Game Fish Diaries - Chic McSherry

Despite all of the headlines, it’s not unknown for people to go back home with less than 10 fish for their week if they can’t hack the pace or are not up to snuff in the skills department. Both Paul and I blanked at least one session. So much for the theory that the Varzuga is nothing more than a series of “Duffer’s Corners” where you can haul ‘em out with one hand whilst having a glass of Pimms in the other. The water is also monochrome and very unlike most Scottish rivers. You need to learn to read it, pool by pool, section by section, and think about where the fish will be. The bigger fish and bigger pods are inevitably nearer the middle of the river or around defined underwater structures, so you look for boils and riffles, popply water and ripply water, edges of rips and stones. It all gets very technical. One day later in the week, for example, the fishing got slow because a hard sun had come out into a cloudless sky and temperatures had climbed into the 20’s centigrade. Most of us got the odd fish on floaters but Nick and Bill, fishing independently, figured out that the heat and brightness was driving the salmon down deep to cooler water, so they put on fast sink leaders and slammed them all afternoon. Obvious to everyone. In retrospect.

When, or more accurately if, you hit a fresh pod of salmon moving up from the sea the action can be fast and furious. Jim, a very softly spoken but totally switched on guy from Oregon, hit payday with 20 paint-fresh fish from the same place in one session. But just because they were there didn’t mean that it was easy - he still had to catch each and every one. For my sins, I found some similar pods that were in a taking mood and managed to miss or lose more than I caught: out of 31 takes one day I only got 12 to the net.

And that is the great thing about this river. You get so many opportunities at fish that you start to detect patterns in what you are doing: both the right things and the wrong things. In short, you learn. You get a chance to experiment with new techniques: ways of hooking fish; ways of presenting the fly; ways of playing fish. You do things that the average Scottish ghillie would simply shake his head at and leave you to the river, muttering about your retarded and disputed parentage as he went. Even with air and water temperatures so low we were catching fish on floating lines, sometimes with sink tips but just as often not. Flies were cast square across and with the fast flows they literally hurtled through the water over the salmon’s heads. Takes were usually savage and if you fed them line from an over-loose drag or a loop you invariably missed them altogether or lost them after a few seconds because of a light hook-hold: something that cost me most of my fish and something I learned too late. When hooked they are highly acrobatic, almost like sea-trout, and will tear yards of line off your screaming reel. I have never before had so much backing out with any salmon I have caught. I became an addict of using a riffle hitch which proved to be a great way of preserving the fish population of the Varzuga as it conspired to make fly fishing for salmon, an already inefficient method of catching them, even more inefficient.

What was that you said? How did I do? Well, just to set the record straight you understand, I caught no more and no less than I was supposed to catch. Also, you have to define the word “caught”. You see on a catch and release fishery, I would say that “caught” means getting them to where you can touch the leader (as in big game fishing) or to where any reasonably competent ghillie could net it. Unfortunately the Russians fail that last test and have a vague slashing technique with a net that has to be seen to be admired. We devised a Mishalunge Star system for grading performance whilst we were there. So my definition of “caught” was my definition of caught. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that Paul stoically refused to count fish unless they were in the net. That meant that it was rather meaningless to compare our catches and so, out of fairness (and not a little shame for my cavalier attitude to the craft) I adopted his rules and only counted fish that went in the net or that I had laid hands on to release on the shore.

But I can see that it’s the numbers that you really want to hear about: OK, out of the127 opportunities I had in my week to catch a salmon; 17 of them failed to actually eat the fly by missing it as it sped past them; 17 of them ate the fly but I didn’t manage to hook them because of a skill deficit on my part; 28 of them came off during the fight, again due to avoidable skill shortages; 1 of them was hooked in the tail when it launched itself out of the water after a riffled fly; and 64 gleaming, glorious bars of silver were netted, released and I therefore counted as caught. I could be pedantic and add 5 grayling, 2 kelts and a perch...but that would be nit-picking. For me, it was nothing short of a stunning performance. And, if I work it out in monetary terms, each fish cost me a tiny fraction of what I used to pay per fish on the Spey. I reckon Tulchan did me a big favour by giving my rod to someone else you know.

