In the beginning there was… no, not the Word. In the beginning there were two years of solo trips to the rivers of the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula . The well-known public rivers — Pechenga, Titovka, Ura, and Kola — were whipped by my fly line from top to bottom without a single take. Surprisingly, this didn’t discourage me. A sudden love for the Arctic had already taken hold of me, and with a wide smile on my face I kept swinging the line, simply enjoying the wild beauty around me....

Only three months remain until the spring salmon season opens on the Kola Peninsula — one of the world’s most legendary destinations for Atlantic salmon fishing. Now is the time to check your tackle, sort through your fly boxes, and seriously think about strategy. Here in Chavanga river lodge, every season, we spent one or two weeks battling high water levels. We love a bit of a challage that can be highly rewarded for us and many of our guests. On rivers of White Sea there is a big run of...

There are many opinions—and even formal guidelines—about what a fishing guide should and should not do: how they should behave, how they should look, what they should say, and even what they should drink. At Chavanga Lodge, a fly fishing lodge on a remote salmon river in the White Sea region, we have also developed our own internal rules. As I see it, they differ noticeably from those adopted by large, well-known salmon fishing camps. Historically, our approach to guided salmon fishing...