Salmon of the midnight sun

Born to fish but never catch anything worth boasting about in the pub? Then pack up your fly rods and head for Russia’s remote Kola Peninsula. Tom Bruce-Gardyne rediscovers the thrill of the catch in the salmon-rich waters of the Varzuga

Once a week in early summer, a bizarre addition to the usual suspects pops up on the departure screens at Stansted Airport: the Russian port of Murmansk. All but flattened during World War II, the drab concrete metropolis is the largest city in the Arctic. It is unlikely to become the next Ryanair or Easyjet destination, too far for cheap vodka for even the most desperate stag party. No, the city’s appeal is strictly niche and limited to a curious band of like-minded souls of which I am one. It is the gateway to the Kola Peninsula and the greatest salmon-fishing on earth.

Any fly-fisherman or woman will know the futility of trying to explain the joys of flinging a small, feathered hook across a river for hours on end. Not only do you have to pay dearly for the privilege, you have to stand up to your armpits in a pair of waders with your legs gripped tight by the icy current. The joy is all in the anticipation of that heart-stopping moment when the salmon takes. To a fisherman, one of the most beautiful sounds in the world is that of a reel as it starts to sing. And when it happens for the first time, there is every chance you will become as hooked as the fish itself.

To experience this buzz time and again you can’t do better than the Varzuga River, which flows into the White Sea on the south of the Kola Peninsula. It is probably the most bountiful salmon river in the world. Even the Victorian Scots who hauled vast numbers of fish from the Tay and the Tweed would be impressed—though they would never have indulged in the touchy-feely custom of “catch and release” as practised on the Varzuga.

Forty of us boarded the chartered 737 for the four-hour flight. We were a disparate group, mainly men, from all corners of Britain and Ireland, with a token American thrown in. There were Kola virgins and regulars, groups of friends, and singletons, all destined for one of the Varzuga’s four camps. The charter company dished out something hot to eat and offered us the latest duty-free perfumes. No one was tempted.

My only previous visit to Kola was in the early 1990s just as the region was emerging from the permafrost of communism. Throughout the Cold War the peninsula bristled with military hardware and troops on exercise, making it strictly off limits to outsiders. But with perestroika, this empty landscape of bogs, lakes and forests began to open up. Rumours that the region was teeming with salmon reached a friend of mine at the British Embassy in Moscow, who invited me to join him on a pioneering trip. We camped among the mosquitoes and explored the river in a helicopter that bore the scars of the Afghan War and rattled as though every bolt was loose. Still, it was a fascinating glimpse of the Russian “Wild West”, and the fishing was superb.
This time we were fogbound on arrival. The local casino chief gleefully tried to ply us with vodka at the airport bar, but his trapped audience of wealthy westerners evaporated with the fog. We took off for the Varzuga, an hour south, in helicopters that felt infinitely safer and more robust than my last Kola experience. With the luggage piled in the middle, we sat 10 abreast, dressed in drab colours and ear-defenders. Even if you had substituted machine guns for our prissy collection of fly rods we would still have looked more Dad’s Army than Apocalypse Now.

Most of the group simply dozed to the deafening swok-swok of the blades—a rhythm I later got used to when fishing the “helipool” at the base camp known as Lower Varzuga. The deep vibrations did not put the fish down: if anything quite the reverse. There was one stretch between two rocks within casting distance of the helipad which invariably yielded a take, and it was here on the morning of day one that I hooked my first fish on the Varzuga. It was my first salmon for 10 years and I was overjoyed. Not that I had fished much in the meantime; but after a decade of catching nothing but overhanging bushes, sunken trees and the odd rock, it was thrilling to feel something alive on the end of the line.

We caught mainly grilse, young salmon on their first return from the sea to the river they were born in. While most were under 5kg, the size of the catch was incredible. Was this down to our sheer skill as fishermen? Not entirely. The number of fish running in the river reflected an environment near perfect for salmon—harsh, pure and cut off from man. This isolation is due partly to communism but mainly to nature. The sea and rivers begin to freeze in mid-October before the polar winter plunges the entire peninsula into darkness for two months. Kola salmon stay within the Arctic Circle and do not stray into the North Atlantic like their Scottish cousins. They have evolved slightly broader tails and eat fish rather than krill, which makes them particularly virile.