However, to get back to the numbers game, out of the twelve anglers who fished the beat I was firmly in the lower half of the performance stakes. Below me, there were two very gentlemanly English anglers who were out there with nothing to prove and enjoying every second of it. Then there was a Belgian gentleman who was new to all of this. Then there was another English chap who had casting problems for some of the week which held him back. And then there was me. Paul actually caught the same number of fish as I did but in my humble opinion he was the better of us because out of the opportunities he had, he lost or missed very few making him demonstrably better able to “Do The Right Thing” when the chips were down. The top day’s catch was made by Jim with 30. I will repeat that for the non-believers – thirty salmon in one day. You can close your mouth now, you’re dribbling. The biggest fish was 17lb caught by Nick followed by Jim and Paul with fish at 16lb each.

The top angler was an intense Dutchman called Hugo. He was a large and very powerful man who waded the river up to his nostrils and caught  a mind numbing 137 fish on a single handed rod for his week. I named him, in what I thought was a waggish and witty way, RoboCaster. He didn’t punch me for doing so, but I wasn’t entirely sure that it hadn’t crossed his mind.

Overall, the camp caught 823 salmon for the week: that’s more than all of the beats on Tulchan get in a year. As fishing porn goes that's hardcore.

But it saddened me a bit that did. Not so very long ago, Scottish rivers must have been like that. That was back in the days when we anglers bashed every fish on the head and then spent the next 30 years looking for someone else to blame for the lack of salmon in our rivers. What could my country do now with a resource like that: a country that even yet won’t legally enforce a catch and release policy but makes it a “gentleman’s code” where the ghillie, who inevitably and understandably looks to his tip, has discretion and therefore power of life and death over each salmon. Don’t deny it: man up and take your share of responsibility for the fact that 84 rod days on the Varzuga can catch more fish than 4608 rod days on one of the top beats on the Spey can. Shame on us.

Oh yes, those helicopters are dangerous right enough. Whilst running for one on the return journey I managed to fall over and badly twist my ankle which subsequently swelled up like a grapefruit. The Russian guide, Vova, who ran to pick me up patted me on the shoulder and, completely deadpan, said simply “Perestroika”.

Love it.

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VAR- -ZUGA, RE- -VISITED, 2010

The guests start to pick up their bags outside the terminal building in a biting Arctic wind and are chattering away in excitement about the prospects for the coming week. A Russian steps forward and says “Niet Niet, leave leave please”

“What’s the problem?” asks Charlie White of Roxtons, wielding his clipboard before him empathically.

“Ve haff e van, nie problem, leave bags leave please” instructs the Russian.

“Brilliant idea” says Charlie. “Ok chaps, just leave everything there, they’ve got a van and it can all go in that.”

Two minutes later a burly Russian walks through the assembled throng and starts slinging bags and rod cases over his shoulder.
 
“It’s ok you can leave it there” says Charlie “we have a van”

The Russian colossus looks at him and says “Da, ya Ivan” and continues to hang bags and rods from his large frame.

Ladees and Genelmen, welcome to Russia; same world, different planet.

We all of us knew that last year was a special year. The run was simply huge and there were fish everywhere. Expectations for this year were therefore high but tempered with the insider knowledge of seasoned fishermen that no two years can be alike and that we were bound to catch at least a bit less than peak years such as last. That had been reinforced by the daily Roxtons’ blog which showed pretty clearly that numbers were down and, not only that, were falling further day by day. However the Roxtons’ guys balanced the tricky correlation of enthusiastic encouragement to outright bullshit absolutely perfectly so we always felt that there was at least a chance of an improvement in the run without the nasty aftertaste of thinking we’d being hustled just to shut us up.

The fishing crew were, more or less, the same as last year which helped as we all knew each other’s form and foibles. We came from all over the world: two Scots; two Englishmen; three Belgians; one Australian; one Spaniard; one South African and two from the People’s Free State of Yorkshire. Everyone had been paired up beforehand so knew who they were rooming and fishing with. There was Bomber Hurdle and The Chairman; Philip and Moody; El Jefe and James; Robocaster and Rob; Egide and Stephane; me and Bill. The Chairman suggested a No Shave rule for the week which started unanimously but gradually dropped off as more and more of us began to look like knackered Yetis.

As usual I assumed the role of Camp Clown, ably assisted by Moody of course, and, once some alcohol had been added, between us we proved to have two settings for the entire week: Loud or DEAFENING. After dinner in the main lodge things generally got pretty rowdy with passion, profanity, gossip, anecdote, depth, intelligence, nous, wisdom, humour, hubris and self-aggrandisement in the air, very often all in the same sentence and in several languages simultaneously. However, since many of those sentences took several days to complete there was scope for just about everything to find its proper place. Themes and theories were developed and expounded and new languages and cultures explored in some detail. When you get such a group of Alpha Males together in one place there is always the risk of some confrontation and misunderstandings after a few glasses of who-you-looking-at-pal and many a hut can be split into factions in jig time simply by mis-matched temperament or sensibilities.

