Kamchatka is famous for its native rainbow trout, and their proclivity for eating mouse patterns. Photo courtesy of thebestofkamchatka.com
February 19, 2020
By Ross Purnell
In 2019 there was some consternation among fly fishers when Yakutia Airlines in December announced it was canceling its service between Alaska and Kamchatka due to some runway construction, and then in June announced flights would resume as normal.
The off/on announcement caused some fly fishers to cancel their trips to the fabled trout and steelhead waters of Kamchatka since Yakutia Airlines is the only carrier between Anchorage and Petropavlovsk, and the short 4½-hour flight makes the best trout fishing in the world tantalizingly close to U.S. soil. The alternative is to fly the opposite direction around the globe, overnighting in Moscow or Seoul.
The good news is that the Yakutia Airlines flights operated all through the summer of 2019 and Yakutia Airlines has promised the same service in 2020 for its ninth consecutive season.
The service will operate for ten weeks on Mondays from July 13 to September 14, 2020, using a Boeing 737-700 aircraft.
The top trout rivers in Kamchatka include the Ozernaya, Sedanka, Zhupanova , Savan, Two Yurt and several others booked through The Best of Kamchatka (thebestofkamchatka.com ) or The Fly Shop (theflyshop.com ). The Best of Kamchatka has a program where they fly by helicopter to a different unnamed trout river each day. In addition to its many trout trips, The Fly Shop also books the Kamchatka Steelhead Project , where anglers help collect data on Asia’s only population of Pacific steelhead.
