"BACK TO THE FUTURE", published by Trout & Salmon
May, 2005
I came to salmon-fishing late : after having spent long years trying to outwit trout through the logical, honest process of attempting to simulate their “plat du jour”, the mysterious business of fishing for their big cousins seemed like an impenetrable alchemy – a bewildering chocolate-box of garish, “mother-in-law” flies pitched aimlessly into the river with a big daft flourish, using a big, daft rod. A step downstream, and then do it again.
How stimulating.
Oh, and don’t expect to catch anything (unless you’re a woman, of course). Add the absurd price tag, the miserable ghillie, and all those crashing bores in the pub telling you with well-rehearsed sincerity that a fish is “just a bonus”, and I thought I might just stick with my smaller, speckled companions, the trout.
Then, in 1999, I was invited to Russia’s Kola peninsula – the wide, tumbling waters of the magnificent Varzuga River, where you DO expect to catch salmon – lots of them: handsome silver acrobats that make most trout look just a little pedestrian and, well, let’s face it, small. I had a few spey-casting lessons with the excellent Robin Elwes and then rushed off to Farlow’s to excitedly fill my box and empty my pockets. I was seduced by all kinds of foolish-looking concoctions, to the undisguised amusement of Brian Fratel and his staff. As a trout fisherman, I have always been used to constantly chopping & changing – from nymphs to emergers, from olives to sedges and so on, and I expected salmon fishing to be much the same. Yet no sooner had I reached the hallowed banks of the wide Varzuga river, proudly brandishing my vast assortment of new flies, than I was told that all I needed was an Ally’s shrimp. I tied one on & was duly rewarded three casts later with my first fly-caught salmon – a lovely flashing ingot of around ten pounds that absolutely put the hook in me.
Apart from a brief unconsummated fling with a silver-bodied Willy-Gunn, I stuck with the Ally’s for the rest of that trip & it became what the Americans like to call my “Go to” pattern. I began to subscribe to the theory that the fly was relatively unimportant – it was the presentation that mattered. All that changed four years & two trips later, one long bright evening in the extensive, streamy glide of “Generator”, the Middle Varzuga camp’s prolific home pool. I’d spent most of the day taking pictures for Roxton Bailey Robinson, who run the Varzuga fishery, and after a long, leisurely supper, I wandered down to the river. As a regular stillwater trout angler, I’d often wondered about fishing with two flies for salmon and there’s no better place to experiment than the Varzuga. One of Mikael Frodin’s patterns, the “Thunder Spey’ caught my eye, and I tied it on a dropper, around eight feet up from the ubiquitous Ally’s shrimp.
The fishing was astonishing – I had a fish on the first cast, and by the time I was a third of the way down the pool I’d had ten – all but one walloping the Thunder Spey as it riffled through the surface. All down to the presentation, I assumed – the fish wanted the fly high up in the water, and the Ally’s shrimp was clearly sitting just a little lower down on the point. I swapped the flies over in order to confirm this & felt a solid take almost as soon as the flies hit the water – to the Thunder Spey. Another fish did take the Ally’s: a poor wretched grayling that was strung out comically on the dropper, some six feet above the water whilst the eight-pound grilse rocketed around the pool. However, when I finally called it a day at around three in the morning – in the perpetual daylight of midsummer in the arctic circle - I’d had sixteen salmon to Mikael’s fly & only two on Ally Gowan’s all-conquering talisman. I was intrigued.
Since then, I‘ve graduated to the big-fish rivers of the Northern Kola – the Yokanga isn’t the turkey-shoot that the Varzuga can sometimes be, but what it may want for in numbers, it more than makes up for in the shape of some almost absurdly large salmon.
Having caught so well with Mikael Frodin’s fly, I’d investigated the whole scandinavian approach: shooting heads, big, bold flies and a much more aggressive style of fishing. The moment I opened my fly-box that first morning on the Yokanga, my guide, Vova, went straight to a large, loud templedog–style monstrosity – Per Stadigh’s “Yokanga Gold” - leaving the dainty Scottish patterns sulking sullenly in their berths. I hoped the salmon would behave the same way.