This, I have to say, is a very happy and well-balanced team. Indeed, in such company, as the week proceeds and you begin to get to know each other on all of the important levels of essential social niceties, you finally arrive at a point which echoes the wisdom of John Gierach: ultimately there are only two types of fishermen - there are those who are in your fishing party, and there are the assholes.

Each day started more or less the same with a number of us piling into The Generator or Bear pools at 6am for a pre-breakfast cast and then over to the lodge for breakfast at 8am. After bacon and eggs (a wee Glasgow Salad, but minus the sausages sadly which understated the essentially classic nature of the dish for me) it was load up the boat and off to the main pool for the morning.  Lunch was usually on the shore of Snake Pit and was a very genial, though often noisy affair before your afternoon pool was attacked. From 6pm, Bear and Generator opened again and almost everyone went into these until 7pm when it was cocktails and canapés on the veranda before a shower or a banya, then dinner at 8pm. A few hardy souls managed a post dinner cast from time to time but the week being tough enough, the majority decided to avoid more disappointment after the 10 hour shift they had already put in and partied on ‘til they had had their fill before bed.

As I’ve said before, the Russian “guides” employed by Roxtons are not fishermen, they are boatmen. I still whole-heartedly endorse this approach as it absolutely gives value to the camp and to the preservation of the salmon to the local population. However, on a tough week like we were about to experience the only flaw in this approach becomes immediately apparent.

The Varzuga is huge and when the run is thin there is an awful lot of water for the fish to be spread out in. In order to maximise your chances you need to have someone with you, or at least available to you, who will tell you the best holding spots in any given pool so that you don’t waste all morning flogging dead water and can stay on the move constantly in order to find the fish. Having been once before, I knew roughly the layout of the main pools but I have to say that without Bill I would only have caught about half of what I did catch. Bill is a seasoned veteran of the river so he knew all the little pots and holding areas and he very generously shared his wisdom to ensure that I had as many chances as he did. When we started of a morning he’d say “Raaaht Chic, you go in there and fish to there and I’ll go oop there and fish to there and if we don’t catch anything after an hour I know another little bit down there that we’ll go to.” In that way, we were able to cover much more water and pick up fish here and there from the little pods as they came through.

This was in contrast to some of the advice I was given during the week which frankly amounted to start at the top and work all the way down and you can get a fish almost anywhere. That can only work in a good week when there are lots of fish: the key ingredient for successful salmon fishing is lots of salmon and if you’re flogging water where there ain’t no fish then you ain’t gonna catch anything. It could be seen in the way our catches went too. One day Bill and I fished Beach and caught nothing, not even a touch did we get, whilst Philip and Moody took 8 from Fortress below the Aztec rock, only 100 yards across the river from us. Yet on another day on Beach I took 6 whilst Bill only took 2 because I hit the pod that, on this occasion, was holding there before he did.

Weeks like that test the guiding skills to the limit and, in my view, Roxtons came up a little short in this crucial area on this week. There just wasn’t sufficient in-depth knowledge on the river that could help people in my position who can fish but maybe don’t have fabulous watercraft. However, discussions were held in the lodge and suggestions made to people who may or may not have a certain degree of influence and it is more than a little possible that some easy to implement practical changes could be made to help things along in future whilst still preserving that all so important local contact.

Of course, if it’s a bonanza again next year then maybe this will all be completely unnecessary. And, it has to be made clear, that of the two top rods for the week, one had never fished the river before and the other had fished it last year for the first time. Some people are just great fishermen and you can’t hold a natural back, no matter the conditions.

That small resolvable matter aside, however, I really would like to state that Roxtons are a joy to travel and fish with.

