Wednesday 20 July 2016

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