Thursday
The day dawned absolutely brilliantly with nice weather and no wind. I fished through Tent, happy and full of yesterday’s experiences. The take came low down on the neck. The fish sped up through the pool and proved in a couple of mighty leaps that here was another one of Litza’s large males. Thank god for 0.47 Egor. The big fish allowed itself to be defeated, and after some photography it glided in, 112 cm and 34 lbs. Newly risen, and, as the scale samples showed, back after 4 years in the sea. Cool – two +15 kg fish in less than a day! I tried the neck on the Upper Tent and then back into my favourite, Lower Tent. A liced fish at 6 kg (12 lbs) on the neck followed by a blank round – hmmm. I changed tactics, put on an 8 ft extra fast ”polly”, a small tungsten tube, and halfway down the pool there was another strike. 97 cm long and 57 around, it weighed in at 25 lbs – a hefty female, cool! Just before the helicopter was about to take us away, I laid a few casts over the neck and it struck yet again. With the helicopter buzzing in my ears I had a bit of a tough finish and dropped one at 6 kilos (12 lbs). Two great days in the world’s best salmon river were over. This is as good as it gets in salmon fishing! Litza in the second half of June beats everything! Back in camp rumours reached me that Mark, whom I’d given a small ”Witch”, took a 30 lbs on it and that the Russian, Leonid, whom I’d given a 23 cm Pahtakorva, took one at just over 30 lbs too. Today, my flies caught many big, beautiful salmon!
