I’ve been guilty of ignoring Australian saltwater flyfishing opportunities till now. I knew I would do a trip one day but for me it would come after Venezuela, Costa Rica, Seychelles, Cuba and Christmas Island. Why? Most likely the same reason someone might want to catch a permit on fly or try and access a remote backcountry river on foot kilometres from the nearest fire track. I’ve had a severe case of the grass is greener syndrome.

Yet without a doubt, our popular Aussie saltwater destinations are easier to get to from Melbourne than any of the places I’d already fished; Cuba especially! (See Issue 2 of FlyStream or FlyStream Annual.) Hinchinbrook is a cruisy 3 hour flight and 2 hours drive from Townsville. So it takes around the same amount of time as driving to Lake Eucumbene from Melbourne.

Each year Dave Bradley and the AFO team run a ‘Flyfishing Invitational’ to celebrate the end of the season and get a group of likeminded anglers together to have some fun on the water (and in the bar). Late November is considered the end of the normal season for the guides at Hinchinbrook and is usually when the rain starts to pour. Ideally a trip should be planned between June and October. This year it’s been dry and the sugar cane farmers are crying out for rain, but for anglers, the fishing was and had been good for this time of year. We got some patchy rain and cloud cover which made sight fishing difficult at times, but for the most part vision was good and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of the fishing there. I can honestly say after fishing several of the world’s most popular flats destinations, Hinchinbrook is right up there and the permit fishing shows real potential.

Barra fishing on the first day was relatively slow but I managed to land my first ever barra on the first eat, and it would be my biggest barra for the trip at around 70cm. It would be karma then that I would stuff up the next 5 eats. For me fishing the skinny water on a low tide was the most fun and as visual as flyfishing gets. Besides looking for cruising fish, you’d look for any gutters or holes in the mud and try and land your fly in them to draw a fish out. When barra fishing at Hinchinbrook there’s always a target and so even when the fishing is slow, the challenge of casting your fly into sticks and mangroves and poking it into spots you thought were impossible to get a fly into, provides a constant challenge. Weed guards are essential, not optional. Barra cruise slowly and your casts have to be spot on. They wont move far for the fly but when they eat, things go from calm to chaos in an instant. Barra can exhale a fly in a microsecond and so your reaction time has to be quick with a big strip strike. (See Christopher Bassano’s article Barra for Trouties in the latest issue of FlyStream #5)

One afternoon fishing with Dave Bradley he took us to a seemingly featureless spot to target tarpon. “There’s normally a school of fish between here and that point 20 metres up,” he said. Dave couldn’t have called it more accurately and it wasn’t long before we started hooking fish one after another. We lost count of how many we caught on chartreuse and white Clousers. They put up a great fight for their size and are usually acrobatic.

While discussing a plan of attack for my day with fishing partner, AFO’s Clint Issac, he was insistent I decided what species we should target. Without him saying anything, the look of excitement at my mention of the word ‘permit’ made the decision easy. Naturally the locals and guides here love permit. As it turned out, our morning was slow by their standards – we spotted two fish for the morning and managed to get the fly in front of one that had a very close look and may have even eaten the fly, but unfortunately there was no connection. All boats saw permit and several anglers had good shots. As permit often do, they didn’t play the game, but on the right day with enough hungry fish around it was clear to me that in good conditions Hinchinbrook permit could be caught in numbers and the chance of that is what will get me back.

In three days I learnt a lot fishing with Dave and Clint. These guys are the real deal as far as fishing guides go. They’re both seriously keen anglers and just as happy polling the skiff, putting an angler onto a fish as they are having the rod in their own hands. Most importantly they are good for a laugh and great company. Both of them are big believers in the importance of a decent polling skiff and I can’t imagine trying to do it any other way. Most of the good fishing would be impossible without one.

For more information on flyfishing Hinchinbrook go to www.australianflyfishingoutfitters.com.au