Sabirabad, Gazakh, Tovuz, Shamkir, Mingachevir, Varvara, Ivanovka

So basically it all started when Dima (Lomanosov) and I met completely by chance on the nature.az site (huge respect to Sazan, the site admin, for that). Then after chatting we found out that our fathers were old friends from work and outside it too. There were supposed to be 6 of us. That is Dima, his father and his friend Uncle Sasha, me, my father and my father's friend. As soon as we all got together we got one more proof that the world is very, very small. Turns out my father's friend was a close friend of Uncle Sasha's and also a colleague from work. In a word, a fun crowd came together. We agreed on a trip for catfish to Qırzan. Since Dima's gear was in Sabirabad, we had to take the route Sabirabad – Barda – Yevlakh – Tovuz – Qırzan. Looking at photo 1 you might think, well, these fishermen even brought furniture along… but the thing was we just had to deliver that armchair to Sabirabad. So, having driven around half of Azerbaijan, we ended up in Qazakh. We spent the morning and the day there. The day was awesome! Shashlik, nature, raspberries, lingonberries, mulberries, strawberries, plums, etc. — everything was right at hand and there was loads of it on the trees in the little orchard where we stopped, at my father's friend's place. But the morning… I showed the guys one very exotic spot where we were supposed to dig worms. It left plenty of impressions, since digging worms in the Qazakh sewer, and among pebbles at that, was pretty weird both for me when I was there the first time and for my friends Drove across the whole of Azerbaijan to dig around in a sewer, Uncle Sasha kept teasing us :) But the result was such that if we'd stayed digging just a bit longer, we could have pickled them for the winter and even exported them to China. Stuffed with shashlik and having had our drinks, we packed up and headed off to Qırzan. Already while driving over the bridge I noticed that the water was incredibly murky (which later affected our fishing) but the goal was set and we had to reach it. So of course Dima's mood got ruined right away because of the murk, and no wonder, the guy drove all that way and ended up getting so let down on his hunting. Uncle Sasha and I cast our spinning rods and tried our luck but with no result, plus we got there as it was getting dark and missed the evening bite, and without waiting for the morning one we all took off together from there to Shamkir. Getting to the place and checking out the outskirts of the village of Kür on the way, we made a note of a couple of spots, but we had to go on to the bridge over the Kura. We stopped right on the bridge over the Kura and left the cars there too. Murky water again, and Dima and I decided to take a walk to those places we'd seen before the Kura, and as a result we tramped 3.5 kilometres under the blazing sun. We got to one spot and saw there was no murk and the water was clear, so Dimka decided to get in the water. We called and they came for us with all of Dima's gear. Dimka searched that whole square but again with no result. He says there are tons of shemaya swimming in schools but that's small fry for him. Anyway we went back, and there we ran into a blunt-nosed viper too, and by the way I caught a baby one, which the people around me weren't happy about but I let it go, into the Kura though We spent the night right there on the bridge among camel spiders all around us and among scorpions, mole crickets, etc., but we had loyal guards, shepherd dogs, or rather their puppies and the mother, huge in size and extremely strict in character, every now and then those puppies chased either spiders or mole crickets, and after playing with them to my heart's content I decided to take a photo of one of them as a keepsake. At night we ate a 3.5 kg zander that we bought right there from the customs guys, who by the way caught it off the bridge on a treble hook. So, having caught nothing all night, in the morning we packed up and headed off to Mingachevir, and from there to Varvara, since the water in Mingachevir was murky too. When we got to Varvara it felt like we'd reached an oasis and that there'd be loads of fish. Because the place really was full of fish. Dimka, without thinking twice, decided to go for a swim, so he got in the water and disappeared for about 4 hours. I got my rod ready straight away and decided to do some fishing but again with no result, after 4 hours Dima came back and again nothing. Empty, he says, which shocked all of us, like Murphy's law and bad luck coming at us from all sides. No fish, he says, or maybe we just came there out of season. But that place is paradise for a float fishing fan. So, packing up again, and from there we decided to head off to Ivanovka in the Ismayilli district. We got there and what do we see? Fish of huge size swimming at the surface, in the middle of the lake though. Uncle Sasha was the first to get in the water, and apparently his wetsuit caused such a sensation in Ivanovka that the locals slowly started gathering, kids, older folks, in a word, a movie theatre. Meanwhile Uncle Sasha had already swum to the middle and we could see the whole hunt like it was in the palm of our hand. So as soon as he got there, the fish's fin showed again and he spotted it too, a shot, and the fish is gone. Strange, everyone thought, looked like he hit it. In the end he swam back to shore and says give me a harpoon, the fish dragged off my trident. Turns out this fish is called grass carp, which has grown to gigantic sizes there thanks to the weed growing all over the whole lake, and a very strong fish by the way, it tore off his line, a doubled 0.8 at that, and took off together with the trident. That got Dima fired up and he went into the water after him. A shot, Dima's this time, but a miss this time, it just wouldn't let him get close as far as I understood and swam so fast that the harpoon couldn't keep up with it. Long story short, this hunt went on for about 3 hours but in the end 3 pike, two crucian carp and that's it. Then the local police officers drove up. Well, how could we do without them They say you're corrupting the youth and pushing them to crime by shooting fish, because they'll get all excited about this stuff too. But it would just take too long to explain to them that it isn't prohibited in any book and that it has nothing to do with poaching, etc. In the end, after negotiations with Dima's father and later with the local chairman, we decided to head back anyway, although nobody was really kicking us out, the chairman just had to show off and that's it. Well, anyway, there at the home of the kindest people, residents of Ivanovka, we had dinner (one of them, if I'm not mistaken, was called Gennadiy), had a drink and, after tasting the most wonderful qatiq, set off on the road home. As we were leaving I fell asleep, well, and when I opened my eyes I look around: steppe, no road, no houses. I'm thinking where on earth have we ended up.. Turned out that, going around the Shamakhi road because it was closed, we decided to take a detour, or rather my father decided that, and as a result, thanks to a local tractor driver we happened to meet there, since there was no civilisation there at all, only dugouts…, we came straight out, in some way and by some road I still don't understand, onto the Kurdamir highway, and by morning, at about 6, we got back home.