There are never two salmon seasons alike. There is actually not two weeks or two days of a season, which is the same. It is part of the charm and a substantial part of the challenge of Salmon fishing. When we in the long winter evenings dream us back to those golden moments from the past season, we hope to repeat next season again. That happens rarely, but in return we get a wealth of new and educational experiences.
At River Umba on the Kola Peninsula we usual get a lot of sunny days in June, but this summer the weather behaved more like it was late fall with strong winds and a lot of rain. The water level was the whole month is much higher than I have experienced in many years – Actually we have not see that much water since year 2000. I have a feeling that has been the case for most of the Kola river this Summer. The run of salmon was in spite of the hard conditions quite stable, with fresh Salmon went up in the river every day. However because of the high water the fish passed very quickly through the famous holding pools in the lower part of the river and “disappeared” into a swelling Krivetz river where any decent fishing was impossible because of high water
Already the first week showed Danish Peter Lottrup that Umba’s potential is huge. Peter landed 16 great salmon up to 15 lbs despite the difficult conditions and only bad luck prevented the skilled fisherman to land a genuine 20 lbs salmon in Brad’s Pool because his line got snaked in an old drowned piece of log on the bottom. Throughout June the water level went up and down like a yoyo, the water remained generally on a unusual high level during the entire month. Most of our guests, average a salmon each day, and we have to keep in mind that there are not many places in the world where you can get that under such tough conditions. In addition, the fish was on average larger and stronger than normal – almost as a hot Steelhead. Often they went far into the backing line before they came under control! – The Three largest fish were both 19 lbs, but as mentioned earlier, far bigger fish was lost after epic battles.
Peter Kremsner and his friend Johannes Krill who have fished Umba many times before managed in spite of tough weather conditions to land 18 salmon between them. Biggest salmon was a nice 19lb Umba whopper for Peter Kremsner.
Conclusion: The quality in the fishing was high. All our guests expressed great joy and satisfaction with the stay and wanted to return to “Umbalivable” Umba already next spring. Interesting to see how Umba will treat us when we return back middle of August in order to begin the famous Umba Autumn season. I don’t think we will have low water like the two previous seasons – More Umba news to come very soon.
Report from Orla Bertram Nielsen
