fear we may have a very high river tomorrow. But what goes up must come down - I think with a fast rise like this it will drop quickly too. Time will tell!

Toby Burrell

Tough Day

Date: 19 July

Air Temp: 12C to 14C

Water Temp: 18C

Water height: -21cm

Number of rods: 2

Number fish caught: 3

Biggest fish: 9lbs Geoff Barber

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 0

No 8-19: 1

Grilse: 2

Weather: 
A much colder day today with a steady drizzle of rain all day and thick fog by the afternoon.

Manager's Comments:
Today was a very grey day indeed, bringing us a strong sea fret putting the visibility down to about 100m. Luckily for us it all cleared just before 6pm, meaning we could get out of camp with the chopper to pick up the fishers. Geoff certainly was thankful and he was downstream meaning it would have been rather a long, cold walk home!

A deathly looking grilse being put back on track to continue its first migration

As far as the fishing goes, today was a tough day. We thought perhaps the cooler weather might bring us more luck. But as we all know if the water temperature does not drop with the air it can make fishing very tricky indeed. For some unknown reason to me, the water temperature has remained pretty steady at 18/19 degrees, meaning the air temperature is far cooler. Simon A mentioned today that when he was going down the Norcamp rapids in the boat he got the odd splash of water that almost warmed him up rather than the usual pin prick of ice cold water droplets on your skin. We have a nice relaxed home-like atmosphere in camp at the moment and this evening we all crowded the fly tying desk with fire crackling beside us and got to work - accompanied by a few bottles of red wine of course! Pasha, our Russian camp manger, taught us a few new tricks on fly tying.

 A fly tying lesson from Pasha

 The finished products

The season is certainly moving along now with much darker nights and perhaps we may even see a star or two at some point in the next couple of weeks. Which will be a first for me in over two months.

We hope the much cooler air temperatures today might have an effect on the water over the next 24hrs. This will perhaps bring us more luck and liven the fish up a little more. But we are still seeing a constant flow of fish running up the river, slowly but surely - tomorrow is another day.

Toby Burrell

Fantastic Day

Date: 18 July

Air Temp: 13C to 16C

Water Temp: 17C

Water height: -12cm

Number of rods: 2

Number fish caught: 6

Biggest fish: 18lbs Geoff Barber

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 0

No 8-19: 2

Grilse: 3
Sea Trout: 1

Old Vova with Geoff 's 18lber from Poacher's

Weather: 
A stiff downstream wind. The majority of the day consisted of cloudy skies with the odd short spell of sunshine.

Manager's Comments:
Another fine day on the banks of the Yokanga with water levels still slowly dropping off but it would seem that there is still a reasonably constant run of fresh fish coming up the river.

Geoff B had a fantastic day in Poachers, he managed an 18lber, a 16lber, a grilse and a fresh 4lbs sea trout. All of Geoff's fish today were fresh; none with sea lice but they had only just lost them. Geoff had fished Poachers down with various flies - Red Francis, Black Francis, Sunray Shadow and a Yoganka Gold with no result. Then the final go down with a Small Cascade did the business and produced four fish! This was amazing really, whether the fish were being very fussy or just happened to come into the pool for his final run down we will never know but whatever the case I'm sure Geoff will be putting his cascade to plenty of use tomorrow.

Old Vova with a fat 16lbs fish

Simon was further up the river at Island where he sadly didn't have quite as much success as the other rod but did at least mange to avoid a blank day. He reported that there was very little movement up the top, seeing only one grilse which he then proceeded to catch. At least we think it was probably the same fish.

Sergie the scientist electro fishing for the annual parr counts

I had a very interesting day up the Lyliok river with our resident scientist Sergie. Every year Sergie takes his electro fishing equipment up the Yokanga river system to do his annual parr counts for PINRO (The Polar Research Institute). Returning to exactly the same spots each year, he electrifies the water and nets all the small parr in the area, proceeding to count each one and take scale samples. We visited five of his usual spots on the Lyliok river with great results. We found an abundance of salmon parr at each, managing over fifty in most sections. Each section was 10m by 10m. It is fantastic to see these numbers of parr in the river, giving us great hope for future seasons.

