my trip to the Yokanga 2010

[deerod]

As my wife is expecting again @ the beginning of August I had to cancel my trip to Russia 2010 , but was allowed to go in June . After weeks of , am i going , am i not going , i finally got the call to tell me a place had arisen on one of the only weeks that i could have travelled to Russia . I got the call on a Thursday morning and i had 1 week to get the visa, flights etc sorted as i was heading the following Friday morning !!!!!

Thankfully the visa arrived on Thursday 10th for my departure on Friday 11th :eek::eek:.

I was on my way , full of expectations , every year they get higher such is the draw to this amazing river that is

The Yokanga

For the 1st time all the group met up in the bar at the airport @ Murmansk . 3 people of our group had been fishing the previous week in the lower Yokanga and the Kola River and the big fish stories already had my heart racing . Matt Harris and His buddy Chris had fished the Lower Yokanga and had both lost huge fish after hour long + battles and witnessed a 40lb+ fish being landed . Sasa Savic had a film crew with him and had just fished the unmanaged Kola river and also had big fish stories !!!!

I proceeded straight to the bar and got a large beer and what the hell i was back on the Fags !!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We touched down on the Tundra of the Kola at 4pm sat 12th june and made our way down from the chopper to the Yokanga lodge


Peter Rippin , director of flyfishyokanga said that The conditions where absolutely perfect , the best that he had seen for this time of year . The snow had all but gone , the river was dropping and the temp was rising:p:p:p:p:p. These are the views that awaited us from the lodge balcony



We all had our Dinner and we all dispersed in different directions up and down the Yokanga in search of our 1st silver tornado. Jim Ferrie the famous Scottish farrier was my fishing partner for the week and he drew 1st blood with this cracking 25lber after 10 casts.



here is a link to the head cam footage of the catch . Forgive me as the clips havn't been edited yet but i will get around to it at some stage when i put a DVD together

vimeo.com/12787834


I drew a blank on the 1st night but the 1st day we drew home pool as our 1st beat and we where in the hot spot for out 1st day . I started off with this cracking 24lber just below the lodge




Unfortunately the fish was deeply hooked , but it served us well at the Lodge in the coming nights.

here is the footage ( that i tried not to curse on) from my first fish on the Yokanga 2010 . I was using my 12'9 Century Stealth when i caught this fish , What a little rod !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vimeo.com/12765347

just as i was getting over the buzz of landing that 1st fish i was into a much bigger one a couple of hours later @ Lilyok . Unfortunately i couldn't upload the video but i will get it sorted for another day . Here are the snaps of my 29lb Osanka again landed on the little Century 12'9





Then it all went quiet for me for a few days even though we had a good start the fish just didn't come in the the numbers we expected with the conditions being so perfect

This is Water fall beat








A little 10lb Osenka from waterfall



Our next beat then was Crows nest .

Jim had 4 fish here on this day and hooked the biggest fish he ever encountered . He hooked it and it went under the boat and stayed there , and then it proceeded up stream taking Jim and the boat with it until the hook came loose . Dirty *****$£""££$er .

I had a run of bad luck as i hooked 7 fish here and lost them all . They where running hard and only snatching at the fly . But it is a cracking bit of water






here is a little clip at my reaction to the 7 fish getting off

vimeo.com/12832795

And a wee clip of the chopper pick up:eek::eek::eek:

vimeo.com/12832795

We then went above boulder alley after dinner that night but all we had was a few kelts






The next day the sun was out in full & we went to the uppermost beat that was being fished this week and to my surprise after 10 or so casts i was bent into this 20lber . I was using a guideline 13ft7 10/11 here as i had an accident with my century 4 piece 12ft 9 , she was now a 5 piece



My Guide Dima with the fish



Back on her way



here is the footage

vimeo.com/12795111

Jim hooked another fish here but it got off at the net

After this it went quiet for me again but there were big fish 20lb + caught every day . The 3 biggest for the week were 33lbs 31lbs both by Sasa and mine @29lb . Sasa had a film crew with him and he will have his dvd on sale soon and all proceeds go to the Atlantic salmon fund( I think ) so i will look forward to seeing it , he also has a lot of films on you tube under salmon976 & some have been brought up on the forum before .

www.salmonfishingforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17319

so my trip was coming too an end I had one night and 1 days fishing left . So i went to Lilyok that night and landed this 16/17lber . I was fishing 2 snaeldas on top of each other at the same time as an experiment and it worked





And here is the footage

vimeo.com/12839366

Then the next morning / last day i was back in Poachers pool , My favorite beat where i had done so much damage on previous years , on my last day as well . It felt like the 40 lber was here waiting for me , but it was not to be . BUT , I know she'll be there next year and i will be back again in search of the 40 .

So all in all it wasn't a bad week we had 2 over 30lbs 16 over 20lbs and 43 over 10lbs 65 in total including Osenkas . But as we speak the river is fishing its pants off averaging 25 odd fresh fish per day :eek::eek: with 6 over 30lbs :eek::eek::eek:and 3 days of reports to go !!!!

I would like to thank all the people below for such a great week , sorry if i left anyone out .

I will include tommorow


Peter Rippin(flyfishyokanga) & Jim Ferrie



Steve & Phil



Pablo & Chris



Velibor the Cameraman , Sasa and Matt



Karl nearest , then Rod and Allistar



Sasa , pete & Peter Fraser



My thanks as well to Roddy Hall from flyfishyokanga



Missing from pics are Hugh & Rodrigo



So I can't wait to get back next year .

And to anyone travelling this year in search of the big one GOOD LUCK !!!!!!!!!!!


Here is a little 10min clip of my trip to the Yokanga last year in July for those of you that hav'nt seen it !!!!!!!!!!


vimeo.com/9167594





Dee

[deerod]

Hi Martin

aye it was some trip but fish not there in the big numbers i am used to in July .

I broke 2 rods , I broke my brand new guideline lecie 13,7 10/11 on the last hour of the last day as well ;D

costly trip !!

[deerod]

All the fish in june are over 10lb as the grilse havn't arrived yet

I had a 29 , 24 , 20 , 17 & 10 lbs so the average was 20lb

I thought i hadnt done that well but you cant argue with those figures i suppose !!!

[greenbanks]

Nice report Dee. Friendly bunch at Murmansk airport. One of our guys was getting his drinking cups confiscated because he didnt declare them on his form. Once they heard they were silver plate and not silbver they let him off with a stern warning.

[madkeen]

Nice report, you should have took an old B+W unbreakable ;D

[deerod]

Jun 30, 2010 22:13:12 GMT @greenbanks said:

Nice report Dee. Friendly bunch at Murmansk airport. One of our guys was getting his drinking cups confiscated because he didnt declare them on his form. Once they heard they were silver plate and not silbver they let him off with a stern warning.

The guys at Murmansk are something else .

When we arrived the baggage belt stopped working , all 20ft of it .
Nightmare . Talk about unqualified electricians poking the life out of a fuse box to try and fix it . We waited for 1 hr until somebody suggested they should handball the bags in !!!