By Kirk Deeter

Greetings from Ryabaga Camp on the banks of the Ponoi River in northern Russia. 

The Ponoi has certainly lived up to its reputation as one of the world's greatest Atlantic salmon fisheries. Prior to coming here, I fished for Atlantic salmon in Canada and Ireland for a total of eight days, and only landed one fish. I landed nine on my first day here, and I did even better yesterday. The 12 anglers who covered this section of the river accounted for 205 caught salmon, the largest being around 20 pounds. 

By Kirk Deeter

I will say this on writing about fly fishing for a living: It won't make you rich in the material sense, but it definitely affords a wealth of adventure. And I'd never trade the latter for the former.

I've now lost count of the number of times I've found myself in a surreal setting: Sitting at a table and drinking Coca-Cola in a sweltering conference room with a Bolivian army colonel; Grilling fish over a fire on a desolate beach in the Baja with a retired member of the "Hollywood by the Sea" gang; Casting in downtown Ballina, Ireland, as the nearby church bells chimed; Climbing out of a bush plane to stare at a Kodiak bear fishing the other side of the river; Riding a dugout canoe at night amidst an array of glowing red caiman eyes after an evening of chasing giant arapaima in the jungle in Guyana—the list goes on, and on...

So here I am in Helsinki, Finland (pictured here, several hours ago on my walk to dinner). It's 3 a.m. Last I heard, my luggage was still in Amsterdam. I will meet my friend Chris Santella in a couple hours, and we'll join a group to take a charter flight to Murmansk, Russia. From there, we'll board a Soviet era Mi-8 helicopter to fly two more hours down the Kola Peninsula to reach the preeminent Atlantic Salmon fishing camp in the world: Ryabaga, on the banks of the Ponoi River. 

By Tim Romano

Last week's caption contest was a big one with many entries. After a bit of deliberation we've decided to give the Stormr Typhoon Jacket to agsfield who wrote, "Ahhhhh, you said SIDEcast."

Agsfield, send me an email with you contact details and size to tim@anglingtrade.com and we'll get your jacket sent right out. Congrats!

Here's a list of some of my favorites that were close to making the cut.

By Tim Romano

Last week I had the privilege of attending friends Geoff Mueller and Kat Yarbrough's wedding on the Bighorn River in southern Montana. The families put on one hell of a cool shindig. I've been to weddings where there was a little fishing here and there, but this one it ran deep.