As I mentioned earlier, the Ponoi is lake fed but it does have some notable tributaries and large creeks. While the Tomba creek, Cluff creek and Ryabaga stream are vital spawning grounds, the main tributary (The River Purnache) is a fantastic river in its own right. Best described as somewhere between the river Findhorn and a classic Scottish west coast spate river, it has about 25km of fishable water with a camp at the top, which guests on the Ponoi can book for a float trip or even a week’s fishing. The river itself is a perfect mixture of streamy fly water, fast rapids and the occasional deep holding pool with some gorge-like sections of water. It is the perfect contrast to the overwhelmingly large river Ponoi and thankfully for me it was stuffed full of fish this spring.
My first trip there was with head guide Max Mamaev on a day off that we shared. Thankfully Max knows the river well and had a spot in mind when we headed across what appeared to be the featureless tundra. With few hills, trees or obvious features the tundra is a bizarre place, but one that obviously supports a huge host of wildlife. On my three trips I was lucky to see ptarmigan each time, others saw Capercaillie and reindeer, but thankfully no bears! We traipsed across the heather and scrub for at least an hour before dropping off the Tundra through a birch and pine forest to a cliff edge that provided us with our first view of the River Purnache.
As it was still early in the season the “small” tributary was running high and fast and I was beginning to think my 12ft double hander might not do the job. We certainly couldn’t cross the river, which restricted the water we could fish, especially as some spots had high cliffs that we couldn’t wade around.
We walked upstream to Max’s favorite pool – Square Rock. I had first dibs and on my first cast I turned a fish on a skater. I repeated the cast and the same fish nailed the fly and hooked itself – a 5lb grilse. After early success, the dry flies stopped working and we resorted to heavier tube flies. Most pools or pockets of slower water had fish in them and as we walked back downstream we picked up fish all morning. We ended at Red Rock, another known pool where we each managed a fish each before the long walk home. 15 fish between us, mainly grilse but a handful of bigger guys too – fantastic.
In the third week of the season we had rain and high winds, which markedly coloured the main river. I was lucky enough to be guiding on the Purnache beat that week. The river comes into the Ponoi at the top of the beat, and as it was running clear I had a channel of freshwater to catch fish in. I could also take the boat up to the first pool of the purnache itself, which in higher water was incredible. One day my guests had five fish from a 30m stretch of water. I made two subsequent trips over to the Purnache on days off. The first was with another guide – “Mini” Max. We opted for an early start and tried to get as far upstream as we could. Starting at Square Rock we leap frogged each other heading upstream, fishing all the likely spots. The river had dropped considerably and the majority of fish were either in the neck of the pools or the faster glassy tail water running into the neck.
The further upstream we went the better the fishing got. The pools became more defined and the fish were everywhere. After landing a few on small tubes I changed to a hitched bomber and started focusing on the faster glassy glides. I stayed in one spot for about 30 minutes and must have raised a fish 15 times to my skated dry fly, sometimes it would just follow and I would see the wake behind the fly, other times it would swing its tail at it or leap over it and other times it would take and then spit the hook. Despite the excitement and my determination to get it on the bomber, I changed to a hitched sunray and caught the fish first cast! I went back to a slightly smaller bomber and managed to catch a couple more fish in some more perfect dry fly water before the sun, mosquitoes and aching arms told us to go home before we ruined what had been an incredible days fishing.
I know I could have caught more fish that day on a wet fly, and had I not tried so hard to target individual fish I probably would have caught twice as many, but it really stopped being a numbers game for me, and became a bit of a lesson in fish behaviour. Where in Scotland could you experiment like that and still catch 14 fish to two rods in six hours? We did get some bright fish too, but again the majority of the fish were grilse that had been in a while.
My final trip there was a week later on a hot mosquito-ridden day off. The water had dropped again, but I knew there would be fish in the more defined pools that Mini Max and I had discovered the week before. With a strong run of fresh summer fish on the Ponoi I hoped to bump into some bright fish but unfortunately I only managed dark fish. The water temperature had been about 15’C for a week now and the older fish were really starting to turn.
I started in a shallow pool which had a steep cliff on one side providing plenty of shade and was quickly into a grilse. A couple of casts later I had another fish on but it wasn’t behaving like any Salmon I’d caught before… and turned out to be a humpy! They once tried to farm pink salmon here and every year a handful get caught throughout the system. The next pool I stopped at was a perfect height and I was sure there would be fish holding there…alas nothing. The sun was far from ideal for the pool though, so I stopped for a bite to eat and waited for a large cloud coming my way – the second it came over, the pool came to life and I had two fish!
I continued upstream missing out loads of nice water that I planned to save for the walk back downstream. I got to the top pool I had in mind at midday and was soon into a bigger fish. Again a dark fish but a great scrap nonetheless. Just as he was ready to beach I put an extra bit of pressure on my single hander to get his head up when – crunch, my rod tip snapped! Typical. I got the fish in okay, a nice 10lb cock fish, and then started the long slow walk home passed all the perfect water I had saved that I couldn’t fish!
The Purnache has to be one of the best rivers I have ever been on. It has so much character and is an absolute delight to fish with a light double handed or singlehanded rod. The fall run fish don’t tend to run the tributaries until after the winter so the prime fishing on the Purnache is now over. With the fish in the system starting to get their spawning gear on I don’t imagine I’ll be making the return trek over the Tundra to the Ponoi’s hidden gem… this year at least. It’s no surprise the Purnache holds fish… but I did get a shock when I came across this guy trout fishing in Tomba creek – a tiny stream hitting the Ponoi downstream of camp… Unreal!!