Who we are?
Who is better to tell about who we are than our beloved clients? Please read below their experiences with us.
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My first Salmon – Umba river
Hej Steffen
My first Atlantic Salmon on a Fly! And what a beauty! 
This funky 14 lbs. took my fly (Red Butt) at Upper Rats and my knees where shakin’ immediately, because half an hour before i lost one about 8 lbs. at Junction Pool. So this one had to be mine and it took me 15 extremely nervous and sweating minutes and some calming words of Thorsten (thanx, buddy!) to get it.
And than it was mine. What an experience. That was f****** awesome!
Several friends of mine warned me before: Do you REALLY want to do this? Nothing will be like before! Think about that! Well, I did. And i have to say: They were right. I’m hooked. I’m a Junky now. I will come back again! 
Cheers, mate! And thanks a lot for the opportunity to fish at such a fantastic river like Umba!
Hope to see you soon!
TL
Jan Blumentritt
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Hey Steffen and Kåre,
Thanks for your terrific organization. You guys from Salmon junkies have done an excellent job once again.
After a week back in Germany, I really start to understand which unique week I had in Umba 1- 8 October. All together I caught 7 salmon and three over 20 Ibs. ++ (20, 24, 26 Ibs- 95 cm, ) – simply unbelievable. I’m infected after my second year in UMBA. – now I think I am on my way being a true “Salmon Junkie”.
I would like to book for next year in Umba.
The week 38 and 39 would be my temporal favorites. Is anything still free? – Please let me know.
Many thanks,
Heinz
Ps. All my Salmon took a Billy Butt size 6
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Hi Steffen
What a week we had. Thank you for your hospitality. It was also a great party and good to make new friends. I know Illtyd has booked and we have a mutual friend who we are hoping will come as well. No doubt some of the others will be back as well. Memories of my last day will remain with me for ever….Beautiful fresh fish of 10, 18 and 26lbs.
With best wishes
David A. Birnage
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Hi All
I want to thank all of you most sincerely for a wonderful week’s fishing on the Umba, you made it all so easy for me to have the wonderful opportunity to fish the glorious Umba.
Every part of the trip was absolutely first class. On the drive from Murmansk to the lodge and back again the drivers were excellent, very careful and taking no chances. The Lodge itself surpasses much more expensive one’s I have used in America, the cuisine was excellent, if a little strange at times. The guide’ Igor is probably the best guide / ghillie I have ever had the pleasure of fishing with. He is so courteous and helpful at all times and nothing you ask of him is any problem. The river itself is what most people would dream of when considering Atlantic salmon fishing, it is just so perfect. I want to thank Anne Mette for being so professional in arranging the trip (Steffen did his little bit too ). Kare for all his invaluable advice and last but not least the C.E.O. Steffen for putting up with me. You guy’s deserve to do very well together as a team. I think that I would make Anne Mette the C.E.O. and make Steffen number two fishing guide.
Jim has already being in contact with you about next year so I will not comment on that except to say that it will not come quick enough.
Kindest regards,
Tom Sharkey.
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Hey Steffen – This year 2011 has been an awesome year of salmon fishing for me. It started in July with a week on the Gaula River in Norway followed by 3 days in Iceland, and then topped off with the week on the Umba. I had great fishing in Norway and Iceland, but my week on the Umba was like frosting on the cake. What a way to end my year! I have to tell you that my last day on the Umba was one of the best days of my salmon fishing career, which spans more than 37 years now. I have had lot of days were I have caught more salmon in one day, which were also memorable days, but to catch 5 salmon of 16, 16, 18, 19 and 20 pounds (a 17.8 pounds per fish average) has to stand out as the most memorable of all of previous best days by far. In addition, the fresh run fall salmon in the Umba have to be the most beautiful and strong salmon that I have seen anywhere. They are absolutely awesome fish….a true test for any angler! The Umba is as beautiful a river as I have seen anywhere. That is not to say it is an easy river to fish. The Krivetz section of the river requires a lot of walking to get to the beats, the wading is treacherous in many areas and the constantly changing current seams and dead spots require good casting and line control skills, but the rewards are certainly worth the pain and efforts. I have already started to try to figure out how I can get back to the Umba for another try at the legendary Osenka salmon there, so I am sure that I will be back again in another year or two.
