Sayuri was still struggling, especially when the wind forced her to cast with the left hand top.

Leaning to cast with the left hand is easier with spey casting than with a single hand. That said, it takes concentration which was not easy when the small daughter was making fair amount of distraction, and even worse, when her husband continued to offer unwanted technical advice one after another!!

This bright silver fish tuned out to be our only catch for the day. Not an easy day, but it was a testimony that the reward was certainly there for the devoted one, who kept casting good loops for a thousand times!!

The next morning we took our rods to pieces and climbed into a small Lada 4x4. The gravel road through the woods soon met sandy beach, with occasional open views of the white sea on our right.

Kitsa is by far a smaller, narrower river with some 50meters width on average. Amount of waterflow must also be a lot less compared to that of Varzuga. But thanks to the deep lake which feeds the river, Kitsa maintains colder water throughout the summer month.

The river's lowers stretch was more or less straight and featureless. I asked Denis to carry on, to the upper end of the public beat, where we found a reasonably good looking bend.

After an hour's dusty ride, we arrived in a tiny village called Kuzomeni - a lonesome fisherman's outpost right where Varzuga meets the sea. Many of the houses and sheds were crumbling apart but they had their own peculiar charm to it.

Varzuga river has a length of about 200kms. The place where we fished was bout 20kms from its mouth, circled in red on the chart here. By the time we arrived, majority of the salmon had already swam further upstream, leaving us scratching heads.

Salmon fishing needs patience - we knew that. But spending one whole week in one same stretch of water is painful even for the most determined.

There we discussed with Vasily the guesthouse owner if there was any different option if just for a change of air. He said there was. A river called Kitsa not very far off - see the blue circle in the map - to which an easy day trip is possible.

Both Sayuri and Misa came back utterly exhausted - by the continuous casting effort unrewarded, and by the continuous attack of ever hungry mosquitoes.

For now, you two deserve a gentle stroke of the fluffy cat's paw.

We set up our base camp on a small gravel island nearby, and began covering the fast water right on the opposite bank. By now Mike was at ease with his elements after several days' continuous casting.

Here we were greeted by a local fisherman Denis, who ferried us visiting salmon anglers over to the Kitsa as his side business in the summer. When the clouds broke apart, the blinding sunshine lit up the whole peaceful world, filling us up with a renewed hope and expectations.