In the latest mixed bag of emails from contributors to my blog waffles, Anthony cracked the code for carp and redfin using a Glo Bug. With impeccable logic it was the closest colour to a Woolly Bugger he’d had success with (and lost). And fellow Caddigat Lake guide Danny Spelic found a fluoro (hothead/hotbead) Woolly Bugger did the trick. The lakes have had some reasonable fishing pressure since the National Fly Fishing Championships were held there in November and the fishing has held up well. That’s how well catch and release works.
Anthony’s report: “I started my new year on a good note landing a 1.4 kg carp using 2 kg pre-test tippet and a whole bunch of redfin. The carp at Oaks Estate have been rather difficult to entice lately and I was surprised to have even hooked one. The carp have either been following the flies rather lazily or ignoring them altogether. I hooked the fish whilst blind casting and using a fast retrieve with a small pink weighted Glo Bug. By the time I landed it, the carp converted the fly into a brown unweighted Glo Bug. I had those flies as back up as I can’t seem to find red Woolly Buggers at the moment and I lost my last two this month on snags. 
The redfin go nuts on the Glo Bugs as well but interestingly, on a slower retrieve and often when you just bounce them on the bottom. Before I lost the two red Woolly Buggers, a friend and I caught redfin on them at Bowen Park at our ANSA Club Carpathon on 9 January 2016. As in previous years, the carp fishing was very uneventful so I whipped out the fly rod and mainly did roll casts off the bank. While I was cooking sausages on the BBQ for the troops, I lent my fly rod to my old neighbour Chris who had never fly fished before and he soon came back with his first redfin on fly. The day before the Carpathon, I took my 8 weight rod with intermediate fly line to Coila Lake hoping that the recent rains flushed the flatties to the Coila Beach end of the lake.
My plan almost worked…that end of the lake was teeming with bait (mullet, prawns and garfish) as well as little frogfish which I had never seen before. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be any willing flathead about although I did get some bites from what I suspect were small bream and hooked three stingrays. Two were just hooked on the flaps and the fly quickly got dislodged. The third actually took the fly and I thought I finally hooked a flattie…as it turned out, it was a metre wide stingray that allowed me to bring it to the shore before it took off with line screaming off the reel. It stopped with half the backing left on the reel and glued itself to the bottom of Lake Coila”.
Danny’s report: “Chris caught his first trout on fly whilst Neil stuck it out after the others left late in the afternoon and caught some really nice fish on a type 3 Airflo Sixth Sense sinking line and fluoro bead Woolley Bugger off one of the rocky points on Caddigat Lake. It’s probably the best trip out of the last 6 in terms of insect activity and fish moving – I suspect the cool change in weather had something to do with that. Lots of damselflies and heaps of midge around along with plenty of hoppers – just need a windy day and the fish will go off on the hoppers I suspect. I fished Lake Burley Griffin and caught some nice golden perch. 
Tomi, my 13 year old son and I caught some really nice fish along with a small cod and a handful of redfin over 2 trips. Most fish were caught around the rocky shoreline or under the willows around the Scrivener Dam area.”
That’s all for now, tight tippets and remember the big browns will be moving around by the end of March! Steve (Snowy lakes fly fishingcharters)
