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MURMAN COAST FISHING i t Good Sport and Bad Luck in Prolific t Russian Waters. s t Big:, Heavy, Fighting: Fish in Plenty Queer Ways of the Xative c Laplander. t 3 1 It was one of the last days in July, 1918. The weather was fine and warm with very little wind, j and mosquitoes were consequently plentiful. My trawler was engaged in a periodical boiler cleaning which rendered her hors de combat for the time , being, and for the past few weeks we- had been free even from reports of the presence of the ubiq- uitous German submarine. I accordingly decided to have a try for salmon. . "We were anchored within about three miles of the mouth of the Yukanba river, which was re- ported to be full of salmon, a fact which was con- j firmed by the number of fine fisli which had been , recently offered for sale by the Lap fishermen. I may say that very few of these were bought as , the price asked was most excessive, and the only articles for which the villagers would exchange , the fish were either clothes or whisky, of which commodities we were disinclined to dcuude our lim- ited stocks. The only rod I had with me was a ten-foot split , cane steel center, by Hardy, an old favorite which had done me yecman service on many occasions; , and though quite satisfied as to the rod I was , rather troubled about the shortness of my line. I , had only an ordinary trout reel, which held at the most fifty yards, and I felt very anxious as to the , result if I should .happen to hook a big fish. However, there was nothing to be done, so after , carefully testing the line and soaking by casts and putting a spare line in my pocket in case of ,ac- . cidents, I joined my companions in the motor boat and we started off at about 1 p. m. I have already mentioned the mosquitoes, and I , think that a description of the methods employed to keep these voracious brutes away may be of in- terest and possibly of use to my readers, as I found them most effective; and when properly rigged up I was absolutely proof against them and still aide to fish without much inconvenience. I have fished in many rivers in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where the mosquitoes and black fly are sit times indescribably bad, and have been tormented by mosquitoes in the tropics, but never in any place in the world have I found them so bad r s numerous as on these rivers on the Miir-man coast of Russia in July and August. A change of wind from south to north will bring about a rapid fall of temperature and a miraculous disappearance of these brutes, but as long as the weatlier remains warm the fisherman, unless lie lias a skin like an ox, must take steps to ward them off. DRESSING FOR FISHING NECESSARY. My headgear consisted of a complete covering of green veil; this was mounted round two light hoops of cane about 10 inches in diameter and about teu inches apart. The upper hoop formed the crown of the headdress, which was worn over a uniform cap, and the lower hoop was at about the level of the chin. A strip of talc was sewn into the netting at the level of the eyes to improve the view, and sufficient material was left at the bottom to tuck inside the coat all round. An ordinary pair of kid dancing gloves arc as good as anything to protect the hands, but they must net be split, as if there is a hole in them the mosquitoes will soon find it out. A few turns of a bandage round the wrists are also necessary and the sleeves of ones coat should be tied down. The very best tiling I ever used in the way of-gloves was a pair of india-rubber operating gloves as used by the medical profession, but they are very apt to tear. They are, however, excellent while they last and the exchange of a fly or a cast is an easy matter when wearing them. The ankles are also very vulnerable and must be protected: woolen socks arc useless, and puttees, gaiters or knee boots of some sort should be worn unless one wears waders. On one occassion when I neglected to take these precautions I spent the whole afternoon .standing in the water to avoid being bitten. These elaborate precautions may sound unnecessary, but anyone who lias once attempted fishing without them is uulikely to repeat the experiment. After about an hour in the motor boat we landed at the small Lap village at the mouth of the river and walked up stream for about a mile to the main pool. The natives who inhabit these villages are only summer residents, and in the late autumn the villages are completely evacuated and the whole population trek southward to their winter quarters, which are situated at various places on the shores of, and inland from, the White Sea. They arrive on the coast early in April; as a rule an advance guard of men arrive first, to be followed later by the remainder of the men witli the women, children and dogs. The journey is made in reindeer sleighs, and after arriving at their summer quarters the reindeer are scattered over the surrounding country to feed, the calves being born soon after they arrive. The stags are picketed out in the same way as one sees goats tethered in England, but later in the- summer they are all let loose to wander where they like. They are a wonderfully game animal in harness and it is said that they will go on till they die and never give in. Tliey are much smaller than the caribou of Newfoundland, the stags being seldom as big as an English red deer, but they are, as far as I can see, the same animal. The Laps themselves are a peaceful, contented race, living a simple life, never doing overmuch i