Moscow heat oppresses, and the only thought that calms just a little more patience and I will head North. This time on the horizon of a dream — Eastern Taimyr. For some it’s exploration of the tourist route, the search for new fishing Arctic char and recruitment of promising lures and tackle, and for me — another personal geographical discovery through fishing.
In the first staging point, in Krasnoyarsk, the temperature 15°, and our recent hot heat shape shirts short sleeve attract the attention of Siberians. Unpack the warm clothes lazy, because ahead of us were waiting for another flight. In Khatanga the thermometer shows only 9°, and the mosquitoes welcomed us in his arms. Of course! All the local people go in jackets. Short overnight stay at the hotel and we are already on Board the helicopter. Treeless tundra with many lakes, streams, rivers attracts the eye, I want to capture this beauty on camera again and again.
Our plans to sh in a couple of lakes, river rafting New, go to the Laptev sea, and passing along the coast, try your luck at sea fishing. So, a few hours flight and we landed on a promontory of the lake Kangasala, about the resultant duct. The entire middle of the lake is covered with ice only along the edge of the shore about two hundred meters of open water. The banks of the river in a bizarre ice hummocks. And it’s at the end of July! Severely…
Quickly we set up the camp and run to the water. Unusual landscape with hummocks of blue ice on the banks attracts the eye, pure crystal water can be seen to the depth of ten meters. After the smoggy capital, the local beauty with a clear blue sky is just extraordinary.
Some are caught from boats, others from the shore, but for dinner you got the same result. The lake is in no hurry to reveal its secrets to outsiders… while eating we notice tabunok reindeer that coming over the hill to our camp and, not expecting to catch, slowly down to the Bayou. It is customary for them and, perhaps, a centuries-old route well-trodden ancestors, for us — a great photo shoot.
In the evening we decide to change the tactics of cavalry swoop on a more serious exploration of the lake using sonar. Time is of the essence, we got a big route. The assurances of the host of the party, somewhere out there waiting for us Arctic loach for ten weight. But the fishing promised trophies do not always coincide with the actual catch, so trying to somehow seduce the local fish, offering her all sorts of Goodies in the form of various kalabalak, turntables, wobblers. Throw from the shore and from a boat, change “sailors” to “infantry”, allowing everyone to test themselves in different conditions. Sitting in the boat more advantages. You can fish from the shallows into the deep and back, with clear water allows you to see a game of bait and rocks on the bottom in depths up to four meters.
Here is the next cast seen medium-sized fish chasing bait up to the boat. The white edges of the fins, clearly visible at depth, suggest that the brook trout, but unfortunately, not ours. We are doing something wrong. Perhaps the bait is not very attractive to him. Digging in boxes, each trying to guess the preference of the fish and to please her with their offering. In vain! To postpone the attempt until the next morning. Although some of the morning in a world where the sun never goes below the horizon, and just hiding in the clouds?
And the morning brings good luck: under the ice edge at the far end of the lake caught a single char — char. Its orange color can not be confused with it. I decide this day to catch up on the Bayou, and my trophy was a motley fry with finger size, probably, of the same char. I successfully photographed among the stones.
The lake Arylakh night arrival. We are amazed by the vastness and the almost complete lack of ice, but the main thing — on the first place of the lake makes us happy catch. As soon as we landed to stretch my legs and make a few casts, as you can see something — breaker crashing onto the shore. If the shark attacks the bait. For full accuracy is not enough just sticking out above the water fin. Such I saw only in the movie, where the killer whale hunting for seals on the coast of Kamchatka.
To withstand hurricane winds, tent should be carefully strengthened.
High-speed foray into the shallows — and the object of the attack is already in the mouth. While I think of it, is heard shouting: “There!” Spinning elastic nods the tip of the rod towards the water, braided cord rapidly cuts the water, intricate figures that a couple of meters, and fifty from the shore. The pause is painfully delayed. Everyone in the team automatically continue to rotate the handle of their coils, not taking her eyes from the process of martial arts.
Finally the trophy is displayed ashore. Loach (and it was indeed he), not very large, about three-pointers, but very zealous and impetuous. At lucky fisherman shows copper spoons. Yes, on the test we took a few new models, and now their result on the shore.
I don’t have one, and I cling to “Tinker”. The first wiring and the shore there is a breaker. Clutch sings, swiftly handing over the line. Yes, perhaps, such a pretty fish I’m not catching. A relative of the trout, the salmon behaves quite differently. She makes candles, rapid start up and downstream, and here, in stagnant water, it is not so: the fish struggles powerfully evil and recklessly. Spoon and swallows under the throat. As soon as I pull up my trophy as two of my friends happen bite. The rest have to quickly wind up their gear, not to interfere with the fight…
No bite this time not one remains. Moreover, all bring to the table records your personal achievements. By the way, the biggest trophy weighs five pounds. The only thing that confuses us is the color of the fish: not orange-red, which we saw in the pages of fishing magazines in the hands of others lucky, and light grey, with a pearl shimmer and the old spots on the body. Apparently, they were caught in breeding plumage.
Naturally, the bulk of the trophies neatly released and only a couple taken for food, soup and soft salted. Bold orange meat is the tenderest delicacy, against which the Norwegian salmon store, in the words of Anton Chekhov, “as the carpenter against the carpenter”. On this happy toe we go back in the daytime, but the bite is not the same, weaker (we did not know was approaching breaking weather, when the clear sky gives way to night storms with heavy rains, and the sun closed by clouds for a long time).
We catch many more loaches but the threshold of five kilograms and not overcome. We catch and nakariakov weighing up to six hundred-seven hundred grams, which bite on the same lures as the trout, and char even nimble moves of exotic fish into something ordinary. Multiple our meeting with the reindeer herds, musk oxen, funny geese and their kids, trying to escape naked on the shore from the approaching boat.
In Khatanga we communicate with research staff of the Museum and the planned new routes where you can catch the endemic subspecies of Arctic char. It is curious that they live on the lakes, where eminent scientists come only once in a lifetime, and then to write this thesis and make presentations at international conferences. In addition, we meet with a man who was lucky enough to pull a trout weighing thirty pounds.
The following routes are waiting for us in the next season. And yet we have to remember the coolness of the North, to admire the wonderful photographs of the region and to make plans for the future.
