Good to know

Russia is a huge country extending for more than 9 thousand kms from west to east. Its offshore boundary surrounds about half of its entire territory and includes the following seas (from the west to the east): The Baltic Sea (the Kaliningrad Region), The Barents Sea (with the all year round free of ice port Murmansk), the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, The East Siberian Sea, the Chuchi Sea, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhosk.
In the south it includes the North Caspian Sea and the Black Sea areas.

All these vast offshore areas are rich of sea life and providing excellent sport angling opportunities.

The Barents Sea is producing excellent angling opportunites with all similar species cought in the Norwegian and the Greenland Sea. The port of Murmansk is all year round free of ice due to Golfstream influence. It has an international airport serving regular flights to/from Norway (Troms), Moscow and St. Petersburg. Few tourist agencies are available to arrange good quality accommodation and charter boats too. The only disadvantage is - too long (about 4 hours) trip, which you would need to take on the chartered boat via the Murmansk Bay while reaching the open sea where the all good fishing grounds are based. During the Polar Night (from end October to end of March) its too dark and too cold going fishing as well.

The Baltic Sea is the most reachable area for sea fishing in the NW of Russia. Port Kaliningrad is a big city having all necessary facilities to provide good accommodation, sight-seeing options and go-out advantures. Small on shore cities like Svetlogorsk all have little motels and guest houses to accommodate visiting anglers. There are few charter boats providing enough space for 5-6 and up to 10 people to take you offshore to catch some nice cods (best ones during the winter season) and some nice gar-fish too. Kaliningrad Airport has daily flights to/from Moscow and charter flights from some European cities.

The Russian Far East is very remote and a vast area located about 9000 km to the East from Moscow. It is very reach of Sea life including the famous Kamchatka crab and the giant halibut reaching size up to 300 kg. It includes the Bering Sea (across the Alaska Peninsula through the Bering Strait) and the Sea of Okhotsk. The largest cities in this area are the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy (the capital of the Kamchatka Peninsula), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (the capital of the Sakhalin Island) and the port Vladivostok (located on the very eastern-southern part of the Russian territory). All these towns are able to provide good accommodation and some charter boats for interested anglers. All of them have big airports serving regular flights to Moscow and some other cities including some international destinations too (e.g. Japan).

The Caspian Sea is famous for its black cavier source - the giant beluga and for the other sturgeon family fish. The sturgeon charter angling trips out of port of Astrahan (based in the mouth of the Volga River) were very popular during mid 90s and until 2002-2004, when the international ban on sturgeon fishing was introduced and stopped it. Low salted waters nearby the Volga river area, however, can provide excellent fishing for a giant (up to 10-12 kg) pike and some other fresh water species. Astrahan is a big city, which offers good quality accommodation provided by few very well equipped angling camps, located within the Volga River delta area. The Black Sea also provides good options for some dog fishing, mackerel and some turbot angling too. Good accommodation is provided in shore based resort-cities like Gelendjik, Novorossiysk (in Russia), Sevastopol and Odessa (in Ukraine). Some charter boats and entertainment are available too.