Destination Angling: Unpredictable and Uncertain Times

10 November 2019, Remembrance Sunday. I am in the USA, and when I woke up this morning, I checked the BBC headlines: Woman dies and dozens evacuated as floods hit. When I returned from lunch the headlines had changed: Sydney area faces ‘catastrophic’ bushfire threat.

By Tarquin Millington-Drake

Wind back to 8 June. The opening of one of the most prestigious rivers in Iceland, and all the guests are drawn to one picture in the lodge. It shows two men holding a fresh salmon each, all rugged up in huge jackets and balaclavas, with great big icebergs behind them, standing in what is clearly several feet of snow. The picture is dated 8 June 1974. Why did this picture attract such attention?

The answer is because Iceland was well into what was to be the longest drought in its recorded history which began in early May and broke in late August. Some rivers had no water flowing between their pools. What little water there was, was flowing underground.

Early July. Guests at Ryabaga Camp on the Ponoi bathe in a superb summer run. Those that have not fished this time of year before are blissfully unaware of how lucky they are that there are no mosquitoes in camp, a phenomenon never before experienced. 26 July. The Norwegian Flyfishers’ Club bravely announce that the Gaula has closed due to drought and will reopen once better conditions prevail.

August. Clients are calling from Alaska needing help to rebook accommodation because they cannot reach their destinations by road due to bush fires. Some of the rivers were the lowest veteran guides of over twenty years had ever seen. The reality was that Alaska was experiencing its own drought.

Early September. Back to Ryabaga Camp, this time guests are loving the warm weather and are fishing in shirt sleeves but there is one problem, when the wind drops the mosquitoes move in. In September? Mosquitoes?

October. A time when many are planning their fishing trips for the following year: I have participated in this planning frenzy for over thirty years. A new client contacted me.

He was impressed that I had listened to his objectives and liked what I had suggested. It seemed confirmation of his plans was imminent but then communication slowed. When that happens, one knows there is wavering. A counter suggestion had been made to him.

I love my fishing no matter what but having fished the real Iceland with tiny flies and riffled hitch, the river counter-suggested did not appeal. However, the client had not experienced the magic that is a salmon taking off the surface in crystal clear water and just wanted to be sure of catching something for his investment of time and money. I finally convinced him of how much more of an experience I was offering but before confirming his booking his final question was to ask if I could guarantee him some fish. A simple “yes” would have signed him up. A few years ago I would have had that conviction but that was then. Now, in October 2019, after the drought and everything else that was going on, I could no longer give him that assurance with total belief. He went elsewhere.

A time of uncertainty

Things have changed so much in my thirty years that I believe that what used to be as certain as certain can be, with nature as the caveat, can no longer be so. Those 100% prime weeks, no matter where they are, salmon, trout, saltwater, jungle fishing… they are no longer the rock steady certainties they were.

On the positive side, the fringe weeks, the weeks that perhaps we would rather not fish but sometimes our purse demands, those weeks are seeing magical ‘unusual’ moments of prime time like they never have before. These changes have led me to question whether we fishermen have to change our perspective and expectations.

In 1991, the salmon fishing community was blessed with a reprieve. Although the outlook seems a lot worse now, the feeling then was of impending doom and gloom for Scotland’s Atlantic salmon. Iceland was not a source of lamentation but it did not feature as highly on people’s radars as it does today. Two big changes happened. The first was the evolution of Atlantic salmon farming which we all believed would save the day for wild Atlantic salmon. (How wrong we were!) The second was the Kola Peninsula burst on to the fishing scene and travelling salmon fishers were blessed with fishing the likes of which only their fathers and grandfathers could have imagined or experienced.

Many people were able to learn and take up salmon fishing who had barely set foot in Scotland. Not only did the Kola bring salmon fishing back to life but it encouraged a whole new generation on to the river. On the basic principle that experience makes a very large contribution towards the skill level of a salmon fisher, the Kola also yielded a generation of good fishermen who were broad and open-minded about techniques which were rarely, if ever, tested at home.

Scotland and Iceland probably owe the Kola a debt of gratitude because it breathed new life into what appeared to be a dying sport.

Parents were able to take their children fishing in the knowledge that they would catch something which I think we all agree is the key building block to making or breaking a fisher. More and more women began to fish like they never had before and have since proven to be far more effective than their counterparts just as they were in the 1920s.

There may have been many bumps in the Kola road but there is no denying the contribution it made to salmon fishing and fly fishing in general. It took fly fishing travel and propelled it forward to what it is today with fishermen venturing far and wide to catch species that people did not even know existed back then.

Salmon fishing in Russia

It may have taken fifteen years to settle down but there is now no denying that June is the time of plenty for the Kola rivers from the Ponoi river southwards. Vast numbers of fish were caught during the late May and early June weeks. No matter what the river, take a week during these prime weeks and catching good numbers of salmon was a near certainty provided that one was prepared to adapt to prevailing conditions.

I remember years when there was ice along the Ponoi and we were digging snow and clearing pathways in order to prepare the camp while all the time worrying if the guests should come to open the season or not. There were years when the river would come good on the Saturday the first guests arrived and they would catch 150 to 200 fish on the first day of fishing as if by magic. There were the odd years when the first week did have to be cancelled because of a late spring, especially on the Varzuga but it was not long until the extraordinary numbers were back to normal.

Then 2017 happened. Conditions nobody thought possible. Spring just did not come. When I arrived in Norway that year on 28 June, there were no leaves on the trees except in the towns. Nobody believed it possible that the bullet-proof bumper Kola weeks of early to mid-June could fail but fail they did - and further north was even worse. Some rivers never came good, others did and some got lucky such as late June and July guests on the Ponoi who could not believe their luck catching 600 to 800 fish for their week.

For me, while I still view those bumper early season weeks as the most reliable salmon fishing on the planet by a long way, there is now that tiny seed of doubt.

But equally, the less favoured weeks have undoubtedly proven that they should be approached with much greater optimism than they might have been in the past with 2019 another example. My point is, nowadays, one simply does not know what is going to happen.

The changes are global

This is a global change and it is not reserved for Atlantic salmon or the Kola Peninsula. Just this year I have witnessed clients suffer near cyclone conditions in the Seychelles, drought in Alaska, very late spring run-off in the American West, unexpected high water and still rising in the Amazon basin. 2017 was a very poor steelhead year. I took the precaution of shying away from advising clients to go in 2018 to see how things went. It was one of the very best steelhead years ever! 2019 was one of the worst.

My main message is that this sport of ours that we love so much is offering ever greater experiences as the boundaries of destinations and wonderous species are rolled back but, as things stand today, there is no doubt that we are all going to have to be more tolerant of unsuitable conditions but with the potential for red letter days and bumper weeks.

Things are changing and as fisherfolk we are going to have to roll with the changes and learn to adapt and make the best of them. We are going to have to understand that the best times are still likely to be the best times… probably, and the less prime times will likely remain the less good times, or will they?