Sukpai River near Khabarovsk (Russian Far East) - June 6 - 10, 2010

Sukpai River is 150 km long; it is clear & swift mountainous stream, tributary to Khor River.  Khor joins Ussuri River, which is delimiting China and Russia and flowing into the Amur River near Khabarovsk.   We were floating the lower 100 km of Sukpai; the trip was 4 days long. 

At the starting point: 3 fishermen from Khabarovsk, 2 rubber boats and inflatable kayak.  

Tough job - selecting a proper fly out of thousands...

In the river we catch mostly Amur grayling and lenok(2 species).   This time grayling was not biting on the surface, and we were aiming at lenok.  Most of the fishing was done on the move - we were casting big weighted flies close to river banks.

  

Andrey has hooked something.  Big fish is necessary to bring to the bank for landing.

 

This was good size sharp-nose lenok, ...

... which was caught with a heavy "String Sculpin".  This fly is very efficient on our rivers.   

 I have tried a black Wooly Bugger from a moving kayak and caught some smaller lenok and a good grayling.  All fish were biting close to the shallow banks, where they were waiting for some food.   

Salmonfly (Pteronarcys) in Sukpai can be over 6 cm long.  Local fish love these huge stoneflies, which can be found in the stream around the year.  Lots of local flies are imitations of these insects.  The wingless nymphs crawl on the bank and then hatch.  Probably, the fish were waiting for these larvae on their way to the dry land.   

WE have decided to keep one lenok for food.  Its stomach content was a stonefly larva and a sculpin.  Now I can select good imitations of these animals!

 Sharp-nose lenok has bitten a big sculpin imitation.   

Siberian taimen is getting rare in Sukpai due to excessive fishing.   I had managed to land one small fish.  We release all taimen we catch. 

Lago Lynch, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia

Lago Lynch is a big water body in the upper part of the Rio Grande drainage.  The lake surface is about 50 square kilometers.  It is posssible to reach the lake by 4 km of wet trail, coming off a remote logging road. 

Along the road there were lots of beaver dams.  Beavers were stocked into the waters of the island in 1920es; the animal has devastating effect at the beech forests of the island.    

Grey fox is one of the native animals of Patagonia 

 The trail was quite wet; in some areas we had difficulties to pass even in 4WD pickup. 

 

Guanacos along the road

 

 Along the east bank the lake is very shallow, and its bottom is flat.  We did not have a boat, and it was hard to find fish.

 

Finally I have managed to find a "structure" - a deeper area surounded by shallows.  It was situated over 100 meters from the lake shore. 

 

 In this place we have started catching fish.  These were mostly rainbows up to 1 kg. 

 

 The tackle: 15' 2-handed rod, floating line, clear slow-sinking leader, and 0,25 mm tippet.  The fish were biting small dark wet flies & nymphs on #10 & # 12 hooks.  Retrieve: pulls and pauses.   

 

 Ratio of rainbow to brown trout was 2:1.  Some brown trout were dark - they had normal "river" colors.

 

Other fish were almost silver, which is typical for the fish from big, clear waters 

 

 We have decided to keep 2 trout and prepare them in a foil with onions.  Calafate berries are adding special flavor. 

 

Manoma River, Amur River drainage. Part 1 - upper reaches of the river

Manoma River is tributary to the mighty Anyui R., which joins Amur River 200 km below Khabarovsk. Upper reaches of the Manoma are mountainous. This part of the stream is populated by selection of fish species which are typical for the "trout region" of the Far East: bluntnose lenok, sharpnose lenok, grayling, and Chekanovski's minnow.

In hot weahter of mid July it is a good idea to fish till the dark hours. In twilight you could expect bites from the most careful, older fish. Tributaries and side-channels of the Manoma River are small; here we catch mostly grayling

Creek fishing is rather hard and requires lots of hiking and climbing. The casting is difficult - in many areas there is no room for backcast. The best tackle in this situation will be 7' or 8', 3 or 4 weight rod. Here I am using only furled leaders: common tapered ones does not allow to present the fly properly. Chekanovski's minnow is biting small flies, if you present them in bays and sloughs of a creek Lower-Amur grayling is easy to distinguish from other grayling species by its rounded dorsal fin with two red strips along the upper edge. This is very bright fish, which do not grow big - unlike the Arctic grayling. Cherry salmon in the Manoma River is rare fish - Manoma and Anyui are the uppermost spawning area of this salmon in the Amur drainage. This large smolt is, probably, a dwarf male which has "decided" to go out into the salt water after one or several spawnings with anadromous females. Typical cherry salmon smolts are much smaller. Lenok is sitting mostly near the bottom; it is not possible to catch this "Siberian trout" with dry flies every day. By the subterminal mouth one can see that this is the sharpnose species of the Brachymystax genus. This fish bit a heavy nymph, imitation "something edible" - probably, scud.

This is the flybox of one of my friends. This fisherman can tie excellent superrealistic flies. Such fly models very popular in many regions of Siberia. The fish simply can not resist.