What is it about big fish? We could probably write a book on the topic, and still not quite get to the bottom of why they’re such a thing for us flyfishers.

Maybe I could go back a step and say that, from one perspective at least, every catch on fly is miraculous. There’s this fairly insignificant piece of fur, feather or synthetic, bound to a hook, out there in all that water. It doesn’t smell or taste of anything much, and yet somehow, fish eat it – and with enough conviction that we sometimes hook them and even land them.

If we add in that the fish is large enough to be statistically uncommon, that capture is even more remarkable. And that’s not to mention the simple physics of size and power increasing the risk of the fish escaping once hooked.

On a trip to the lower Glenelg River with JD a few days ago, there were plenty of small miracles, fewer ‘one-that-got-away’ stories than usual, and some useful estuary fishing lessons which I plan to expand upon in more detail another time.

Anyway, after a successful day two, we decided on an early dinner at the Nelson Hotel (which, incidentally, is a reliable option for a decent feed and all-important friendly service). This early meal, we reasoned, would give us plenty of time for a proper evening session on the river. While estuary perch would be our main target, we wouldn’t object to catching a bream, or, on the very edge of possibilities, a mythical mulloway.

Well-fed and watered, we headed back out on the river just as the sun was low enough to cast a decent shadow below the limestone cliffs. The lower Glenelg has plenty of twists and turns, so we were soon able to find some shelter from the stiff south-easterly which had annoyed us all day. I stuck with the wet flies that had served us well during the day. JD, however, was determined to ‘courageously’ (or so I thought!) fish a surface pattern. After a bit of umming and ahing, he settled on a Gurgler.

I think it took about two casts before something tried to grab JD’s floater just as it landed hard against a reed bank. A couple of casts later, a fat little EP managed to hang on long enough to come to the net. By the time we moved to a location that would be easier to navigate in twilight, and from the bank rather than boat, he’d caught another two and missed a few more. Meanwhile, my wet fly (a Merri Minnow by this stage) had accounted for a single fish.

Fishing into the afterglow of the setting sun at the second spot, JD soon had the best EP of the day, and had missed a couple more. Meanwhile, my takes had dried up completely.

When we moved to a third shore in town, I swallowed my pride and asked JD if I could please have one of his Gurglers? In the soft aura of the streetlights, we could hear (and half make out) fish chomping and clomping food off the surface, so it was no surprise when JD hooked up while I was still swapping flies. Once I was set up, I soon had an EP too. Before long, we were both having the kind of fishing where hits, hook-ups and fish actually caught, amount to much the same thing.

While all this happy chaos was going on, I imagined I could hear some more substantial boofs coming from the darker water well up to my left and away from the lights. I’m not sure whether I reached a point where I’d caught enough near the lights, or if the pull of the sounds in the darkness became too much, but eventually I wound in and walked down the bank to investigate.

Just a short distance from the lights, it was surprising how different the environment was. Without artificial illumination, my weak human vision struggled to distinguish detail; even the boundary between water and land was vague. I could just make out a pole in the river, but was it ten metres away or twenty? And I could also hear wavelets slapping on an invisible rock. Fortunately, that sound was distinct from the regular loud boofs from a fish somewhere out there in the blackness – I hadn’t been imagining things.

After a few casts, a loud splash came from about where I thought my fly was, but my strip-strike (well trained at last by repetition!) came up empty. Then, a couple of casts later, a solid strip to make the Gurgler gurgle, was met by solid resistance. Oddly, I don’t recall hearing anything. However, the reel made up for that by screaming as the unseen fish powered away, and very soon it seemed it was dangerously close to where that pole was.

To improve the angles, I ran up the bank, fortunate not to trip on some unseen hazard. Although this fight obviously had some way to go, I instinctively reached around my back for the reassurance of my landing net… and it wasn’t there. I called out to my mate, ‘JD, I’ve hooked something big and I’ve left my freakin’ net in the car!’ (Or words to that effect!). ‘Righto!’ came the reply from somewhere back towards the carpark, and soon after, JD appeared with his nice big net.

At this stage, the fish was still nowhere to be seen. I would wind in a bit of line, only for it to scream off the reel again. ‘Not a mulloway is it?’, JD asked, more familiar with the relentless runs of this species than me. ‘No idea’, I grunted, ‘But it’s pretty hard to control!’

Eventually, JD could pick up a silvery shape in the phone light (yep, I’d also forgotten my torch!) and a couple of minutes later, he made the perfect net shot. Finally, safely cocooned in the rubber mesh, was the largest EP either of us have ever seen. Not only long but very heavily built, the fish measured 47cm; at a guess 4 pounds in weight. After periodic dunkings in the net on the way back to the streetlight area where we could snap some quick pics, the fish swam off – no doubt ready to savage some more shrimp and baitfish over the next night or two.

Due to our curiosity, a fisheries scientist mate has kindly crunched the numbers, and of several thousand EPs officially recorded in angler diaries and surveys over thirty-odd years, this EP places in the top 5% – so it is indeed properly big, but by no means unheard of. And my VFA/ Fishcare ruler says at this size, the EP was probably a female, and possibly over 36 years old!

By the way, note I’ve said, ‘this EP’, not ‘my EP’. Sometimes I’ll happily take a lot of credit for catching a significant fish. However this time around, it was JD who persuaded me to try the third spot, it was his fly, and he went back for the landing net and scooped up the fish. He’ll never admit it, but I reckon this one is definitely a shared victory.