Kharlovka 2017
Thursday 20th July
The water continued to fall to 32cm, and temperature was down a little following the rain overnight to 16.1c. Today we were setting off for the Eastern Litza river, camping overnight. Previous visitors had found these 2 days both challenging fishing and walking, and they were quite right!
I was feeling a little tender after a late night with the Russians, finding that free vodka & whisky didn’t make a great combination of drinks, and when we arrived at the Dream pool on the Litza I fished the Upper Dream pool, where I had a quick take from behind a rock, which I thought nothing of, then another pull in the Dream pool, which again didn’t stick.
After that there was some pretty hard walking, climbing and fishing, and I had 2 fish on a cold, wet & windy day, one from the Ledge pool, on the right hand side of the river, where it was really dangerous wading, then another from Rugged Rock Pool. I did loose a lovely fish from Rugged Rock, seeing the take on the Kharlovka Killer, waiting and hooking the fish perfectly, then playing it for 10 minutes, when it fell off as Sasha readied the net for it. The 2 missed takes in the morning were heavy on my mind as we were picked up by the helicopter at Rugged Rock, and taken down to the Litza tent camp.
Dinner was fish, and we watched the tent pool from the hut all the way through the meal but didn’t see a single fish move that evening, in really cold rain. We elected not to fish after dinner, but retired to bed at 8:30, deciding to get up at 5:30am to fish the tent pool then, rather than waste time that night.
