Zhnpanova River rainbows are resident and “coastal” strains of fish. The resi-dent fish (left) have markings similar to Alaska rainbows. Coastal ‘bows havethe darker backs, similar to North American steelhead. Reindeer (above) arenative to the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Yelizova (inset left) is surrounded by active volcanoes.Russian military helicopters take fishermen to thefishing. Zhupanova River resident rainbows (above)are thick-bodied in preparation for spring spawning.

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RUSSIA

KAMCHATKA

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LASKA POINTS ITS BONY Aleutian Islands finger at theKamchatka Peninsula just north of the Russian city ofPetropavlovsk (Peter-Paul) as though suggesting somethingthat fishermen have long suspected: If Alaska is so good tous, then perhaps untouched Kamchatka can be better.

We could lust after distant honey holes, but because Kamchatkahad been closed to foreigners since the communist revolution of1918, no fisherman could decipher whether the rumors of anangling shangri-la had any substance. So when the first group ofAmerican fly fishermen touched down last spring in a U.S. charterat Provideniya in east Siberia and headed tentively south toAnadyr, hop, skipping, and jumping from tiny airport to airporttoward Petropavlovsk, their Alaska charter was the first foreignplane ever to land at the military air bases. In April of 1992 Tony Sarp and John Donovan on a Mark Air 737 had landed at Yelisova to explore the Kamchatka fishing. Theirplane, greeted by television cameras, had been the first foreign air-craft ever to land in Kamchatka. Before Sarp’s arrival, the“Ruskies” had expected U.S. bombers or missiles. Defendingagainst intrusion, Kamchatka-based MIG interceptors had evenshot down a wayward Korean airliner.

V A L L E Y O F G E Y S E R S

EASTERNRUSSIA

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Bering Sea

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Brown bears (inset above)grow large on the Kamchatkasalmon runs near the Valleyof Geysers, where Americanguides skinny dip in 100-degree water.

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KAMCHATKA IS LOCATED on the edgeof one of the earth’s platescalled the Rim of Fire, stretch-ing from our Northwest toAlaska across the Bering Sea and

down the east coast of Russia to Japan.Along the rim spectacular volcanoesthrust high into the sky and spew forthlandscape-shaping lava. Kamchatka is aland of volcanoes, ten of them active inthe Petropavlovsk region. As Tony Sarpputs it: “There are hot springs every-where. It’s like a hugh YellowstonePark.“ The Valley of Geysers, 30 min-utes by chopper from the Zhupanova,is an inactive volcanic caldera, a largerocky valley carpeted with meadow

grasses shotthrough with wispsand geysers ofsteam and sur-rounded by standsof birch. Hugh beartracks mark the softmuds. As Valley of Geysers managerVitalii Nikolaenki describes it, the areais home ground for the largest concen-tration of brown bears in Kamchatka,and his life’s work of photographingthem comprises the single largest col-lection of bear photographs in theworld--50,000 slides and prints. TheValley of Geysers is a day-long interludein the Cedar Lodge fishing.

and nearby Yelisova are twin cities with some 500,000people, white and other ethnic Russians who had beenenticed to live in cold and remote Kamchatka Peninsulaby incentive pay under the communist government.According to The New York Times, since the fall ofcommunism in the old Soviet Union large numbers ofpeople have left this area to return to their nativeprovinces, while a few are newly arrived in search of

Our plane last summer was only the fourth “foreign-er“ to land at the bases, but the Russian children some-how knew we were coming and were there on the tar-mac at Anadyr to trade suddenly outdated Lenin medalsfor dollars as we headed the 750 miles south toward theZhupanova River. We had heard that the Zhupanova was an unusualriver, with runs of five Pacific salmon species and“coastal rainbows” that averagedeight pounds and with somefish as large as 15 pounds.Coastal rainbows are an anoma-ly, fish that, unlike steelhead, arebrief visitors to the salt, oppor-tunists that spawn and live forshort periods in the rivers andthen depart to the sea for sever-al months before returning. Not much was known aboutcoastal rainbows (mikizha).Would they be like LakeIlliamna rainbows--football-shaped silver rockets that couldtake you into your backing andperhaps spool you? Rumors hadit that some of the answers layin a 40-page recent Americantranslation of Russian researchpapers on the Kamchatka riverscalled, grandly, “The NobleTrout of Kamchatka,“ but noone knew where to obtain it. Petropavlovsk, situated on adeep arm of the North Pacific,