Our guide for the week was Sasha and he was just a young laddie in his early twenties. I had bitten the bullet and tried to learn Russian before this trip so that I could have at least basic conversations with the guide. I like doing this and my Spanish is now at conversational level which gives me a totally different dynamic when I fish for marlin in Mexico for example. So I’d nicked the CD self-learning course from Paul Young (my last year’s fishing buddy – known affectionately as Faither) and worked away at it to the point where I was stupidly over-confident. As the young waitress in Murmansk approached me I puffed my chest out and asked her for 6 beers, told her that I had been learning Russian and could I try some on her. Her wee eyes almost popped and her eyebrows shot up. My smile cracked as I realised I had said the wrong thing, didn’t as yet know what it was, but could possibly have precipitated an AK47 moment for myself. Luckily she just said “Niet niet” and bustled off to get the beers. Anyhoo, I did manage to introduce myself on the first morning to Sasha in the formal Russian way of Family name followed by Christian name, explain that I didn’t have a Patronymic because I was Scottish, give him my nickname and told him he could use it, ask him where we would be fishing today and if he was ready to go could we leave please.

And that was that. It took several days before he opened up even just a little and said a few words back to me which gave me a modicum of encouragement that my gibberish was intelligible to some degree. All of the Russian guys seemed a bit reticent to talk to be honest. I wondered if they are just a bit shy but Bill reckoned that they have just had years of being told not to interrupt or give advice to people in positions of authority and so were men of few words, mainly for their own safety. They certainly were a stark contrast to Mexicans who rattle on at you for hours like firecrackers at a fiesta as soon as you can say “Como estas amigo” to them, and I began to wonder if all my efforts to learn Russian had been wasted.

I finally managed to have a bit of a conversation with Vova and one of the other guides (I forget his name) one evening after a few sherbets and we did string a fair bit of conversation together with the help of my dictionary. Vova also helped clarify my error in Murmansk: I wanted to use the verb To Try, as in try out my Russian on her, and instead had inadvertently used the verb To Taste, and quite possibly I had asked if I could taste her. Ahem…

Sasha was a good boatman but a lousy netsman and the results were frankly hysterical. His most classic moment came with Bill when he stood immobile in front of him with the net in the water whilst Bill played the fish to within 3 inches of it. Still he didn’t move the net so Bill eased the fish into it. Sasha was a rock. The fish, seeing the net, shot back out and then went round Sasha’s back, the line almost flipping his cap off his head, and then it tried to come back through his legs. Not a centimetre did our boy move. Bill managed, lord knows how, to unweave the fish and lead it toward the bank. Sasha, now galvanised by the prospect of his moment to shine being taken away from him, lunged after it and managed to catch it half-way along the lip of the net and launch the hapless salmon into the air. Bill kept the line tight and as the fish splashed back down he expertly slid it up the bank where the bold Sasha scooped it up in the net from between the rocks on the shore. A Kodak moment if ever I’ve seen one. After that we decided that any fish getting within 2 feet of the Boy Wonder was a keeper.

But you can’t blame the lad – he’s not a fisherman and every single person who he guided for had a different idea of how they wanted the fish netted so it’s little wonder that by almost the end of the season he didn’t know if it was New York or New Year.

This is a beautiful place and a true wilderness. At this time of year the birds and animals are always hard at it finding mates and breeding because they know that they only have a limited amount of time before they either have to leave the country or hibernate through the brutal Arctic winter. There are bears around and the camp dog Moocha (it would be Myxa in Russian I guess) spent a lot of time charging across the bottom of Bear pool to drive them away. There was even a beaver spotted one night but it didn’t make another appearance.

The silence when the boat engines stopped was almost tangible, like a soundless wall. When you were fishing above another party you could often hear them call out to one another if the wind was just right, even though they could be a mile or more below you. Robocaster and Rob were generally silent as were Egide and Stephane, probably concentrating as they comprehensively outfished everyone else. The Chairman and Bomber Hurdle it has to be said for the record did spend some time, particularly after a good lunch, having a coffee or a nap on the bank and so were genially silent apart from the occasional rumbled anecdote followed by a hoot of laughter. Philip and Moody would inevitably be shouting technicalities about casting, wind direction, fly size and other such things at each other. The “Psst” of a beer bottle opening, the delicate chink of a glass and the loud bellow of “TORO! Torerro!” when a fish was hooked or a good Spey cast made was ever to be heard from El Jefe and James. Me and Bill didn’t speak, mainly because he was always fishing at least 4 miles away from me. I need to look closer at my personal hygiene methinks…

