ASR season summary - 2022
Dear Fishing Friends!
With the ASR season recently coming to a conclusion and the staff now preparing the camps for the Arctic nights that lie ahead, we wanted to reach out to our international fishing friends with an update and let you know that we’ve been missing you!
The first guests arrived to the Kharlovka camp this season on week 24 which commenced on the 12th June with the Rynda camp opening the next week. Following a winter of higher than normal snow and ice pack, water levels in rivers remained at healthy levels through late July.
Max with a perfect 21 lbs. (9.5kg) salmon from the Rynda Home pool.
Cool spring conditions continued on the far north coast through with morning air and water temps of approximately 8C with a slowly dropping water level currently at 67cm on the Home pool scale (3 week of June). Nevertheless the salmon are stacking up at the Kharlovka Falls and starting to take hitched surface flies. Andrey with a fine fresh 29 pounder from the Kharlovka Falls that was landed on a Mikki Pearsson - Sun Ray variant.
Big fish Friday in late June on the lower Litza to end last week with Roman managing to eventually land a solid 31 pounder (14.1kg) in the Snowbank pool on his Sun Ray Shadow. This was first week that Roman has ever held a fly rod. He is now firmly hooked!
The Rynda salmon have been in excellent shape this season!
Our new friend Max had a great week landing his first dozen Atlantic salmon ever!
Photos of a couple of pristine 20 and 17 pounders that were landed on Golden Killers on the lower Rynda.
Our good friend Vadim had a great day fishing with his guide Gena on the Zolotaya river! Yesterday Vadim managed to land this wonderful 30 pounder (13.6kg) at the top of this small river in Peter’s pool. Vadim has been coming to the ASR for 10 years. Last night Vladimir rewarded him with Veteran and Big fish rings.
Slava landed a 26,5 pounder at Kharlovka Double Taker on a Frodin fly.
The autumn Three Rivers weeks were also beautiful and memorable.
We are pleased to report that there were a high number of new comers that were just learning to cast a spey rod on the camps for the first time this season. As a result, the average number of salmon landed per guest was 9.2 salmon over the season with a healthy average size of 13.6lbs. for the Kharlovka/Litza salmon and 12.2 lbs. for the Rynda/Zolotaya salmon. The largest fish of the season on the Kharlovka were 36, 36, and 33 pounds while there were three Big fish rings presented on the Rynda for salmon of 33, 30 (Zolotaya), and 27 pounds.
Rodion had a memorable week fishing on the ASR together with his wife Ekaterina and friend Roman!
On the final day, Rodion hooked into a great salmon on a Sun Ray Shadow in the Snowbank pool on the lower Litza. He began to gradually wind and bring his heavy fish to the bank. Everything was going fine and nothing foreshadowed trouble, when suddenly, with his fish only meters from the net - Rodion's rod cracked in half. Without losing his head for a minute, Rodion handed the broken half with the reel over to his wife and said “Reel!” Rodion then grabbed the line and started to pull the fish to the net. Following a few tense moments of teamwork that will never be forgotten, Rodion brought a great salmon weighing 36 pounds into the net
To compliment the wonderful fishing on the rivers, the ASR has developed a Tundra Eco program that allows nature lovers to further explore this unique Arctic environment by land, sea and air. In addition to flying along the wild coast to discover a stone labyrinth and a place of settlement of ancient man that dates back to 4-6000 BC, guests will be walking the Reindeer trails that lead to the abandoned Pomar Rynda village. There will also be guided boat tours in the Barents Sea with opportunities to observe Killer and Beluga whales, seals and large colonies of migratory birds.
Guests can chase the spectacular northern lights during the late autumn weeks staying up late and keeping warm in a newly constructed sky observatory tent located above the Rynda camp.
Who knows when the situation will permit us to resume getting together again but in the meantime, we wanted to let you know that the camps and staff were carrying on preserving this special place with hopes of your eventual return.