A new guide’s first hand experience of the famous River Ponoi. Fly fishing on the big Russian river, deep in the Arctic Tundra really is an amazing experience. This has to be the best and most prolific Atlantic Salmon fishery in the world!
After six hours in Moscow airport my “Aeroflop” flight to Murmansk was surprisingly welcome. It was on this flight I first saw the midnight sun. Taking off at 11pm in pitch darkness to land three hours later in broad daylight was quite an experience… as was my lift through the disturbingly industrial suburbs of Murmansk by Boris in a Renualt with almost half a million kms on the clock. The next morning, I had an hour long helicopter ride over the still frozen Tundra with a few tonnes of supplies; what an experience – I’ll never forget the first glimpse of the river and then the camp from the chopper. You get the feel for just how big the river system is from above and what a huge expanse of land it drains.
The ice had only just melted in time for the start of the season, leaving the river high and cold. I shadowed other guides for the first week and a half, giving me a chance to experience as much of the river as possible. My first day on the river was unforgettable. First impressions were overwhelming – it was much vaster than I had imagined, but we soon got into fish and it all began to make sense. After tailing a handful of fish, my guest handed me his rod while he watered the tundra. I didn’t take much persuading to have a cast and straight away hooked and landed a 6lb grilse. Unfortunately my second day didn’t go quite so well as I managed to snap a net and slice my hand open… I had a lot to learn! It really was sink or swim; especially when it came to the boat’s jet engine the. Needless to say a few minor mishaps and lost caps in my first week helped speed up the learning process and I used almost every evening practicing my driving (and fishing!) for the first couple of weeks.
The fishing itself was fantastic, and after time the river wasn’t so hard to read. The high water stayed for the first few weeks and the majority of fish were being taken in slow water very close to the bank. I’d never seen a fish take a fly a foot from the bank before…! Week two was the highlight and as the water dropped the fishing improved, and we almost beat the record for fish caught in a week with over 1,600. Head guide Max Mamaev reckoned that the low water last year held the fall run up and the fish stayed in the lower river and estuary and unusually ran after the ice had melted, not before. Some of the fish I caught looked brand new with the scales just falling off them. It was a great week for me to start guiding and in my first two days my boat had over 50 fish! Unreal!
The fishing did get harder as time went on, with bright sunshine and hot conditions in week three, and snow with gale force winds in week four. The Ponoi is lake fed and in high winds the silt and muck is stirred up in the shallow lakes which can really colour up the water. We had two days of fishing in thick chocolate soup. The fish were still there – it was just a case of getting the fly into their limited scope of vision. Thankfully most of the tributaries ran clear giving pockets of cleaner water on most of the beats. The cold spring did have one advantaged – the overwintered fish stayed silver and fresher for much longer than usual.
The weather can change very quickly in the tundra, I saw it go from 20C to 3C overnight. Within the first week the trees had grown leaves and spring had well and truly arrived. After the cold weather disappeared the summer run fish arrived. Boy these fish are fat – and these are apparently skinny compared to the fall run fish!
My guiding improved as time went on, confidence grew and I was trying more and more drops in different types of water looking for fish. Some days the fish would be in deeper slower water and you would catch six or seven fish in a place that wouldn’t produce a fish the next day, but faster shallower water which wasn’t working the day before would work that day. The trend tended to be the same across the river. Another thing I noticed was how some days we would lose lots of fish and with the ones we got, the fly was coming out in the net, whereas other days all the fish would take the hooks deep and none would be lost. Double hook ups from the boat were common, often with fish taking the flies at the same time (and often at the same time as fish moved upstream or downstream).
The style of fishing was slightly different to back home. I don’t think I’ve thrown an upstream mend in six weeks. As the water warmed up we swapped from inch long copper tubes on sink tips to smaller tubes on intermediate tips or even skaters bombers etc. which was a lot of fun. Watching fish turn at a rifled hitch was amazing, but they weren’t always that easy to hook and most of the time the fish missed them altogether. It was also very hard not to strike when the fish took them! Mind you, I think a lot of Ponoi guests find it hard not to strike any take they get – I dread to think the number of fish I’ve seen lost to striking or refusing to let the fish take line on its initial run. The fish boils to the surface at the same time as the rod tip bends and I’m leaping across the boat trying to prize the chaps hand off the line before the hook pings out.
Nothing beats a good day on the river, when you are catching fish, guiding well, your guests are listening to what you say and when they do something you suggest that produces a fish it really is a superb feeling. One of the most satisfying things is deciding to swing the boat out from a lie to change the angle of presentation and getting my guests a fish that had already seen their fly – brilliant! A bad day on the river is pretty grim – I become guilty of not relaxing and starting to will fish to take and sometimes they just won’t and you would doubt yourself all day until you got back to camp to realise that everyone had a bad day. The mood in camp changes daily and news of the MI8 crash nearby followed by a large fire in the staff accommodation made things pretty tough for a short while, especially as I was still learning the ropes. The Russians are a tough bunch though, and a couple of vodkas later it was forgotten about and life in camp started to became a lot of fun. All the staff are really helpful and super nice, and they all know how to party – best leave this blog for the fishing though…
In my first six weeks guiding I was lucky to get some big fish in the boat. The best was probably around 17lb. You’ll see from the pictures that the big ones for me all seemed to be overwintered cocks. The biggest summer run fish we had was around 13lbs but it played like a 20lb fishing, running to the backing twice leaping several times. It turned out to be super fresh and the first fish I’d seen on the Ponoi with sea lice. One memory that stands out for me was guiding in the Falls Creek rapid when my guest hooked a big fresh fish that ran straight at the boat jumping clean out the water three or four times – unbelievable. I was screaming “WIND” at my guest Ben and he was turning the reel quicker than you could believe! The fish then turned around and started running the other way and just as it did – the hook fell out. I have little doubt that would have been the fish of a lifetime for Ben and the best fish I’d have had in the boat this season. To make up for it, three casts later he did manage the nice 15lb croc pictured below.
I’m back home for the three-week break in the season now, and already looking forward to fall. Big fresh fish, no mosquitoes, and a time when apparently the river is at its prettiest. Looking back on the spring session its funny how I seem to have forgotten the 16 hour airport waits, the annoying guests, the snow, the dirty water and tough days where the fish just aren’t taking.
The memory that sits at the front of my mind is from my last day in camp. With the guests for that week gone and nobody coming to fish for three weeks the guides were allowed to fish the famous home pool (pictured above). Having got three quarters of the way down, with only two or three pulls to show for my efforts, I genuinely thought I was going to skunk. I had seen a fish moving in front of a rock, and with little faith remaining, cast above him and slowly stripped across his lie – Bang, fish on.
What happened next I couldn’t believe. He made three runs into my backing, running hard downstream and then across the river jumping as he did so. He then headed straight back across to the moorage, which was when I had to stop chasing him down the bank. My line was now under the moorage and boats and be was the other side of the boats. I just prayed he didn’t have another run in him as I tightened the drag and lowered the rod, trying to keep the line low as slowly wound him in. Thankfully he was knackered and once free of the boats I was able to beach him. A dark fish around 14lbs (pictured above) – Not the biggest but by far the hardest fighting fish I have ever had hold of. I released him, cut the hook off and wound in my line. A perfect way to end an amazing six weeks on the best salmon river in the world.