Best regards,
Terry Nab
Lewiston, Idaho USA
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Respected angler/famous author from the USA, Richard Nightingale, has fished with Steffen Juhl on several occasions and is very enthusiastic about the way things are done, even going as far as calling Steffen “our modern day Lee Wulff”. High praise indeed. He says about the camp and fishing: “The Ponoi is today the most prolific Atlantic salmon river in the world. It is wide, relatively shallow and easily waded. The fish are not as large as in the Laxa i Adaldal or the Grand Cascapedia, but their abundance satisfies everyone except the fish hog. With only two fishing camps on the river, there is plenty of space for everyone. “Ponoi Acha is a real fisherman’s camp. After dinner you have the option of fishing in front of the camp or joining an angler’s impromptu round table. I prefer the latter since you gain new insights on methods and techniques for luring Salmo salar.”
Richard Nightingale.
New Jersey, USA
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Dear Steffen,
The week on Acha camp was .SUPERBE..We were just 6 anglers: 3 from Amerika,1 from Finland and 2 from France. The weather was changing every half day. We had all sorts of conditions – From tough and unmerciful heavy rain for 2 days, to warm and sunny days…Temperature from 8 to 18° Celsius.
Level of the river up and down, every day….Salmons were certainly running this week, so good conditions for the fishing.
We was using all methods. Dry flies. Rifling hitch and traditional methods…And finally – No Mosquitoes…Just a Salmon heaven. Total of the week were 300 fish, 45 were weighted between 11 and 22 pounds (the Ponoi since 2 years now produce bigger size of fish than the past)
The French team was the “Winner”, with an unbelievable number of 159 salmons.(my partner caught 85 and myself 74)
Every one broke his own record, regarding number and/or weight..Paradise…
The last evening our American friend promised the whole group that he would come back next year speaking fluent French…He were sure that the Russian salmons understand the French…
Very warms thanks to Camp manager Steffan. He was as usual a perfect camp manager, to the guides always at disposal, and ready to give a good advice, and to the staff, very efficient, and friendly, all day long – It was surly a wonderful week…
Amitiés.
Bernard Lunel
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Dear Steffen,
I must send my heartfelt thanks to you and your staff for a wonderful introduction to the Ponoi. The conditions proved difficult, but your guides rose to the challenge and gave me and my Spey pages guests the expert advice we needed to find fish. I’ve included a picture of a memorable fish I landed a few days into the trip.
As I have learned on the steelhead waters of British Columbia, to be truly great a river must demand the best of an angler–skill, patience, and above all unshakable faith–and Ponoi is everything a great river must be. I had hoped that salmon fishing in Russia would provide me with that which I value most in steelhead fishing–moments of glory and despair, and above all grand adventure–and Ponoi exceeded my expectations.
Tight lines
Dana Sturn
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Dear Steffen
Fishing and travelling in Russia is never boring. I have been fishing on the Kola Peninsula for some seasons now and I must admit thet every trip is a new experience in one way or the other. This year we gathered the Danish Salmon Mafia and visited Pacha / Acha camp on the fantastic river Ponoi. Everybody was tackled up for Dry Fly salmon fishing on the last week of the season, but we were meet with very high water lever (+2 meter) and conditions never seen before in Ponoi.
The Mafia members are well tackled, so the changing conditions were not a problem. Fishing was tough and weather was changing along the week, but the team worked hard Twenty four hours. Some very nice fish was landed during the week on almost all flies. Ponoi is Ponoi and never lets you down – that is a true statement - We managed to land more than 200 salmon and with some nice fish around in the 15 - +20 lbs range, I landed a silver fresh 15 lbs salmon in Acha Home pool that nearly stripped me for 200 m of backing, and it jumped like no other salmon I have hooked before. Few places if any in the world can offer that.
Thanks a lot to all the guides and especially to Daniel and Steffan for fighting with us day and night, and for super service in both camps.
Thanks Ponoi - hope so se you again, maybe next year.
Tight lines
Bo Bengtsson
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Just to say these are good guys! I have fished in Russia (on the Umba) with Steffen and he know his job and is amongst finest salmon fishers I have seen. He seems to know exactly where a salmon will be and then cast right to it with his single handed rod! Mind you he is makiing short casts as he is normally in the middle of the river! No trees behind him either! Also a great photographer with imagination. Tippet UK.
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Hi Steffen,
This was my 10th trip to the Kola peninsular, and I have to say one of the best. The Ponoi is second to none in terms of comfort and quality. The river is spectacular and the fishing superb, with great variety in the size of the fish. Generally on the Kola you either get smaller fish in quantity or large fish in smaller numbers. Here we had large numbers of fish, and at least 10% were over 15lbs. Whether 5 lbs or 20 though, once the river warmed up a bit, they fought like torpedoes.