I F Y O U G O

Rene Limeres Photo

Gold in the vast Kamchatka wilderness. The Zhupanova River and the joint Russian-Sarp Cedar Base Lodge operation lay north of the city, 30 minutes by helicopter, in the 23,000-square-mile Kamchatka Preserve, an unspoiled wilderness forest of birch, aspen, and beech. We were to fish an upper stretch of the river during the last week of May. Two groups of 16 fly fishers would precede us for two weeks. These three groups would fish during the rainbow prespawn and spawning periods. Runoff would begin during the three-week period. The first salmon, kings, would arrive in mid-June, accompanied by a miillion-fish run of Dolly Varden (average five pounds) and themysterious kundzha. (The East Siberian white-spotted charr averages five pounds. Its name is pronounced “kungia”.) The summer runs also include sockeyes, chums, humpies, and silver salmon--but no cherry salmon or sea-run taimen (found on some other Kamchatka rivers). We would fish three days fly-out by Russian military MI-8 helicopters and five days by boat. Oregonians Jim and Donna Teeny, who accompanied the two groups that preceded us, reported that their groups had averaged three rainbows per fisherman, with top rods as high as 20 fish on their best days. The fish were all rainbows, and all were taken on streamers. The prespawn fish had averaged 25 inches and about

The Russians built a new lodge in 1992 on thebanks of the Zhupanova. Kamchatkans, mostlyof white Russian extraction, are warm and wellmannered--and have many gold teeth.

The Russian people are warm, proud, reserved, and well mannered. They like Americans and are eager to barter, especially for rubles, which are rapidly falling in value as the economy weakens. (A Russian earns an average of $30 a month; the exchange rate in November 1993 was 1,200

rubles/$1.) Kamchatka food is basic:the meat--a mixture of reindeer and pork fat; the soup--borscht; the carbohydrates--potatoes. Cedar Base Lodge flies inAmerican meats and is teaching the Russian cooks American dishes. TheZhupanova trips are

10 days, 6 to 8 days of fishing, with from three

to five days of helicopter fishing on 135 miles of rivers and tributaries. Tackle required for the river include 9-foot graphite 7- or 8-weights with reserve power(bring a back-up rod); quality reels with 100 to 200 feet of 20-pound backing; a selection of flies mentioned in this article; 3- to 9-foot abrasion-resistant leaders; felt-sole wading shoes or boots; in spring, five-millimeter neoprene waders, stormwear, down vests, and warm gloves and hats; in summer, wet wading is comfortable. Lines for spring fishing include the Teeny T-200 and T-300 and standard weight-forward floaters and sinking-tips. You are weight-limited to 40 pounds (total) on the flights.

Although spring water temperatures hover between 34°and 40° F., Kamchatka rainbows take the fly hard.

eight pounds. Teeny reported that oneten-pound rainbow had taken him intohis backing. The rest had fought wellbut not with cartwheeling, reel-empty-ing runs. The largest fish taken in thetwo mid-May weeks was a 30-inch fishjust over ten pounds. The largest rain-bow landed on the river last spring wasa 33-inch 13-pound rainbow taken byFred Willey of Fresno, California.

After spawning in the headwaters,the resident rainbows disperse through-out the river. We caught half kelts(spawned-out rainbows) and half pre-spawn fish. When the Teenys’ grouphad arrived in the second week of May,five feet of snow lay melting on theZhupanova River’s banks. Water tem-peratures hovered in the low 30s, andair temperatures ranged from belowfreezing at night to the mid-50s duringthe day. When our pilot, a veteran of Russia’sAfghanistan war, hovered his powerfulchopper down at the newly constructedCedar Lodge on the Zhupanova, the riverran in cold, caramel-colored spring spateand deep patches of corn snow lay melt-ing in the shady areas along the banks.The guides, all Americans from TonySarp’s Katmai Lodge operation onAlaska’s Alagnak River, said the runoff

was in full flush. We would be forced tofish the tributary mouths and the clearright fork of the main river. All the fish-ing would be catch-and-release with barb-less hooks. Our fishing roughly paralleled theTeenys’ second week catch mix--three-quarters kelts and one-quarter prespawnfish. International Sportsmen’s Exposhows promoter Ed Rice on the firstafternoon stepped into a long tributary

eddy and hooked andreleased eight 25-inch rain-bow kelts within twohours. With the main riverin spate, tributary fishingwould keep us busy duringthe week, except when wefished the clear, graveledright fork of the Zhupanovaand day catches jumped tosix, four- to eight-poundrainbows per rod, withhigh rods taking 13 fish.

