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On Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, fishing on the Ozernaya and Two Yurt rivers has been canceled this season. These are the two waters formerly represented by Will Blair of Best of Kamchatka. Fly Water Travel is now representing these rivers. Brian Gies of Fly Water Travel says the owner of the Ozernaya and Two Yurt operation, Victor Rebrikov, pulled the plug on the 2010 season, citing lack of demand. “There was just not enough interest given the current flight situation,” says Gies. “We are staying in contact and hoping to get it going again. However, I think we need direct air service to and from Alaska to get enough people to make a viable operation for Victor.”
Elsewhere on Kamchatka, thankfully, it’s business as usual, albeit in smaller numbers than in the heyday of the Anchorage-Petropavlosk air connection. Paul Allred of Ouzel Expeditions, for example, tells us “…We’re still running the best trips we can on the rivers with the best fishing in Kamchatka! Our trips offer easy wading downstream every day. To make that possible, we’ve located our camps at what we think are perfect intervals on the river.” Allred notes that he still has a few spots left for this summer, including two rods from August 21 to 28 and five rods August 28 to September 4. Ouzel routes all of its clients to Petropavlosk via Moscow.
Rene Limeres of Ultimate Rivers had this to say about his operation at press time: “As you can probably guess, we have scaled way back on our Kamchatka program to adjust to the steep decline in interest from Americans. We have just a few trips planned this year for late summer-fall. Almost all our participants are Europeans accessing through Moscow. We’ll be offering between seven- and 10-day adventures, mostly on southern west coast rivers, with one east coast river, the Zhupanova, scheduled for late September. At this point, we have rods open in late September and we may also have some room in late August.”
As for The Fly Shop, that company’s Russia coordinator, Ryan Peterson, sent us this update at press time: “We’ve had no change to our Kamchatka program since we set it last fall. We do have some availability remaining for 2010 on the Sedanka, including two rods, July 6 to 16 (a special 10-day trip for the same price as a seven-day trip); two rods, July 16 to 23; and one rod, July 23 to 30. We also have one rod available for an exploratory float expedition July 16 to 23, and three rods open for an exploratory August 20 to 27. On the Zhupanova, we have three rods each available for two float trips August 27 to September 3 and September 3 to 10, and two rods available at Zenzur Lodge August 13 to 20.”