Our party of 10 fished in pairs with a Russian guide and a jet-powered, flat-bottomed boat that could zip upstream and cross the 100m to the far side with ease. By contrast the subsequent wading felt absurdly clumsy, a struggle to maintain balance and dignity. Whenever I did go in, it was always the same—a slow wobble building to a pirouette on a slippery boulder followed by a drunken lurch backwards into the current. If it happened in the morning it gave me a tremendous appetite for lunch, which we all shared on the riverbank. And if it happened in the afternoon there was the banya to look forward to. Here in an authentic Russian bathhouse you could soak up the intense, steamy heat until your body turned as soft and pink as bubble gum. Then it was back to the main cabin for a feast where the wine flowed like the Varzuga outside.

At midnight the Arctic sun barely kissed the horizon before it was back on the rise and I often felt mildly disorientated stumbling off to bed in daylight. Some fished on or fished early before breakfast, but no one took it too seriously in our group of retired bosses, laid-back stockbrokers and farmers who “dabbled in this and that”. Oldest among us in his bifocals and Russian fur hat was Brian at 82. The youngest by about 40 years was Paul, an Irish accountant who wore his fly-fishing accessories—nail-clippers, torch and pliers—strung round his neck on a homemade rosary.

Even more intriguing was Mikhailovich, or Sviat, a vast, bear-like figure who roamed round the base camp in the same scruffy camouflage kit as every other Russian we came across. Despite appearances, he was apparently worth millions, with a business empire that included logging, salmon-netting and a deep-sea trawler fleet. It was said he’d risen through the ranks of the merchant navy to become an admiral before the party bosses sent him to run the local state farm in the southern Kola Peninsula. With great foresight he secured the rights to the entire Varzuga river system just as the first western fisherman appeared.

He certainly had friends in high places, as I discovered when I was taken by boat to the middle camp for my last few days. It was here last year that Boris Yeltsin popped in with Sviat, swiped a bottle of single malt from one of the guests and then waded into the river with a spinning rod to be propped up by his bodyguards. I fantasised about filing a worldwide scoop via a satellite phone, but sadly the former president never showed.

Middle Varzuga is the flagship camp on the river and sits at one end of a hauntingly beautiful, tear-shaped island. By day we were ferried upstream to a series of pools that were exhilarating to fish and felt like virgin water. Early mornings and after dinner were spent on the two pools either side of the island—the Bear and the Generator—where an unbelievable number of salmon were caught and released. Who caught what, where and with which fly was discussed endlessly over meals, encouraging the more competitive members of the group to thrash on through the night and hook even more. Someone caught 104 in the week—but did he really remember the 57th?

I caught about 20, always with the same sense of excitement. Let cynics dub the Kola “mackerel fishing for millionaires”: I never once came close to muttering “another bloody fish!” as the line jerked tight, the rod tip bent and the water boiled with a flash of silver.

Roxtons (01488 689701; www.roxtons.com) offers all-inclusive, week-long Varzuga fly-fishing breaks between 11 May and 22 June 2007. From £4,500.

Fish fulfilment: Five more great places around the world for fly-fishers

RIO GRANDE
Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
It may be a long way to fly, but nowhere else can you find sea trout of up to 9kg in such numbers.
Season January to mid-April
Price From £4,750 a week, all-inclusive

LOS ROQUES
Venezuela
Stalk bone fish with a fly in the crystal-clear saltwater flats.
Season All year
Price From around £3,000 a week, including flights

RIVER TEST
Stockbridge, Hampshire
Catch trout on the most famous chalk stream in the world.
Season April to August
Price From £150 a day, including guide and lunch

MIDFJARDARA
Iceland
This is a stunning river to fish with a single-handed rod and boasts a huge run of grilse.
Season July to September
Price From £6,000 a week, all-inclusive
For details on all the above, contact: Roxtons www.roxtons.com

THE SPEY
Scotland
The best stretches are very hard to come by, but try later in the season and beats such as Carron near Aberlour.
Season February to September
Price £50—£350 a day, including ghillie
Contact FishSpey www.fishspey.co.uk