And so to the numbers. As ever we got as many as we were supposed to get commensurate with our skill level and no more nor less, which is the great thing about salmon fishing. I mean, you can say to yourself “If only I had done this or that…” but the fact is that you didn’t so you can’t go back and change it. And, with salmon, how would you know anyway? Example: you fish a pool with a size 6 Green Highlander and don’t touch a fish so you change to a size 8 Flamethrower, go back through it and take 2 fish. You’d be completely forgiven for now thinking that you were the Big Dog and you’ve cracked it. Whereas, what could just as easily have happened was that whilst you were changing your fly, a wee pod of fish had slipped in unannounced and on your second run through the pool you caught some. Or, one of the mysterious things that happen inside a salmon’s head to make it eat a fly when they don’t feed in fresh water happened on your second pass and you got your fish. Or, maybe on THAT one given time at THAT water temperature and THAT lighting for THOSE two fish, the fly size was what switched them on…who knows?

That is why I love salmon fishing so much – the sheer lottery of the sport balances any skill that I think I may have. There are guys who raise more and lose less but then that’s the same in all walks of life. If you can do the right things: deep wading to get you out near the main lies; cast a long line for perfect presentation; stay within the generally accepted boundaries of fly size, fishing speed and depth for the prevailing conditions; fish over pools and areas that are holding a pod of fresh fish…then whether they actually buy the gag is in the gift of the fish, and isn’t that just as it should be? Apart from on my first night, I fished with one fly all week (a Flamethrower but I had to be told that was what it was called as I thought it was a Cascade…) and, apart from changing to a tube version of it when I riffle hitched it; I wasn’t too far behind in terms of numbers from the inveterate diehard flychangers who were all, to a man, deep waders whilst I am not.

The overall camp catch was well down on last year. In total we had 308 fish – a stupendous figure by any river’s standards, but that’s still only just over a third of 2009’s numbers. Robocaster retained his title of Top Rod with 52 followed closely by a very impressive 49 from Stephane on his first visit. Moody and Bill were in the 30’s and Philip had 28. Rob got biggest fish at about 15lbs. Me? I rose 44 salmon in my week. 3 of those didn’t actually take the fly despite my best efforts. 4 more of them I missed as they took the fly but didn’t come tight. 17 of them I lost, more of that later, and 22 of them I got to Sasha’s net for an often hilarious conclusion. The first three days I used a 5ft slow sink tip as it was still a little chilly, but as it warmed up by Wednesday I fished only the riffle hitch which has to be THE most exciting way to not catch salmon. My catch records show that I immediately rose fewer and hooked and landed less from the Wednesday onwards so I guess that you could argue against my earlier theory by saying that I could have caught more by fishing normally….but so we go round again…I fished the way I wanted to and it is what it is and it can’t be changed nor proven otherwise now.

I clearly have some work to do though on those lost fish. I must be doing something right to raise 44 and have 41 grab the fly so that bit is good enough for me. On the first proper morning I lost 4 in a row because I was fishing Scottish style with a loop. I had forgotten that hadn’t worked terribly well last year and also my Faither’s advice to clamp the Varzuga salmon. As soon as I did that I started getting them to stick and whilst I fished with the sink tip this was very effective. Only once did it let me down and that was in the very fast water in Clark’s where I was casting to my limit of about 45 yards and the fly was fairly whipping through. The takes were instant and on a square line so I think those fish just weren’t getting to turn with the fly and it was being yanked out of their mouths too quickly.

Then we come to the riffle hitch. All of the fish that I lost on this, and it was far and away the majority of those that I lost, were lost in exactly the same way: the fish would chase the fly, snapping and boiling at it; it would then take it, the line would come tight and I’d feel the weight of the salmon; I’d lift the rod into it and it would take a run and perhaps a jump and that was it. To be honest, that is the most exciting bit and with the riffle that is why you do it, so I could easily argue that I got my money’s worth out of those fish, but it surely can’t be called catching them (unless you are in Florida after tarpon where it is standard practise!).

I discussed it at length with Bill and Philip who lost far less fish than I did. Bill thought that it was a combination of three things: first my fish often took well out in the middle of the current when there was a lot of line pressure on them from the fast flow; second the dressings I used were long and so the fish may not be taking the fly deeply enough and only getting a small part of the hook inside their mouth; thirdly the hook size and style I was using on the tubes was small and didn’t allow a great deal of purchase. Philip had similar advice and focussed on the hook size and style most, adding that perhaps changing from the Paul Young Clamp to a medium tight drag so that the fish could turn with the fly might cure it. All sterling and sage advice.

I did ask Moody the same thing but all he said was “Face it McSherry you’re just useless.”