Ladies and Gentlemen,
Now comes the most epic and adventurous and unbelievable thing I have yet experienced during my entire 8 months in Sakhalin. A week ago I had heard rumors from people of a river (Bahura River) about 3+ hours from our city (Yuzhno Sakhalinsk) where there were so many fish that they caught the fish with 4 methods: bait casting, fly fishing, catching with bare hands and 1 fish was even laso'd (yes you heard it right - laso'd). After hearing of this place me, Matt Saunders and Oleg said that we MUST go ASAP. So we planned the trip and off we were. We left the campsite and took an absolutely gorgeous drive through forests, coves and cliffs overlooking the Okhotsk Sea. Words don't do it just so I will let the pictures do the talking.
After about 2 hours of driving up and down a very bumpy but beautiful dirt road (that made Emmie pretty sick) we finally reached the river and we could not be more excited as we had heard incredible stories about this river. Our first view of the river left us absolutely breathless. We caught our 1st view of the river as we crossed the upper part in the car and as we crossed the river I thought to myself "What a nasty river it is completely black..........wait............that's not water...............those are fish...................there are no words.................". Literally people, there were probably 10,000 to 100,000 salmon in this one small stretch of the river. There were enough fish that I am pretty sure if I stepped in the river that the fish would throw me out :-).
Now comes the most epic and adventurous and unbelievable thing I have yet experienced during my entire 8 months in Sakhalin. A week ago I had heard rumors from people of a river (Bahura River) about 3+ hours from our city (Yuzhno Sakhalinsk) where there were so many fish that they caught the fish with 4 methods: bait casting, fly fishing, catching with bare hands and 1 fish was even laso'd (yes you heard it right - laso'd). After hearing of this place me, Matt Saunders and Oleg said that we MUST go ASAP. So we planned the trip and off we were. We left the campsite and took an absolutely gorgeous drive through forests, coves and cliffs overlooking the Okhotsk Sea. Words don't do it just so I will let the pictures do the talking.
Our dirt road and beautiful cove cliffs
After about 2 hours of driving up and down a very bumpy but beautiful dirt road (that made Emmie pretty sick) we finally reached the river and we could not be more excited as we had heard incredible stories about this river. Our first view of the river left us absolutely breathless. We caught our 1st view of the river as we crossed the upper part in the car and as we crossed the river I thought to myself "What a nasty river it is completely black..........wait............that's not water...............those are fish...................there are no words.................". Literally people, there were probably 10,000 to 100,000 salmon in this one small stretch of the river. There were enough fish that I am pretty sure if I stepped in the river that the fish would throw me out :-).
Notice the large black spot in that takes up all the water - yes - that is about 2,000 salmon. Incredible. My mind could not comprehend how many fish were in this river.
Eventually we made it down to our fishing spot after going up and down the cliffs a few times trying to find the beach. Wow! Again this experience was like a story book. We were in an incredibly beautiful location, there were hundreds of thousands of salmon waiting to be caught, I had the opportunity to go with great friends Matt/Emmie Saunders, Oleg, Luke and Misha - The only downside is the Carrie, Ildar and Ilveera could not join us - they would have LOVED this experience (We missed you guys a lot this day and I especially missed my bride/fishing buddy Carrie). We were all so fired up that rather than eat breakfast most of us as quickly as possible put together our fishing rods and hit the river and within about five minutes we all had our first catch. We spent the rest of this day fishing, laughing, again enjoying God's miraculous creation and enjoying each others' company. We each probably caught between 20 and 30 salmon and kept about 5 - 7 each. We filled an entire Igloo cooler just with salmon filets and caviar that took 2 people to carry! It makes smile thinking back on this day - What a memorable life moment with great friends - Thanks again everyone for always being willing to hop in on every crazy adventure - I am so thankful for all of you and each of you bring much joy to my life. Now it's picture time!
Me casting out the fly rod. See all the ripples in the water - those are fish.
What a beautiful location to spend my last Sakhalin Summer weekend!
Emmie with her first salmon!!! She loves the slime and wiggliness of the fish, as you can tell
Me fighting another salmon on the fly rod. So much fun fly fishing. I was using a 6 wt fly rod/line so it made for quite a challenge bringing the fish in. 5 - 40 minutes of fighting for each fish (depending on fish size and aggressiveness). Ended up breaking the rod near the end of the day because the fish were so stinking big - it was totally worth it :-)
Our driver Gregory enjoying some fishing. I really enjoyed having Gregory on this trip because he was so happy to be fishing and also he is so patient with me practicing my Russian as he and I spoke in Russian for the entire 2-3 hour ride back home from the river.
More fish fighting. This is still the same fish I am fighting from the earlier picture.
Still fighting. But now I have Luke helping out trying to net the fish once I got him near the bank. It was a BIG fish.
Still fighting...Will the fish ever give up... It has been about 30 minutes by now...
VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Check out this big sucker!
Oleg is hungry from skipping his breakfast earlier.
Another monster catch! Thanks Luke for helping net the fish couldn't have caught them without your help.
Ginormous! Another 30 - 40 minute fight.
Matt Saunders Fishing Master
Misha, your lucky sweater worked REALLY good today. I think your grandfather would be proud!
Difficult to see but if you can zoom in on the picture you will see small heads from wild seals that were fishing right near us. Wow!
Check out this wicked looking salmon and the guy with the wicked looking hat.
Matt doing the ritual salmon call dance to entice the salmon to bite his lure over ours. The results were inconclusive.
Matt trying salmon catching option #3 - Bare Hands
Emmie all by herself hooking and now fighting her first salmon on a fly rod - Impressive
Nice catch Sir Luke!
Emmie still fighting
Victory! What a big sucker
This fish was a bit camera shy.
Every ripple and/or black spot in the picture is salmon...thousands of them...
Oleg the Conqueror
Me sad because I knew this would be my last catch of the day because I knew we needed to leave. :-(
The fishermen/woman after our epic adventure and a cooler full of salmon filets. What a great day.
Matt and I holding bags with all the filets - They were HEAVY!!!
We filled an ENTIRE SHELF of the fridge with just our salmon filets and caviar. I see us eating salmon in our future :-)
Friends, we are so greatful that God has given us the opportunity to live in such a beautiful and exciting place where we can have adventures like this and such great friends to experience every adventure with. What adventures have you been wanting to do but have allowed time constraints, long drives, stress keep you from going? If this weekend was any indication I truly feel that God has used weekends and adventures like this to add richness, fullness and joy to my life. I hope the same can happen for you.
I hope that you have enjoyed these posts about my last weekend and for those in Texas I hope to be able to see you during my to weeks in Houston and for those in Yuzhno, I will miss you over the next month. Enjoy some adventures without me but save all the best ones for when I get back.
Brendan/red
