Ah, dear old Pirsaat!!!!!!!!

In the evening, after a sleepless night full of anticipation, the call finally came telling me we were going to Pirsaat after all. The road we usually took has turned into pure torture for the long-suffering Niva. The KamAZ trucks hauling sand in the steppe have turned it into a torture road for my beer-filled stomach. So if anyone's heading there, I'd advise going via Xıdırlı. A couple of km from the seashore there's an abandoned air force base. The brand-new concrete airport highway is total garbage compared to that road ). Friday evening they'd promised a southerly that would blow for 3 days. For spinning in these spots that's the ideal wind, so the saying "nobody needs a southerly" doesn't apply to this place. This time we headed to the end of the second ridge so I could work on my spearfishing skills a bit ) I'll split my report into two parts, one for anglers and one for spearfishers. The fishing started with catching shrimp. There were plenty of shrimp in the grass near the shore, but counting on there being lots on the islands too, we only caught a few, and as it turned out, that was a mistake (. On the ridges there were few shrimp, and where it looked like there'd be some, it was knee-deep bog. On the very first day the "spinning guys" caught several kutum, averaging about 1 kg each. The roach were biting actively, but the promised carp never showed up in this spot. I'll say up front for the "spinning guys": the ideal spot is the start of the second ridge, since you can also catch shrimp there. All in all the fishing was a great success and we ate our fill of kutum. As for spearfishing, which is the whole reason I made this trip, the spots here are just gorgeous. On the first day I shot some mullet but didn't see a single flathead mullet; I was diving at the end of the ridge. The next day I swam along the ridge and when I got to the middle I realized it's paradise for shooting flathead mullet, since they move around here in schools. So congratulate me on my first flathead mullet, they're way easier to hit than regular mullet ). There's plenty of kutum too, but the depth is around 5-7 meters and I haven't tried diving that deep yet, though swimming on the surface I saw a couple of nice kutum. Plus my fins are short, by the time I reach the bottom it's time to breathe ). At first I tried swimming in a 5mm wetsuit but it's really hot in it, so I spent the whole time in suit No. 1. You spot a flathead mullet moving along the bottom, it turns, showing you its side as it tries to swim off, you fire the speargun, and an hour later it's in the frying pan filling the hunting hut with a nice smell. There are rocks everywhere, and with a light wind the visibility is perfect, around 5 meters. On Sunday at lunchtime a strong southeasterly started blowing, the water got really murky, and the spearfishing came to an end. A couple of times I saw little carp, too small to shoot. To sum up, I'd advise everyone heading there to go via the village of Xıdırlı, it's the ideal route: by making a 7 km detour you save time and your car's parts. The whole way from the city is 95 km.