Soft light filters through the mist and trees. I pull up to my chosen spot. I hop out of the car and take it all in. Its good to be here. After a few minutes I start setting up. I chose a fly. The car door clicks and I make my way to the river. I make my first cast,…
Category: Fishing stories
In praise of a good net man
I am a notoriously bad net man. I am way to excitable. I rush in and take the first opportunity without much thought… Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it ends in disaster. In short, when you catch a trophy, get someone else to net it or cross your fingers and hope the gods are on your side. Luckily…
‘Codtroversy’: catching a monster cod during closed season
After nearly 20 years of serious fishing, I’ve finally caught a ‘trophy’ fish. I went out to my local lake on Sunday to chase redfin on soft plastics. The plan was to suss out whether the reddies were active, and if I got lucky, bring a few home for the table. I was also keen to get another look at…
‘Fishticipation’: Is fishing better than Christmas?
I’m going fishing today. The plan is to leave my place at a civilised 7.20am to go and pick Graz up before making the 45 minute drive to one of the local trout streams. So why then, am I writing this at 5.10am? Have I gone MAD?! I could have slept for another 2 hours, and still only been 10…
Addicted. Bass on fly
Recently, as I waded up a south coast stream, I found myself thinking “Why in the #$@@ haven’t I done this before. This is awesome.” It was a few afternoons after I popped my bass on fly cherry. That happened something like this.. It was hot and muggy. The air clung around you, enveloping. On a whim, thinking it might be…
Holiday fishing around Canberra
It’s been a while between drinks, so to speak. Between catching up with friends and family, tending to my small acreage outside Canberra, or the rollercoaster of Christmas and New Year, it’s been difficult to focus on fishing and blogging. Nonetheless, I had an amazing time in New Zealand in early December (Hamish wrote a great blog here), and have…
Daydreaming in New Zealand…
There is a fine line between well thought out plans and daydreams. When you embark on an international fishing trip, it can sometimes be hard to separate the two. The plan is always going to be tainted by daydreams of a perfect days fishing to trophy fish, of landing at least a few. Those ideas are what give the initial…
Too much hatch
All of us have ‘our’ streams; the ones that we fish most often, we cherish, we hide from acquaintances, but we share with friends. After reading this post by Hamish, I was keen to get back out to my favourite stream to see if I could emulate at least half the success he and Perrin had on that evidently magic…
Golden browns: a sight fishing story
I wrote about the days fishing here, now I would like to talk about a moment. Sight-fishing it is the moments that really stand out. The moments that stick in the memory. The hours of walking and scanning quickly fade from the memory. But the moments. The moments, they stay with you for a long time. The formulation of a…
Fly fishing as therapy.
I didn’t have the greatest of weeks last week. I’m trying to finish a PhD and I’ve got this one little bit of lab work that needs to be done before that can happen. Last week I was up in Canberra getting ready to knock of the last of the lab work and break the back of the PhD so…
Trout fishing on the Monaro
Fishing can sometimes bestow insights beyond that which you might expect and experience in day-to-day life. Whether it’s squatting on a pier in South Australia, talking to an 80 year old Chinese man fishing for squid, trading secrets with the local 15 year-old bream-gun or asking a bunch of buffed-up, coke-fuelled criminals ‘whatdyagetemon?’, it truly is a diverse and universal…
“The rock”
Somewhere on the far south coast lies a rock. More accurately, a headland. It stands and presides over a long white beach, it is regularly lashed by wild winds and waves that roll in from the southern ocean. On the other side of the rock a small south coast estuary trickles out into the vast pacific ocean. To most people,…