Sayuri and I again ended up without catching a char, but it was another fun filled day in a pleasing environment.

As we walked back to the camp, oh?
Yet another visitors were there.

Second day fishing. Before that, we walked up to the little house on the prairie, to return the greeting to the Nenets family.

Reindeers have big flat hoofs and can gallop on the swampy marsh, as well as in snow field carrying Santa Claus. The young Nenets man gave us a quick lift around - not only our little Misa but Sayuri enjoyed it immensely.

- Next

A jolly party of mother and the daughters. I still struggle to believe the family counts to 18 and they all sleep in this one single tent!

Meanwhile Hama kept covering the pool we started and his persistence eventually paid off - a solid Arctic Char of 60cm+. Very well done!!

An orange shrimp fly some 5cm in length did the job. Char are anadoromous fish and shrimps must be their main diet while in the ocean. Okay, everyone, orange shrimp, 5cm!!

But if I maybe honest, well, we were getting enough of them. After all we came here to nail down those elusive Arctic char.

We walked up a few hundred yards, to prospect in a big deep pool. Char, especially those mature, big chars tend to lurk in deep pools and this is one of the prime spot, according to Andrey. Well perhaps so, but more true for spinning anglers than for us flyfishers.

A double hand rod would have worked great if I had a shooting head. But I only had a spey line with me, which did not suit me in this venue. With a single hand I waded waist deep to quietly cover the edge of the depth but that demands fair bit of determination and a glass of Vodka when the water is, at 9c, rather cold.

Precious sunshine broke through the clouds. Summer here is extremely short i.e. only 2weeks in July. Now in the middle of August it's already late autumn here.

Hama was on a roll this afternoon - soon thereafter he hooked up a pink salmon. They are not native but introduced fish but have adapted to the environment. Nowadays they have a self sustaining population in western part of Russia even to Northern Norway.

Again, grayling are plentiful and willing to entertain us - even when we are swinging big streamers in size #4-6.

The tent is called Chum, in their native language Nenetsky. About 5-6 meters in radius, it is quite spacious and warm, thanks to the wood stove placed in the centre - though the kids must walk 10kms to the beach to fetch (plenty of ) drift woods.

Herding the reindeer is the main and only livelihood and that's the job for the men. The ladies stay home managing all else - most importantly, cooking. Reindeer for breakfast is a tad too heavy for me normally, but the one served here was so very tasty. Pls. place the pointer on the pic.

From the top of the plateau it's a steep decent of some 150meters to the river. A hard exercise with a heavy backpack but who am I to complain? I am the one forcing poor 5 years old to do the same.

(panting for air) . . . alright, let's get to work.

As we visited in mid August the river was running low and slow. But in June right after the icebreak, powerful snowmelt flood flushes down the gorge. The dynamic valley is a artwork of the nature, created over tens of millions of years.

There is an evidence for that. Rocks in the riverbed often shows fossils of shells and clams. Scientific research estimates they are aged, indeed, 10 million years.

Well, time to excuse ourselves and go fishing. On this day we were to go scouting the point #10, some 3kms upstream from the base camp.

The landscape becomes more dynamic. Pleasure for the eyes, though harder to cover the distance.

And again, they were all in good size, around 40cms and some close to 45cm. Worth a toast if this was in, say, Austria.