Overlooking the Suicide Hole on the Eucumbene River.
You never stop learning as a flyfisher, and none more so than when you’re teaching. This weekend was first class. Three really eager fishers wanting to learn to cast, and a very experienced fisher wanting some flyfishing-from-a-boat tips.
John, Matt and Kieran came down for the weekend and apart from the casting, we fished the lake, the Eucumbene and Murrumbidgee rivers, and on Caddigat Lakes. Some of the things I learnt (or re-learnt) from the time I spent with them were that “the longer the line the longer the stroke the longer the pause” is easy to say, not so easy to do – but that if you really concentrate you can do it. I watched John flogging a pool on the Murrumbidgee getting progressively longer casts across this wide pool and cursing himself for not being able to get the coordination spot-on. Until he cracked it, which he did. Next, it’s easier to teach someone to cast who doesn’t fish already using spinning gear. They just do what they’re told and don’t try to encourage the fly gear to act like spinning gear. Next, not all rainbow trout are good looking – some are bloody ugly! John was polaroiding a monster and a smaller fish dashing into the bank to grab something. He caught the smaller fish but I think wished he hadn’t. Coelacanth comes to mind. But despite everything Matt and John both caught fish, including the session of the trip on the Murrumbidgee, when we hit an evening rise where they just couldn’t be spooked.
The ugliest rainbow?
Mitch came down for a long evening’s fishing and despite the heatwave it was cool in the night. We hunted fish on the sounder and found them sitting under the thermocline 4 or 5 metres down and used fast sinking lines to get to them – without success. The wind blew from the south, west and north and every point in between and we found a bank with some trees close to the shore hoping for some action. Finally, we found some rising fish and missed one and caught one – a perfect browny.
Tight tippets
Steve (Snowy Lakes Charters)