What are the odds? As JD and I drove the final kilometres to the start of a three day trip on the Glenelg River – a known mulloway hotspot (if there is such a thing) – a journo from a mainstream newspaper called just as we passed Dartmoor, a small town near the top end of the massive estuary. She was doing a story on… yep, mulloway!

The hopeful journalist had got my number from another flyfisher mate. However, I had to explain to her that, while it was true I had caught a mulloway on fly from this very river last winter, that was where my authority on the subject pretty much ended. Between mobile phone dropouts (is there a worse area in Victoria for phone reception than this far southwestern corner?) I pointed out that I knew just enough about mulloway to appreciate how little I knew. I gave the journalist a couple of more legitimate contacts, and wished her well with her story.

I’ll save you the suspense: even though this call put mulloway front of mind for us, and JD had brought a box of flies specifically for these mythical marauders, we didn’t catch one this trip. I missed something early on that broke me off. But I’ll be honest, I think I may have held on way too hard, and the sharp initial hit had me thinking big bream.

Still, although another mulloway would have made our trip, the lack of one wasn’t going to break it. Estuary perch and bream were always going to be the main game for us. And while I know it’s a common refrain, just being on the Glenelg is almost reward enough. Besides the river’s physical beauty, from limestone cliffs to expansive sandflats at its mouth, the area is ridiculously rich in wildlife. It’s one of only two listed biodiversity hotspots in Victoria, and you can see why. Just at a casual glance, you’re likely to spot more waterbird species than you could identify in a whole year of searching elsewhere, and then there are the wedge-tail eagles, sea eagles, kites, falcons, emus… and that’s just the birdlife.

To the actual fishing, and despite the river being in what we regarded as perfect condition – easily clear enough for fly in the upper sections, and with a lovely push of bluewater in the lower sections for several hours each high tide – the bream fishing was a little tough. We landed a few, but the phrase ‘could do better’ was on the report card. The EPs were much more obliging, and from late afternoon into evening, almost ridiculously so. Even when we weren’t actually catching them, there were often inquisitive follows, or ‘boofs’, or EP flashes under the surface.

To the technical, and long leaders on floating lines worked best for us this trip. Although we occasionally resorted to sink tips when the tidal current was really racing, we felt like we had better control over slower stop/ start retrieves with the floater. Also, floating lines were obviously essential when the EPs were feeding on or near the surface. And when casting to shallow edges or over the flats, any excessive sink was a disadvantage.

Fly-wise, a lot of patterns worked when fished well (the old imitation versus presentation). However, I had most confidence in a chartreuse Merri Minnow by day, and on evening, a lightly-weighted minnow with big plastic eyes that Stu Young kindly tied up for me last year. Meanwhile, JD seemed to do nicely with an olive Woolly Bugger variation on a saltwater hook.

Like I say though, I suspect fishing the flies well, and in the right spots, was a big part of success; the rider being that fly weight was often important.

We reluctantly departed on Friday afternoon, just as the bream fishing seemed to be picking up. As if to console us though, on the drive home, the south-west countryside absolutely glowed in the late afternoon light. The trip review included a wee bit of regret that we didn’t try harder for mulloway. But we consoled ourselves with the thought that there’s always next time.