The First YearAccounts from fishinggroups to the Zhupanovathis past spring and sum-mer have painted a pictureof a superb Kamchatkariver, the first of hundredsawaiting sport-fishingexploration on the peninsu-la. The fishing news isexcellent, but the politicaland economic future ofRussia will determine whathappens on these rivers,because the country’s natu-ral resources are for saleunder the new capitalism. Kamchatka, thanks to agroup of conscientiousAmerican fly fishers, hasmade the right beginning.

As to Russia’s Kola Peninsula, whereAtlantic salmon are the prey, Americansconvinced Russian bureaucrats that flyfishers would not harm the fragile sportfisheries but would pay big bucks tocatch-and-release fish. Convinced thatthey could make money from theirZhupanova River resource withoutinjuring it, the Kamchatkan commu-nists-become capitalists granted anangling franchise to Sarp, who formedTony Sarp’s Kamchatka FishingAdventures and began flying inAmericans to fish.

Coastal RainbowsCoastal rainbows run into and out of theeast-coast rivers of the Kamchatka 750-mile-long peninsula but are less preva-lent in the west-coast streams. Steelheadrun some west-coast rivers but do notrun the east-coast streams. The

Kamchatka River is the largest river sys-tem on the east coast of the peninsula.There are rumors of yard-long rainbowson this river, but exploration is justbeginning. The Zhupanova rainbowsaverage 24 inches long (eight pounds, inlate summer), and during good fishingweeks daily catch rates for experiencedfishermen run around eight fish, butcatches of as high as 20 or as low as twofish per day have been reported.

It’s important to distinguish betweenresident and coastal rainbows on thisriver. Resident fish are more drab, moresilver-gray than the dramatically markedsteelheadlike coastal fish, with theirblack backs and chrome-bright flanks.The coastal fish show up more frequent-ly as the summer wanes, until manylarge male fish appear in September andOctober. The guides report no evidenceof previous spawning on any of thecoastal rainbows caught last summer.The coastal rainbows are much hotterfighters than the resident fish, whichonly occasionally take you into backing,despite their large size.

The 13-pound Willey fish, a river resi-dent, was the longest rainbow taken onthe Zhupanova last year. The heaviestfish measured 29a inches with a 22- to24-inch girth (estimated 14 pounds).Thirty anglers landed rainbows over 30inches long on the river last year. The Zhupanova is a spate freestoneriver that can go out quickly if heavyPacific rains pound the watershed. Itwent out twice in the summer of ‘93after the runoff ended--once for threedays and once for five. But the Americanguides, all Alaska veterans, say thesouthern Kamchatka weather is muchmore even than that of western Alaska,with far fewer rain blowouts and lostfishing days.

Rainbow fishing during the salmonspawning runs--late June throughSeptember--provides excellent mousefishing. Pounding banks and holdingcover with standard Alaska-style mousepatterns provide the action. The guidesreport that, unlike the rainbows inAlaska, Zhupanova fish seldom holdnear the salmon spawning redds to pickoff eggs. Here the fish hold in relativelyshallow weedy runs, in water as thin asfrom one to two feet deep and with theright current speed.

Egg-fly and streamer fishing in the deepmain-river holding pools can provide con-stant action on ‘bows, with egg patternsfished on a floating line and 30 inches ofleader with a strike indicator, and split-shotfrom 8 to 12 inches above the egg. PurpleEgg-sucking Leeches and Mink Muddlers(#2 and #4) are hot flies during the salmonruns. Clouser Deep Minnows--white/blue

T H E F I S H E S O F K A M C H A T K A

fins is characteristic of North Americanchar. It, too, is a coastal fish, enteringthe Kamchatka rivers to feed opportunis-tically on salmon eggs and lingering tospawn in fall before returning to thelower reaches of the rivers or the salt.Zundzha on this river average aroundeight pounds, and an experienced anglercan catch from eight to ten fish a dayduring peak periods in late August andSeptember. The largest Zhupanovazundzha taken last year measured 39inches and weighed 18 pounds.