Toby Burrell

Upstream

Date: 17 July

Air Temp: 14C to 19C

Water Temp: 19C

Water height: -14cm

Number of rods: 2

Number fish caught: 2

Biggest fish: 15lbs Simon Allaire

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 0

No 8-19: 2

Grilse: 0

The team!

Weather: 
A mixture of sun and rain. The morning started bright and warm but soon a hefty layer of black cloud rolled in with some heavy rain showers.

Manager's Comments:
The fish figures this week may start to look a little shocking at first glance but please bear in mind we are only two rods!

We had a great fun day today - we loaded up in the chopper this morning and headed upstream to Cascad. Completely new territory for me and the guests, an amazing set of small pools each followed by a thunderous rapids. All the pools look like they have been designed for salmon fishing, good streamy necks, bouldery bodies with oily glides and finishing with irresistible fast flowing glassy draws.

Simon A managed to do two of these pools justice by landing a couple of fish. The 15lbs fish caught earlier on in the day was full of energy and took him and his guide Sasha white water rafting down a heavy set of rapids. All very exciting indeed and has left us with a satisfied fisher with yet another fishing tale to tell.

Water levels have started to drop off again slowly, however we are due some heavy rain in the next few days so that may not be the common trend over the coming week. Water temperature has increased by a degree which is never any help to us fishers but sadly it is out of our control.

In summary, a very exciting adventure today with a couple of nice fish caught. Back to the usual rotations tomorrow, and we hope to get tucked into a few.

Toby Burrell

Week 9-16 July

Date: 9-16 July

Air Temp: 12C to 18C

Water Temp: 17C - 19C

Water height: -35 to -5cm

Number of rods: 16

Number fish caught: 133

Biggest fish: 25lbs Ian Eckersley

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 3

No 8-19: 49

Grilse: 81

Weather: 
A week of all weathers, we have had everything from hail storms to bright cloudless skies. But the general trend was cloudy, North east winds and showers.

Manager's Comments:
A better week this week... the numbers of fish caught have certainly picked back up again leaving us with a total of 133 fish for the week. A good number of fish for 16 rods by any standards. Fish of the week goes to Ian E who had a lovely fish of 25lbs out of poachers early in the week, and well done to the other 5 rods that managed to make it over the 17lbs mark at least once.

The river level has changed dramatically this week, starting us off on Sunday at -35cm and finishing off last night at -5cm. A big rise that may continue throughout next week if this rain holds up for the next few days - a more than likely possibility I think.

Well done to Klaus M who has caught a good number of fish all week. Looking through the week's catch records now I see he caught all but one fish on his own fly that he has designed and made, the Nuclear Cockroach. A fantastic fly that is almost a big black nymph with a cone head and rubber legs. Always very satisfying to catch a fish on your own fly, well done Klaus.

We have had a mixture of Finnish and English guests who have got on famously well and all been great fun to have in camp, thank you guys for a very enjoyable week and we hope to see you again
next year, until then tight lines and happy fishing elsewhere!

Toby Burrell

Father & Son

Date: 15 July

Air Temp: 12C to 18C

Water Temp: 17C

Water height: -5cm

Number of rods: 16

Number fish caught: 15

Biggest fish: 12lbs Christian Jennelius

No 30+: 0

No 20-29: 0

No 8-19: 2

Grilse: 13

Weather: 
A mixture of cool winds, strong sunshine and heavy rain showers.

Manager's Comments: 
The river has risen 25cm in two days, as you know a 25cm rise on the Yokanga is rather a lot of water. It has coloured up a little bit but nothing too dramatic and is still very fishable, in fact it feels almost perfect.

However we did find the numbers of fish caught today dropped off slightly. Who knows whether this was to do with the rise in water or the colour in the river, but we will stick at it and I'm sure we will catch up with them at some point.

Well done to Jenni J who finished her week of nicely in Lyliok with three fish all in exactly the same place within 20 minutes of each other. All three fish were very fresh and within half a pound pf each other (6-7lbs). A good result and a nice way to end the week, well done!

Both salmon caught by the father/son combo, Christian and Henrik J. One of 12lbs caught in Lower Norway camp and the other in Poachers pool. Henrik promises me that he did have his rod in hand when the fish took this time.

Well done to the team, a good end to a good week!

Toby Burrell