Azhabachie Lake - part 1

On the next day we had decided to go to the nearby Azhabachie Lake. The big water body is famous by its sockeye salmon spawning grounds and by «hordes» of brown bears. At the image is the downstream view at the Kamchatka R. from the mouth of the channel, connecting the river with the lake. The channel is about 10 km long. The «Raduga» biological station at the channel belongs to the Institute of Marine Biology (Rus. Acad. of Sciences, Vladivostok). Here the scientists study the ecosystem of the lake. We go upstream the channel, heading to the lake At one good-looking spot of the channel we have seen lots of rising fish and decided to stop for fishing. Some of these fish were smolts of Pacific salmon (coho). Some small charrs feeding with insects were also caught with a dry fly. Andrey was able to catch something bigger with a heavy leader. It is a char. Some of the caught fish were in bright spawning colors. I have hooked something strong and fast moving It looks like a trout! Yes, it is one, silver and fat fish. It is a good size fat trout with a healed scar from some predator (otter?). The trout in the lake outlet feed with sockeye smolts, so they have enough food. Finally our boat is nearing the Azhabachie Lake, which is 13 km long and up to 36 m deep.