work and appearing in these days to possess all the , necessaries of life in abundance. The men are a short, sturdily built lot, but on the few occasions ; when attempted to purchase small tilings from ; them tliey would never agree to a bargain without first referring the matter to their wives, who i Heemed to be the ruling factor in such matters. As this reference to the fair sex invariably resulted in a rise in the price, I was driven to the conclusion that they must be rather a "hen-pecked" race. Except for the difficulty they had in getting food 1 and clothes, these people seem to have been quite ! untouched by the great European war, and neither they nor the Finns were affected by the mobilisation i of the Russian forces during 1014 and 1915. IDEAL WATERS FOR SPORTSMAN. The river which we intended to fish is, like all I rivers in these latitudes, of a fluctuating size. . During the first thaw Jn the spring an immense : amount of ice and water comes down, and the river : overflows its banks and becomes a roaring torrent. As this gradually subsides the river occupies 5 a defined bed in the center of its course and its banks in summertime are composed of polished 1 i t t s t c t 3 1 j , . j , , , , , , , , , . , i , ; ; i 1 ! i I . : : 5 1 masses of granite rock of all sizes and shapes, i It is easy to imagine that banks of this sort do not afford easy walking, and progress up and down i the river is slow and difficult, while an attempt 1 to follow a fisli for any distance would be hope- less. Fishing from the bank consists here of sitting or standing on a prominent rock, whose i access requires an activity only slightly less than : that of a mountain goat. 1 The . point for which we were making was the 1 head of the only large pool which as far as I know j exists in this river, which above this goes for 1 miles in an endless succession of rapids, and if you have time and endurance enough you will even- i tually reach a large lake. 1 At the point where the rapids terminate the Laps i had constructed a most ingenious bridge across the river, which at this point was quite 300 yards i wide. Large posts were driven into the river bed i at intervals of about fifteen feet, and a single I plank bridge about eight inches wide was lashed to these uprights. Resting against and secured to these was a complete barrage of smaller stakes about two inches in diameter and about two inches : apart, which were driven slantwise into the bed of : the river in an upstream direction. This made it : impossible for a fish of any size to get upstream except by jumping over the bridge, which was : about five feet above the ordinary level of the river. There were three large traps in this formidable erection, but how exactly these were con- , structed I was unable to see. The fact remains that twice a day the natives would arrive and clear these traps with a large landing net, and whenever this was done when I was present there were several good fisli in each trap. A few years of this sort of trapping would inevitably ruin the salmon fishing altosetlier, one would think, but I was delighted to see a fish of about fifteen pounds jump clean over the whole bridge within twenty yards of where I was standing fishing. So perhaps they are better able to look after themselves than one imagines! The outing which I am attempting to describe was an ideal one, and will always be a red-letter day in my memory. Soon after we arrived at the pool the wind sprang up from the north just strongly enough to drive the mosquitoes away, and for the rest of the afternoon we were able to discard our nets and fish unhampered in any way, which was a great help and contributed enormously to the enjoyment. THE FIERCE FISH WHICH GOT AWAY. We ranged ourselves along the bridge and made preparations to begin. I had not got my rod together before I saw a big fisli break surface about thirty yards below me, and it was with great hopes and some misgivings as to my short line that I tied a good sized "silver doctor" onto my cast and, after a few preliminary casts to soak my line, offered him the lure. It is not often that one is literally successful with a first cast, but on this occasion he took it like a shark and in a second my rod was bent double and my small trout reel was fairly shrieking out . There was never any doubt as to where this fish was bound for; lie was going back to the salt water from which lie had evidently only just arrived, where there were no gaudy lures witli hooks in them to annoy him. And there was never really any doubt at all that he would get there. I checked him witli about a half dozen turns of, line still on the reel, and for a brief moment I thought he was coming up again. But lie changed his mind, and after a prodigious leap into the air lie looked enormous he started off down stream again. The reel hummed out for a few more turns and then stopped, and a second t later came that terrible feeling which all fishermen must have experienced at some time and must dread. The rod suddenly straightened and my heart stopped beating for several minutes, so it seemed, till a limp feeling came over me as I realized that he had really gone. And it was even worse than I thought; the line had parted right on the reel itself, and examination showed that as it ran out it had literally worn a groove in one of the guards of the reel and then been cut on the ragged edge of the groove as if by a knife. I knew that something would go and I had hoped it would be the cast, but no sucli luck. I had lost the whole of my line as well as my cast