Back to Russia: Kola river salmon fishing

A few years a go me and my friend went on an unforgettable fishing trip to Kola peninsula and the destination was River Penka. Our goal was to catch those big brown trouts that call River Penka home.
The Penka trip got me pretty exited about fishing in Russia. The possibilities in Kola peninsula alone are endless and so I decided that I would come back one day.
On the same trip I met Seppo Muttilanen the owner and head guide at Lapin Ekspertit Oy. Seppo told us a lot of great stories about fishing in Russia and especially fishing for Salmon. Those stories went around and around in my head for a couple of years and finally I got bored of always going to Norway for Salmon fishing.
I called Seppo and asked if me and a friend of mine could come and fish on the river Kola on the last week of the season. There were still places left and so we booked our trip and started planning for the main Salmon fishing trip of the year.

Planning was pretty simple with the instructions Seppo gave us. He told us that we should just tie some small flies and also big dry flies. We would be using floating lines most of the times so it would be light fishing. So we did like were instructed and on August we had all our gear backed and we were ready to cross the border to mother Russia.

Seppo came to meet us with his van at Hotel Ivalo where we had arrived the night before. While packing the car Seppo told us that the other group that was supposed to come with us had canceled in the last minute so we would have the whole river to our selves. Let me tell you guys that this was just great news for us and jumped right in to the van with great expectations and started our trip to Russia.

The drive from Ivalo to river Kola took us about 5 hours including the border control so it wasn't too bad. On the way we of course saw all the local sights including the old Finnish border and the always so grey Murmask city. Don't let looks fool you it's home to close to half a million people.
After the drive we arrived to our fishing camp called Wet Kitza. The camp was still an ongoing project but I guess everything is in Russia. Still we were shown in to a very nice looking new house which would be our home for the week. Accommodation was simple but effective. We had a nice, warm and clean house with a hot water shower. In the other house we had a fridge and a lounge where we could sit and share stories in the evening and of course a couple shots of vodka. What more could a salmon fly fisher want, right?

Next day we started with the main activity and went fishing for the first time. We found out that the river runs through lightly populated areas and a couple of small villages. So all you guys who think that this could be a nice wilderness destination, you can think again. For us this was not a problem as we have been accustomed to fishing rivers with a lot of people. But for an angler looking for a river with very little human presence this would not be the ideal place to come.

Leaving aside the fact that there are houses, people and a railway close to the river it still is a beautiful river in it self. I was very impressed when I saw the river for the first time. The waters were really low it was quite narrow and we could easily wade across it from few places. Normally the river runs a bit wider and wading across would not be advisable.

With the waters low it was quite easy to see the goods spots in the pools we were going to fish and Seppo helped us for the whole week. He made sure that we were fishing the right spots and with the right flies. Seppo took it as his mission to get us to catch some nice fish and we did. Even with his help it was not easy as the waters were lower than in decades so the fish were not that active. Still we managed to caught 10 salmon which is not a bad catch. In Kola this of course is only an ok catch.

For us it was just awesome to fish the pools with nobody else there. Well except for some brave locals who defied the local fishing laws. We basically could just walk from pool to pool and fish the best places at the best times the whole week long. This was great because we got a better view of the river then we could have gotten when fishing 10 other guests.
We took full advantage of this and at the end of the week we were both just fishing our own favorite spots and pools. It was amazing to fish a world class Salmon river alone with nobody there to hurry you along on your fishing.

I caught my first ever Salmon with a double hand rod on the first day. It was so unreal to catch a 4kg salmon after just 3 hours of fishing on the river. For me the trip started like a dream. I got to land 5 more fish on the trip and lost over 15 sure bites on a dry fly. And yes I know I seem to suck at salmons dry fly fishing, but in my defense it was my first go at it.
The biggest fish landed by me was around 5 kg. A nice and silvery fish even though it was very late in the season. We actually caught two silver colored fish and saw a lot more so the fish seem to run up the stream from the ocean the whole season long.
We also saw a lot of big fish in the river but had no luck hooking them but it is certain that there are some real monsters there.

The whole week went quite fast because we were fishing really actively and we moved from pool to pool during the day. I can honestly say that I have never fished so hard in my life but it was a blast. I hope I get to go to Kola again soon.

For myself I want to say thanks to the crew at Wet Kitza camp and really big thanks to Seppo who really helped us with everything during the week and made the whole trip a great success.

If you are interested in River Kola trips and more info just check out their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Lapinekspertit

Cheers,
Janne