Anyone for "smoked trout?!"
After checking all reports from the relevant authorities re Canberra /
Snowy bushfires and associated road closures, 8 members turned up for a
very smoky
few days of fly fishing. The direction of the wind determined the
thickness of the smoke and thus the sun rarely appeared in full
brilliance. The theory
that arose from this was that the fish wouldn't know dark from light
and therefore be on the tooth all day. No such bloody luck there my
son...a bit
of wishful thinking by some hungry fly fishermen I believe. Despite the
smoke, the aquatics and terrestrials were well in tune with their body
clock. Overall we had mixed success.
We fished Mussellwood on the first night when there was a nice mudeye
hatch happening and I quickly snared two nice rainbows around dusk on
an olive
mudeye pattern. Andrew Wheeler also caught a lovely rainbow the same
night. Could we get the same conditions on the following nights?
No...typical
Mussellwood or should I say typical Frying Pan. If you talk to people
who have been fishing Frying Pan regularly ( our own Paul &
Shane or people who
practically live down there ) there's been a general feeling lately
that it is hard to string the same two days together. On what could
have been
described as a similar afternoon/night same place, Leo got smashed
right at his feet as he was lifting his line in readiness to cast
again. It released
itself as it managed to get Leo off guard going the wrong way around
his legs.
Further into the weekend saw some fruitless sessions trying all sorts
of flies and different methods top and bottom. Andrew Wheeler
and Steve
Chatterton enjoyed some success "loch style" fishing from the boat in
any suitable bay with the right wind conditions and chasing the odd
wind lane.
They both scored a couple of nice rainbows each on the "Claret
& Mallard" fly (an old English fly developed a hundred years
ago). They were using
heavy nymphs as a point fly. Stephen Swan caught his first trout on fly
whilst doing the ol' dibble..well done Stephen. He was able to back
that up
on the last day whilst fishing Frying Pan Creek however he didn't have
the fish on for long this time. Needless to say he can't wait to get
back there
and do it again! Speaking of Frying Pan Creek (the end of the arm above
the camp) the word got around that the humble brown nymphs were the go
perhaps
fished as duns (there happened to be some mayflies around) or fished
deep as Andrew found out on the last night. He got smashed in the dark
by fish that
fought like 3 or 4 pounders and turned out to be 2 pounders. he landed
2 out of 4 fish! They were caught on a double nymph rig with the bottom
one being
a bead head. I hooked one the same night on that trusty mudeye pattern.
It was a fish that constantly rose for some 20 minutes knocking back
everything
else I offered it.
All in all an enjoyable few days enjoying the comradery of a few members despite the fishing being up and down. Having said that I think we were glad to escape the smoke.
Chris
Harding