I had another session last weekend on my favourite little Monaro stream. The plan was to fish some of the faster water, which I have tended to neglect in the past. After seeing a few fingerlings in the shallow water on a recent trip, in addition to a fun little session on a shallow, fast flowing river near Bombala recently,…
Tag: flyfishing
Fishing New Zealand’s South Island – October-November 2013
For my 30th birthday present, Rache bought us some cheap tickets to New Zealand. We’ve just returned, and all I can think about is going back! We flew into (and out of) Christchurch, and at a little over 3 hours flying time and for the same cost as your average flights from Canberra to Sydney, it’s a pretty attractive option…
Poor Man’s Quad #1 Finished!
I finally got around to finishing my first PMQ (poor man’s quad). We’ve done a few earlier posts on the building process, so I just wanted to share a few quick lessons learnt from the process. 1. Use quality bamboo (Tonkin cane). If you’re going to invest the time and effort, you might as well use decent materials. I started…
Aitutaki Bonefish blues
Note: disaster struck once arriving back in Oz. A computer crash somehow managed to delete the 300 or so fishing shots I had from Aitutaki. So, this post, which was going to be fish pic heavy is now filled with “lifestyle” pics instead. Sorry We arrived on Aitutaki on a Sunday. Aitutaki is a pretty religious island and on Sundays…
Poor man’s quad project… Part 2.
Part one– We decide to build ourselves bamboo rods Lee picks up some cane and gets some much needed advice from an expert After Hamish’s infectious enthusiasm to build a PMQ got the better of me, the first thing we needed was cane. I googled tonkin cane, full of expectations of cheap bundles being sent directly to my door. I…
Tackle review: Scott A4 956/4 Fly Rod (6 weight 4 piece)
Hamish reviewed his Scott S4S 4 weight a few months ago here. I thought it was about time I reviewed my Scott A4 956/4 (6 weight 4 piece). As a beginner who has only been fly fishing for around 18 months, the A4 has provided a steep, but rewarding, learning curve. It’s a relatively fast rod, which has forced me to…
App review – Flylife flies
Just a quick post to review a free app, ‘Flylife Flies’. Released by the well-respected flylife magazine group, the app is available for free download through the app store. I downloaded the app expecting fly tying recipes, but the app is basically a game where you have to name the fly that appears on the screen. Despite being a bit…
Flyfishing for trout: success on the Monaro
PART 1 – Early November 2012 ‘Back in a few hours’, I said, stifling a boyish grin and kissing my then-fiance (now wife!) on the cheek. It was about 1.30pm, and I suspected it would be more than a few hours. However, letting this on wouldn’t have been in my best interests, particularly given the relentless pace of wedding preparations……
Trying to re-find my fishing mojo- a tale of woe and misery
Its official. I’ve lost my fishing mojo. Its gone and I need to get it back… Fishing, is ultimately a game of confidence. When things click, your calm confident and can seem to catch fish, even when everybody else is drawing a blank… But then all of a sudden you lose it, you start second guessing yourself and things just,…
Fly fishing for mullet
I got a tenkara outfit about a year ago, which was the beginning of my slow take up of fly fishing. To begin with I didn’t use it much. Lee gave me his old 5 weight a little while after that. As the past year has progressed both outfits have been getting more and more use as I’ve slowly become…
Eden 14th and 15th of September- Mullet on fly and
I visited my parents in Eden this week to drop off their car, which I had borrowed and managed to sneak in a bit of a fish. First up on the menu was fly fishing for Mullet in the little estuary right in the middle of Eden. I started late and only fished for half an hour, till the wind…
Advanced Mullet fishing techniques ;)
We (Hamish and Lee) are going to start a series on posts on catching bread and butter species for beginners, with hopefully enough know how to also be useful for more experienced fishermen. So to start things off we are going to begin with the most humble of estuary species. The Mullet. I’m sure most fishermen can remember cutting their teeth on this…