The zundzha makes short powerfulruns with headshakes and tail-to-headthrusts of its body. Experienced anglersuse the rod to cushion against thesehigh-torque thrusts, but many large fishare lost by fishermen unfamiliar with thetechnique (strong tippets are not theanswer). The zundzha is truly a trophychar that, along with the river’s largerainbows, should make Kamchatka aworld-class fly-rod destination.

Alaska vs. Kamchatka

The six Alaska guides who have fishedand guided the Zhupanova agree thatthis river compares with the best rain-bow-trout fishing in Alaska. AsZhupanova guide Guy Fulhart describesit: “The river has the rainbow fishingthat Alaska used to have, but with muchbetter weather.“ Howard Eskin, a veter-an Alaska fisherman, describes the fishas the “most beautifully conditionedrainbows I have ever seen.“

Which begs the question: Why? Intwo words: Food and no fishing harvest.Unlike Alaska streams, the Zhupanovahas an extremely rich biota of mayflies,caddis, and stoneflies--all evident inthe bottom life and the hatches thatcome off in clouds. The adult rainbowsdo not feed much on the hatches, per-haps because there are so many other,larger foods to devour--a spring-longfeast of fry and smolts and a summer-

long milkshake of salmon eggs. Is it anywonder that this river has quicklyclaimed a rank among the world’s bestrainbow fisheries? The Russians intend to protect it.Catch-and-release fishing will be main-tained, and outfitting and guiding willbe strictly controlled. The river is inac-cessible except by aircraft, and river-mouth commercial netting is strictlycontrolled. The Russians have beenapproached by industrial logging con-cerns from Japan and other countries,but they show little inclination to allowa rape of their precious wilderness. TheKamchatka Preserve is one of sixuntouched and unspoiled virgin forestsremaining on the globe. Fly fishers areamong the very few visitors allowed toenjoy this special place.

Large rainbows (right) are themain attraction in Kamchatka,but kundzha (above), arcticcharr (below), and salmon alsoprovide exciting fishing.

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or white/chartreuse--#4 Teeny Nymphs,and a Zhupanova innovation called theStrawberry Shortcake are hot flies duringrunoff. The largest rainbows are taken in thefall, after they have fed all summer onsalmon eggs and flesh. The guides andanglers beleive that large four-year (orolder) coastal ‘bows follow the silversalmon runs (as late as December) into

June through mid-August, and silversalmon (six- to eight-pound average)begin to show on the upper Zhupanovaaround mid-August, and the runs contin-ue until late December. The spawning areas on the river arecrowded with salmon, which providethe basic food for the brown bears ofKamchatka. (The largest brown bears inthe world--some boars weigh over aton--are found on the Kamchatka

the river and stay through winter untilspawning. Rainbow catch rates increasein September, and the fish are large.

Salmon

The salmon runs on the Zhupanova are,with one exception, smaller than the runson most Bristol Bay Alaska rivers. Despiterumors of 30-kilo kings, Zhupanova fishaverage around 20 pounds and spawnmostly in the lower river. Sockeye (Junethrough mid-July) are also a small lower-river run, with fish averaging fourpounds. Chum salmon begin their runs inmid-June and run through mid-July (aver-age eight pounds). A three- to four-millionfish run of humpies (pinks, four- to seven-pound average) clogs the river from mid-

Peninsula, and more browns per squaremile are found here than anywhere elseon earth.) Howard Eskin, Ph.D., of NewYork City, reports seeing as many as 38bears in one day, but other anglers sayan eight-bear day is normal during thespawning runs. The bears are hunted,and they are shy of humans and havenot learned yet that the sound of ascreaming reel means food.

Kundzha

The East Siberian White Spotted Char arecomparable in fighting qualities to theNorth American Arctic Char. The dusky-gray fish has soft white circles centeredwith red dots along its flanks, and thedramatic white outlining along its ventral