Best regards
Julian
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Hi Steffen,
I am writing to let you know what a fantastic and memorable time my brother and I had last week on the Acha float trip. Unbelievably it was just the two of us on the trip and we were looked after brilliantly by Sacha and his two sons, Ed and Joseph. We had let them know at the start of the trip, to just relax, not to bother too much with the formalities that they might need to do with a larger party and this was sealed and firm friendships were made that evening with polishing off a bottle of fine malt whisky. The fishing started a little later than usual, I suspect, on Sunday morning but we had terrific sport for the first three days at the top camp.
Things slowed a little in the middle of the week with the water temperature rising but that did not dampen our spirits and we took to swimming the river instead. With the colder weather on the last couple of days, we once again had unbelievable sport, particularly on the last day when phil and I landed 20 fish between us, with many more that could have been landed had we not been playing them so hard, in order to return them safely. My last hour on the acha was landing 4 fish, losing 4 fish all on a fastly stripped and skated muddler, on a pool about half a km up from the acha camp, casting into the shallow water and retrieving into deeper water watching these submarines bow-wave towards the fly.
Phil and I weren’t too bothered about the ‘numbers game’, but were delighted with the amount of fish that we finally got – something around the 65 mark for the week – more importantly with many memorable takes and lost fish, the biggest being a cracking 18 pounder on the first day. Apart from the first fish which I landed on a double hander, all the rest were landed on single handed rods – with one rod fishing with possibly the cheapest rod money could buy – a Shakespeare beginner rod that cost around 20 pounds (bought in an emergency about two years ago) – this landed close to 30 fish leaving us both with incredibly sore wrists but smiles on our sunburnt faces.
We have to write a special mention of thanks also to Steffan, who looked after us fantastically well at Murmansk and for two days at the Acha camp (we arrived a day earlier as Sacha and the boys were packing up the two camps). He also kindly took us out on the final evening for a couple of hours on the Ponoi with Mark, one of the Scandinavian guides there which resulted in 4 fish, including a nice 15 pounder landed on 6lb nylon. A privilege to fish the mighty Ponoi, but definitely the Acha was a much more interesting experience, we probably only fished through pools no more than twice, and while floating down, missed many magnificent pools that we’ll save until next year.
We would love to provisionally book a week again doing the float trip – probably one week earlier I think next year so please let me know the availability and pricing.
Very warm regards
Dominic Maciocia
Big thanks.
Still trying to “land” on the ground after Kola…. Very Difficult!!!
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Thanks to Steffen for giving me the opportunity to experience this fantastic salmon fishing. I caught over 30 salmon and sea trout and had a great time with riffling hitch and fresh 10 pounds on the single hand rod!
The group was super and we all got along really well. I wouldn’t be surprised if I meet some of them again.
So once again, thanks guys for providing good fun and company.
Kind regards,
Jan Delaporte
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Dear Steffen
Thank you very much for all your hard work and wonderful hospitality last week. I had a fantastic time and have many happy memories. Acha is a magical place and the quality of the fishing is superb. It is now back to hard work! I hope you have a great season and hope very much to see you next year.
Tight lines
James
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Hi Steffen,
I wanted to take a moment to let you know that Craig and I made it through the rest of our trip safely and returned home on schedule this past Friday morning, and to thank you again for everything that you did to help make our stay at the Pacha and Acha Camp successful and enjoyable for all of us. I am not sure how the week would have gone if you had not come to visit the camp for those 3 days.
All of us were extremely grateful for your presence and help. Although the water level in the river was much higher than normal, maybe higher than it has ever been in July, the fishing was still very good. I landed 38 salmon and my friend Craig landed 27. My largest was somewhere between 18 and 20 pounds, and I had quite a few that were between 10 and 15 pounds. I had very few that were under 6 pounds. That was by far the best week of salmon fishing I have ever had. My only regret for the week was that I did not get to see the true nature of the water at low level with the water being so high.
I am sure that there would be many more places to fish with normal water level and that many of them would be more fun to fish with more of the structure (ie, boulders, breaks, etc.) showing. See the river at normal level for summer is what will drive me to return to the river as soon as possible. That, plus being able to skate dry flies, which I really did not get the opportunity to do this trip with the high water. I tried to skate a muddler several times in the later part of the week when the water temperature had warmed, but was not able to raise any salmon to the surface. It seemed like they should come to the surface, but they did not, perhaps I just did not try long enough, or in the right place.
I wish I could say I was glad to be home, but I wish I was still fishing on the Ponoi.
