Description of the Ponoi River – Salmon Heaven
For many hours the helicopter carries us straight eastwards. Through the small windows we watch the mighty and endless Tundra. Beneath us we see massive herds of reindeers and occasionally a big Brown bear – A true adventure and definitely the onset of a lifelong memory.
Ponoi emerges as a silver band just under the horizon. Since the dawn of time the heavy current has cut its way through the landscape creating one of the biggest canyons in Eastern Europe. From up here the Ponoi looks almost intimate, but once we are down and into our waders, we realize that Ponoi River is a king size river. Salmon angling with a fly is true passion, and in a river like Ponoi all your dreams come true.
Ponoi River is one of the most productive Salmon rivers on earth, and you will have to search very hard to find such a unique and unspoiled Salmon stock. The Ponoi River with an overall length of 400 kilometres is the longest river on the Kola Peninsula. It flows parallel and just north of the polar circle, through the largest nature reserve on Kola. With numerous lakes in the system, the water flow is very stable and remains nearly unaffected by rain or dry conditions.
Ponoi is regarded as a big river with 60 to 150 meters from bank to bank, but it is quite shallow with an average depth of about 1.5 meters. The fishing is productive both wading or fishing from boat and in many places you will find pools and holding places side by side across the river as if two or three rivers were braided together.
Ponoi has several runs of salmon, but we focus on and offer the most prolific weeks in June and July. Wildlife is abundant and from May throughout the summer the area is practically invaded by a variety of birds of all kinds from ducks and songbirds to falcons and eagles.
The area is sparsely populated by descendants of the ancient northern Sami people. A few miles west of our Acha Camp you will find a village with around 60 permanent residents.
We are proud to offer our Ponoi program– In the Acha Camp you will find our luxury camp located right at the awesome junction of Acha River and Ponoi river. Probably the best pool in the entire Ponoi River system.
For the fit salmon bum we offer our “Acha River Explore Program” – 7 days in the most breathtaking environment in all aspects – Both programs are top notch stuff and priced near one third of other programs – Welcome to Ponoi !