within ten minutes of arriving at the pool. It was a terrible catastrophe and one which I could ill afford. Still, I had my spare line and I set to work to wind it on to the reel and get to work again as soon as possible, being careful on this occasion to lead the line outside the damaged reel guard to prevent the same thing happening again. I recommenced fishing in practically the same place, but for the next half hour or so nothing was seen. I thou changed my fly to a smaller sea trout fly, a red body and white wing, and continued fishing close under the bridge. At almost my first cast I was into a good fish, but I think it was more the change of ground than the change of fly which caused this. I have never found that there is much choice in flies in this part of the world, the chief tiling to get the fly over the fisli and to allow it to go down stream with little drag on it. I landed this next fish without trouble after about ten minutes and he proved to ba a fine one of about five pounds. A quarter of an hour later I had caught another of almost the same weight, and as I was gaffing this I disturbed a much bigger one which was lying almost underneath where I was standing. I marked the place on the plank, and having safely deposited my fish behind a large rock on dry laud, I returned to try for the bigger one. KEEN STRUGGLE AND A FINE PRIZE. It was not an easy matter to offer this fish the fly, as lie was lying so close to the barrage; but after several attempts I managed to flick my fly into the required position and he took it at once, He went straight down stream and I had visions of a repetition of my first adventure; but I man-; aged to check him at about forty yards and lie then contented himself with darting from side to side and attempting to bore to the bottom. His efforts were most gallant, but after about twenty minutes he was obviously tiring, and I began to press him more and more, till eventually I had the satisfaction of bringing him to the sur-: face, where he lay on his side. Thinking he was quite beat I reeled in until lie was close under the bridge, but the sight of me on the bridge above him put new life into the fisli and with a last effort he dashed under the planks, taking a complete turn round one of the upright posts supporting the bridge. He lay exhausted on his side, the cast finnly round a rough timber post, and it was obvious that even a kick would be sufficient to part the cast, which was only a single gut. I realized that the situation was desperate and that no time was to be lost, and so, shouting to one of my companions to come and hold my rod, I lay down on the plank and gently slipped the long gaff into the water above him. He was lying about two feet below the surface, and so, carefully measuring the distance, I struck i i 1 i : 1 1 j 1 i 1 i i i I : : : : , at him and managed to gaff him just below the shoulders. He gave a tremendous kick and the cast parted like a bit of cotton, but I had him up ou the bridge in a second and jinyi companion and I literally fell upon him. My gaff was a home-made one, not a good shape, and it was no easy task to carry the struggling fisli along the narrow, badly constructed bridge to the bank. My companion endeavored to hold his tail while I held the protruding point of the gaff in one hand and the handle in the. other, and in this way we made our perilous passage toward dry land. As luck had it the last plank was particularly narrow and uneven, and one of us nearly slipped in, disturbing the balance of the other; so that for a moment the fish was left hanging on the gaff. He took full advantage of this and with a last despairing struggle flung himself clear of the gaff and landed in the water below There he lay on his back in a sort of backwater, drifting slowly down the stream, and my feelings can be better imagined than described. My companion, however, was equal to tho. occasion; he was off the bridge and into the water in a second, and actually picked the fish out of the water as it drifted down, and it was safely landed. After a coup de- grace with the butt of the gaff it was left with the other two in a place of safety. It weighed fifteen pounds and was a lovely deep, fresh-run fish, and the best I caught that year. My companions rescue was truly a wonderful performance, and if it had not been for him the fish would have been lost. "We fished till about 9 p. m., and then reluctantly gave it up and returned to our ships. I caught three more fish, one of twelve pounds, which was not so fresh-run, though quite a sporting fish; another of nine pounds, which was in excellent condition, and one more of five pounds, my total creel being sis fish weighing fifty-one pounds and total time of fishing about six hours. My two companions between them caught five others, none very large, and two or three beautiful brown trout of about two pounds weight each, and we returned to our ships that night with a great feeling of contentment. I caught several other fish in the same pool that year, but never had a day like this again, though I have no doubt that the same could be equaled or bettered without difficulty, especially if one had a more suitable rod and more time. The best fish landed from the bridge that year on a rod weighed twenty-two pounds, but fish of thirty pounds and more are caught in the nets and traps by the Laps. The one that broke me was perhaps one of these, and I am sufficiently a fisherman to believe that he was nearer thirty than twenty pounds in weight. Capt. II. A. Le F. Hurt, C. M. G., in Badminton Magazine.
