Besides being a veteran salmon guide at the Kola Peninsula and a highly estimated manager for the Russian staff at Umba Lodge for over 20 years, Nick Podolsky was renowned almost worldwide for his remarkable artistic production of carved fish replicas. Nick became a true master and his beautiful lifelike salmon were bought from hundreds of fly fishermen visiting the Kola during the years. Every winter he worked hard to create new replicas and he was so highly gifted that he could make a perfect wooden clone in scale 1:1 of almost all specimens of fish caught by happy fly fishermen from the civilized world. So when Nick Podolsky so tragically were killed last July, his small stock of Atlantic salmon replicas were sold out quickly to steep rising prices. When I stayed at Umba Lodge the first half of October 2014 rumors spread that a new fish carver had started up in the nearby Umba Village. I interviewed Daniel Podolsky (who started as a Umba guide this spring after nine years of hard practice at Ponoi) about these matters and he confirmed the rumors. The new fish carver is also named Daniel with the family name Medunitsin of age 33. He has bought Nick´s tools and special color recipes and he has carefully studied a video made by Nick showing his unique techniques. On request Daniel Podolsky brought on of Daniel Medutsin’s first attemps and it is Daniel Podolsky that present it on my photo. I was gladly surprised when I saw that fish. Medutsin is obviously a gifted man and he seems already close to Nick´s high standards of quality. – The prices will be around 400 Euros which is a very reasonable price for such a piece of natural art, so my guess is that Daniel Medunsin might be a very busy man in the years to come.
Article by Orla Bertram Nielsen