Our friend and Le Mouching ambassador Ken from Elsass was in Kamchatka 10 days ago, loooking for Steelhead in the last days of fall, or the first days of winter. Here’s especially for you, a little journal of his journey!kenchopper

In search of a Big Mama.

I came back, I always think about Steelhead! Steelhead in my Head. With  my friends Martin, Franck, Ilya, Jena aka “Jev Geisha” and our  Gentleman Vladimir… we organised, this year, a trip to Kamchatka! 12 time zones East, we went to search a Silver Arrow….called Steelhead! That trip is not  is not a holiday we flew 16 hours, drove 8 in a truck and took an helicpter foan extra hour to get to the river of our dreams.

Now, we are ready! First Camp = Hope!camp-river

From the first day, we planned to go up the river where Steelhead do their autumn run. The First 3 days led us to a beautiful river, filled with Kundja, Mikija and one Steelhead ! But we’re not alone, we have competition on the river, a bear.kundja1

We had a very nice tent camp, easy to move and comfortable, even in the frozen mornings and snowy days! Kamchatka is a tough country especially when you go fishing mid october, you can get the four seasons in a day! After 3 days fishing, between a warm 41°F during the day, cool nights at 30 and mornings with 14 and snow… the  of the day , at the evening 0°C and the morning day -5 to -10°c with snow… the score was 0 Steelhead and 2 men down (sick).campneige2

But we have to keep up the good mood and tomorrow morning, we move the camp for a better sector which has more big pool for Steelhead! We  finaly settle into winter fishing for steelhead! Snow, wind and frozen weather all of the day. And than our friend Frank caught the first Steelhead! Sadly, this steelhead was taken by gills with an intruder… Our Russian Guide in his best French said: C’est la vie…arc1

It’s great to see a friend open the score of the week! Encouraging…. Now we must persevere!

The  same day, in the evening, in the pool a front of the camp…. no one caught any fish! Not even a Kundja…

I told myself  “Ken, there has to be a big moma that took that pool as a house, Find it!”

In a mechanical mode, I fished every part of the pool

Bang! A major strike, a big rush on 150 yards! It’s so good, I’m hooked, at last! It had to be like that, I previously lost two fish I need this one!petite-steelhead-ken

That’s it, the French Connection is in the game!

We found the fishing we were looking for, rough weather, itinerant camp, tough fishing, psychologically challenging, everythign I like !kundja

Waiting for the helicopter t take us back, our head is already filled with memories, regrets and fantaisies, because although we hooked some serious big mamas, none of them were taken to the shore, they all broke free. Now, we have to come back!

Enjot the pictures, soon you’ll see the film on Le Mouching !

Ken from Elsass