Best regards,
Terry Nab
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Salmon paradise Ponoi!!!
Week 28, at Acha camp Ponoi turned out to be my dream vacation.
The fishing was fantastic, in 6 days I landed no less than 72 beautiful Atlantic salmon with an average of 12 to 14 pounds. More than 50% was fresh fish from the sea.
All the fish was very aggressive on the fly, and dry flies were deadly when the river was clear.
Thanks to the always smiling local staff, and a special thanks to the legendary camp manager Steffen Juhl who did a fantastic job.
I often find my self dreaming about the incredible week I had in Ponoi, this is truly a “salmon paradise”.
Hope to be back next year.
Best regards
H. N.
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Dear Steffen,
I made it safely back to Houston after another wonderful week at the Ponoi Acha camp. I’ve made a number of trips to Kola over the years, and as with all salmon fishing the results have varied. This summer, my good friend Anders Wolmar had put together a truly mixed group of avid anglers from Belgium, Holland, Italy Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I truly enjoy this mix of backgrounds and nationalities, all having one thing in common, a burning interest for fly-fishing and Atlantic salmon. We quickly bonded, and had a great time, often well into the early hours.
Unfortunately, you had to travel back home, for family reasons, a few days prior to our arrival. Your deputy camp manager, Steffan Jensen, had to step up to the plate, and take the command. You have trained him well, as this change went without a flaw. Any difficulties or issues were invisible to the guests, and that is essential for an operation where we all live so close together. Great contingency planning. It should also be mentioned that guide Daniel and the rest of the staff also greatly helped out to make our stay as pleasant as possible.
Last time I visited the Acha camp, we lived in permanent tents. Since that visit, the camp has been upgraded, and were greeted with our own wooden cabins of good quality.
The Ponoi was running unusually high for this time of the year, and that affected our fishing somewhat. But that said, I believe we caught 270 salmon between the group, and that was a very good result considering the conditions. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world where you can catch this amount of salmon in 6 days of fishing.
All in all, we had a wonderful trip and vacation, all thanks to you and your well trained and organized staff. It didn’t hurt that we were fishing what is possibly the best Atlantic salmon river on the planet, either.
We will be back.
Best regards
Inge Solberg
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Hi Steffen
First of all I would like to thank You for giving me the chance to fish the Ponoi. Fishing the Ponoi was something I´ve dreamed about since 16 years – a dream came true. The salmon fishing at Ponoi is out of this world. It´s like dreaming the most realistic salmon dream. The fishing there is incomparable to everything I´ve experienced so far – it feels like a dream. Once You felt that special Ponoi spirit You´ll never forget feeling it and dreaming of feeling it again. I´m not fishing for salmon since 30 years but my first salmon fishing decade has past several years ago. Most of the time I´ve spent in Norway and therefore I can really evaluate the quality of salmon fishing at Ponoi. Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to fish together.
Maybe at some place out there in Russia we´ll get the chance to do so.
It was great meeting You. It´s always very amazing meeting a person with the same passion. It feels like knowing you for several years. I hope we stay in touch and I wish You a very successful season in Ponoi
Best regards
Sven Nedved
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Hi Steffen
This must be the dream text in every fly-fishermans calendar. At least it was (and still is) in mine. Week 28, 2006 was quite hot, but Home pool & Beat 2 became my safe favorites. If the day had been “Hot and sunny”, a few hours of after-dinner-fishing here quickly brought up the numbers. And if the day had been “good” the same number of hours would change it to “unbelievable”. And most of the days were “really good”…!
Thank you, Steffen, for a truly fantastic week. Also thanks to all of the guides and staff in the camp. I hope I will be able to visit you very soon again.
Best Regards
Allan Ottosen
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Hi Steffen;
I just visited your website advert for Umba
It has to be one of the best sites on Russian fishing I have ever seen. Very honest and informative on the run sizes and types. Also, very fair warning on the hiking and wading. GREAT STUFF! Hard core very experienced anglers will appreciate this honest and intense informative approach; of that I am sure!
Keep up the great work
Cheers
Bill Bryden
Eureka Outdoors Inc
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Big thanks Steffen.
Still trying to “land” on the ground after Kola…. Very Difficult!!!
Thanks to Steffen for giving me the opportunity to experience this fantastic salmon fishing. I caught over 30 salmon and sea trout and had a great time with riffling hitch and fresh 10 pounds on the single hand rod!
The group was super and we all got along really well. I wouldn’t be surprised if I meet some of them again.So once again, thanks guys for providing good fun and company.
Kind regards,
Jan Delaporte