As soon as we plopped the fly into the water, I was converted: I’ve since shared a beer or two with the Tempeldog’s creator, Hakan Norling, and heard him animatedly describe how his first prototype all but swam away. I know exactly what he means – these things shiver with life, and instill an instant confidence in their employer. I flicked the line out and made my first cast with the shooting head set-up. The thin running line whistled up through the guides and slapped up hard against the rod, pulling the rod-tip over and tugging insistently at the lightly set drag. I grinned at Vova with a mixture of pride and embarresment. Just ten minutes later, I moved a fish and, tossing the fly back out towards the lie, I watched open-mouthed as a big silver salmon rushed up and snatched furiously at its prey, missing the fly twice - a literal state of blind rage. I rolled the fly out again slightly upstream of the fish and watched it emerge yet again to savagely attack the quivering fox-hair as if its life depended on it: my first twenty pound salmon. As I played the fish with my heart in my mouth, Vova’s casual air confirmed that this lovely, thick-set fish was nothing out of the ordinary on this unique river.
That week was the best of my fly-fishing life – not the hundred or so fish that you might expect on the Varzuga, but thirteen mint silver salmon that averaged very close to twenty pounds, almost all on a floating line or a light sink-tip. Not all came to the Tempeldog – my best fish, which wrenched the scales down to 35 pounds, came to a small, scruffy red Ally’s that I’d tied on a bottle tube, whilst another of 32 pounds came to a green-bodied Willy Gunn that Brian Fratel had thrust into my hands with a knowing wink. However, it was the big, bold scandinavian patterns that caught most of the fish, including another 32 pounder to Paddy Bonner’s exquisite “Litza Golden Dream” tube. Mikael’s Frodin’s ‘Phatagorva’ was particularly successful, and was responsible for hooking one huge fish that still haunts me and will keep me going back to the Yokanga’s Lower Norcamp pool year on year. Its worth noting that the Scandinavian flies almost always initially moved the fish that I did eventually go on to take on the Scottish patterns. As anyone who knows the Yokanga will tell you, if you move a fish in the early season, change pattern, wait two minutes and it’s as good as yours – as long as the thirty-five pound leader holds out, of course.
The flies are only part of the Scandinavian story - the shooting head technique also plays a major hand in the success of Scandinavian salmon anglers, and not just because it allows you to cast huge distances – bundle a ziplock bag full of colour-coded heads into your jacket & you can travel light whilst being able to cover all the bases in double-quick time: the inherent speed of changing from a floater to an intermediate, say, encourages you to make the switch rather than put it off, as you might do with a full line, and you’ll undoubtedly catch more fish as a result. The Yokanga is a big wide river, and the ‘Guide’ shooting head system will outcast all but the most adept spey-casters with ease. Bear in mind that these lines will spey-, snake-roll and snap-T perfectly, as long as the head is not too short: as the thin running line slices up out of the river to race after the head, you’ll find yourself glancing nonchalantly around to see if anyone is watching.
The technique has its critics – in particular, many British anglers feel that the ultra-thin running line employed in the shooting head set-up is difficult to manage and mend. Its true that the wild, savage salmon of the Yokanga like the fly fished fast, whereas the fly-weary fish of the Dee or Spey, for example, are predominantly inclined to respond to a more sedate, subtly controlled presentation. However, the results of anglers like Mikael Frodin, Hakan Norling, Harald Ekman & Per Stadigh on these rivers is testament to the versatility of the shooting head technique. I was fortunate enough to watch Per Stadigh on the Dee recently, and it was an education. Per’s use of reach casts and ariel mends, along with his ability to pluck the back end of the shooting head off of the water and flick it deftly upstream was masterful, and allowed him to fish the fly at exactly the speed he deemed correct. Per doesn’t just cast and step like so many anglers in the UK – he attacks each lie from different angles, and every cast has an idea behind it. He reads the river and fishes where the fish will be, not simply as far from the bank as he can manage, as is so often the case with other fishermen. Per’s casting technique is excellent, but, tellingly, you will rarely see him make a long cast.
On the Dee, he fishes tiny, wispy little fox-fur flies tied on minute tubes or beads, often very close to the bank, and over ten years his results have been outstanding.
Other rivers are responding to the new-wave Scandinavian approach – the Tweed in autumn is the perfect river to fish in this style – each pool can be assessed & then fished correctly with the minimum of fuss, and, at times, the salmon seem to find a hand-lined black & yellow Tempeldog infinitely less resistible than the usual fare.
