Fishing near the Talan Island, Sea of Okhotsk

The trip to Talan Island starts in the Nagaevo Bay near Magadan.  

Magadan is a sea port on the north coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. 

 The shores of this small island are steep and rocky.  Only its northern shore is formed by a plain deposited by the sea.  This area has bank formed out of big cobbles & boulders.

 I am trying to fish near the north-western bank of the island

 If you find a school of grey rockfish, they will be biting your fly every minute

 Spiny crab is close relative to famous king crab. This smaller crab is covered by sharp spines.  It is dwelling near rocky shores at 5-15 meters, and king crab is normally found on sand & silt, on bigger depth.  

 Saffron cod is biting any flies

 Rainbow smelt is possible to catch with small, sparsely tied streamers.  This small fish has big mouth with serious fangs.

 Smelt with Nagaevo Bay at the background. 

  Greenling is found on shallow places with kelps.

 

 Grey rockfish caught with red shrimp imitation

 Grey rockfish often comes to the surface and could be caught with dry line and a streamer. 

Talan Island, Sea of Okhotsk

Talan is a tiny (1,3 km long) island in the north part of the Sea of Okhotsk, in the Tayiskaya Inlet near Magadan.

 Most of the island shores are steep and rocky

 The biggest cliffs are at its southern end exposed to the open sea.

 Black-legged kittiwakes at the nests

 Pelagic cormorants are drying their wings.

 Mures are sitting at the narrow rocky shelves.

Spectacled guillemots are feeding with tiny coastal fish.

Horned puffins

Crested puffin

 The most numerous bird of the island is crested auklet - about 2 million of these tiny birds are nesting st the island.  

 In the evening crested auklets are flying around the island. 

 Eaglets look like dinosaurs..  Every year several pairs of majestic Stellers sea eagles nest at the island.  

To be continued...

Armenia, Arpa River - Caucasus brown trout - the end.

After releasing the first catch, a frog, I continued fishing with a nymph.  

The first fish waskhramulya(Varicorhinus capoeta)

 The next species was Kura barbel - Barbus lacerta cyri  

 

 Finally I was lucky to land a nice trout.   

Beautiful fish!  It is my first trout from the Caspian Sea drainage.   

 In many cases we had to fish from steep rocky banks of the river.   

My Armenian friend was using standard local tackle - long pole with a bobber.  He was using worms as a bait.

 Local fishermen do not have catch-and-release tradition.. One of the fish was tiny rainbow trout, which had probably escaped from a nearby hatchery. 

 I was able to catch one more trout with a wobbler fly.  

These flies are very convenient to use when standing high above the river.

 Wild poppy flowers

Armenia, Arpa River - Caucasus brown trout

Short fishing trip, Caucasus, Armenia

I was working in Armenia.  This country used to be part of USSR; now it is independent country, situated between Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran.   The entire territory of the country belongs to the watershed of the Caspian Sea.  One weekend I went fishing with my friend, local fisherman. 

On a road near Yerevan it is possible to see huge Ararat volcano with a snowy summit at the altitude of 5137 meters.

  Dry mountains on the road to Arpa River.

 Armenian villages with lush gardens look like oases surrounded by harsh mountains.

 Arpa River is swift and powerful.  The water at that day was slightly murky.  

 At the banks I had found numerous signs of high productivity of the river

 I have started to fish with floating line and a small nymph 

 One cast went too far and got to the opposite bank.  The nymph was immediately bitten by a fat frog. 

Catch and release

 The frog is unharmed.  Let's look for trout.

To be continued

Yama River, Sea of Okhotsk - 2

 When snorkeling in the clear water of Yama River, I was able to see different fish, including coho & chum salmon

 Kundzha or white-spotted charr (Salvelinus leucomaenis) can reach 12 and even 20 kg.  

This is the biggest Salmonid fish of the rivers where there are no king salmon or taimen.  

 Deep and slow side-channels are the best resting areas for coho salmon.  Dark spots on this photo are fish!

Hooked coho is often jumping (photo of Nikita Vladimirov)

 This fisherman is holding 3 rods with a coho salmon on each of them...

 Typical flybox for the rivers with Pacific salmon, charr, & Arctic grayling: bright streamers, "salmon eggs", skating patterns, caddis-fly imitations... 

Chum salmon are often resting in deep pools and bays.  This fish in the Yama is much more numerous than coho.   

 Quite often chum (left) and coho (right) form joined schools

 Yama is famous by nice size Dolly Varden charr