Headed out to the Great Forester River over the weekend, hopeful that bait fish might be starting to move up into the system. Arrived to my little spot and was greeted with a stiff breeze, enough to blow the skin off a rice custard. There was also a familiar vehicle parked near the bridge – It was my old mate Christo McFisto…

I rigged up and set off, spotting quite a few whitebait along the way but little activity. The tide was pushing up which was not a positive sign. I trundled my way downstream, blind fishing likely looking areas with a self-tied whitebait pattern but to no avail. I finally run into Christo who informs me the there was action early but the tide has caused the action to cease. He had a fish take his fly earlier but failed to set the hook.  We continued to flog the area with deeper flies whilst waiting for the tide. Realising it was going to take some time, we slipped into Bridders for a quick bit of tucker and a lazy packet of durries.

Patto fishing the Great Forester

Revitalised, we slipped back onto the river and sat by the bank having a yarn and checking for bait. Like clockwork, as soon as the tide started to push back out the bait moved to the sides and the trout slowly began to ambush them. A couple of trout were in such skinny water up against the bank that we actually spooked them, decent bow-waves causing a stir in our loins. Just as the trout were starting to get fired up, the light was fading and fading fast. We were covering slashes as best we could on the far bank then there was an almighty commotion opposite Christo. The fish erupted on a school of whitebait up against the muddy bank and it looked to be a solid fish. Chris covered the fish but drew little response.

By now we were casting to sounds and fish that we couldn’t see. Once again, the mission was fruitless and left us thinking “If we only had another hour of light…”. I suppose that’s what keeps us coming back – My name is Brendan and I am a fly fishing addict.