Duncan Egan, of Glasgow Angling Centre is an extremely adept British angler who has embraced the new style: the magnificent 27 pound fish he recently took from the Tummel, on his own “Flamethrower” pattern was taken using a ‘Guideline’ shooting head kit fished ‘Scandinavian’ style. Indeed, Duncan’s ‘Flamethrower’ owes more than a little to the Scandinavian approach – a bold, brassy eyeful that dares the fish to come and have a go – and it may represent the start of some cross-fertilisation between the two fly-tying styles.
Other notable anglers, like Eoin Fairgreave and the immensely talented Bill Drury, who teaches & ghillies on the Spey, are also starting to employ the Scandinavian methodology, with excellent results. Watching Bill cast clean across the Dee can be a sobering experience, particularly when the shooting head kit has just seduced you into feeling just a little smug.
Talking to Hakan Norling over a dram in the veritable salmon-fishing institution that is the bar at the Potarch Hotel on Deeside, I began to get a sense of just how much thought goes into his fishing, and in particular, his fly patterns. In a blizzard of torn fag-packets & beermats, he scribbled diagram after diagram explaining why his ‘conehead’ patterns – which I’d just spent long hours copying – are now all but redundant. The metal cone now has to sit behind the head of the fly, not in front of it, because Hakan believes that a small, streamlined head gives a far better action to the fly, and prefers the more even weight distribution that this style offers (see “Yokanga Gold-Matt Harris” tying supplied). This may all seem just a little too pedantic for many, but Hakan’s results are truly astounding, and believe me, he is well worth listening to: when I tied up some Tempeldogs for a forthcoming return to the Yokanga, Hakan’s crumpled, beer-spattered diagrams were sat right there on my tying desk.
By the way, don’t get the idea that Hakan is some obsessive ‘Captain Ahab’ character who thinks about nothing but salmon-fishing– he’s great company, and can drink & party with the best of them. Not only will these guys fish you into a cocked hat, they’ll also drink you under the table!
Perhaps the greatest testament to the ability and method of the ‘Norsemen’ comes from the lips of Peter Power, who runs the Kharlovka fishery, another prolific big-fish water on the northern Kola. Peter has seen a lot of the world’s best (or at least most affluent) salmon anglers pass through his camp over the years, and he states without a flicker of hesitation that the Scandinavians are by far the most proficient, much to the chagrin of his British guests.
Just in case all this talk of ‘new age’ techniques and flies ruffles the feathers of some of the more traditional anglers amongst you, take a good look at one of Hakan’s Tempeldogs or Mikael’s Thunder Spey flies. Do they remind you of anything? I was lucky enough to find myself in the magnificent Blackhall Lodge on the Dee opposite Cairnton recently, and looking at all the classic flies adorning the walls, I realised that is us Brits who have deviated from the path of tradition, with our hairwing & shrimp patterns: the Tempeldogs & Spey patterns that Hakan and Mikael have developed are simply more mobile, more eco-friendly’ takes on the classic ‘exotic feather’ streamers like the Jock Scott, employed by A.H.E.Wood and his peers in the golden age of salmon-fishing. If Wood still stalked the Cairnton bank opposite Blackhall (and perhaps he does!), he would surely smile with approval at the fluttering, lively patterns that Per and co serve up to his beloved quarry.
Here’s to tradition!
Next month: Shooting Head fishing in Practice.
Contacts:
A range of ‘Guideline’ & ‘Loop’ rods, reels and shooting heads are available from Duncan Egan @ Glasgow Angling Centre. Duncan also ties and sells his excellent ‘Flamethrower’ patterns through the shop, along with an extensive range of excellent, carefully chosen materials for tying Tempeldog-style flies.
Call 0870 920 1120 or visit http://www.fishingmegastore.com/
Farlows of 9, Pall Mall, London also stock ‘Guideline’ and ‘Loop’ kit, along with an extensive range of Mikael Frodin’s patterns on the excellent Partridge ‘Salar’ hooks. They also stock Paddy Bonner’s immaculately tied Tempeldogs.
Speak to Brian, Robin, Pablo or Sebastian on 020 7484 100 or visit http://www.farlows.co.uk.
The Yokanga can be booked through Frontiers UK.
Speak to Justin Staal on: Justin Staal on + 44 (0)20 7493 0798 or email Justin.Staal@frontierstrvl.co.uk
The Varzuga can be booked through Roxton Bailey Robinson.
Speak to Charlie White on +44 (0)1488 689701
or e-mail charlie.white@rbrww.com
Matt Harris will be leading several guided trips to Russia and to various other destinations in 2006. Contact him on +44 (0)7850 955 585 or at mattharris@mattharris.com
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