Chavanga river fishing report 15.06 - 21.06

This middle of June 2018 was already a summer over her on Kola Peninsula, few really hot days turned out only by the end of the third week. The water warmed up to 18 degrees, but quickly returned to a comfortable 16 degrees. The water level during those week was dropping constantly, but at the very close pace, so all of the days were comfortable for fishing. Grills weighing 2.5 - 3 kg have appeared in the river, as a rule, these are very lively males that just arrived from the sea. Although their weight is small, they brought a lot of pleasure.

The main object of our fishing in the middle of June was fresh spring fish, usually called as late Springer. Usually this herd of salmon closes down the period of spring salmon running into the rivers from the White Sea basin. A characteristic feature of these fish is a large size and a good physical condition. Usually hey are females and males. We have caught and measured some of them - 81, 82 and 83 cm. The approximate weight of salmon of this size is 6.5 - 7 kg.

At this time, it was already possible to use floating lines and leaders. This is the most comfortable time for fishing salmon in the spring-summer period.

Most of the known salmon pools, except for canyons and places with waterfalls, have already become comfortable for fishing. Salmon moved to areas with a noticeable current, and particularly large individuals occupied the best places in the pools. With some experience of fishing and the ability to read the water, these places are fairly easy to identify. Although it happens that we find big fish in unusual places, which we usually do not attribute to the best on the river.

What concerns flies in these first summer weeks I can say only one thing: we tried different flies, on different tubes or hooks, of different size and color. The conclusion is one - if the flies are presented correctly - the fish is taking. In support of my words I can give an example. One of our anglers basically uses only old traditional flies on the barbless Partridge hooks. Here in the photo you can look into his box. Such an original for our time approach to the selection of flies confused us at the beginning. But the salmon reacted to these flies regularly in each pool, this made us not only re-believe in the capability of the old classical options, but also re-examine our approach to fishing salmon as a whole.