When the weather warms up, the desire to fish (for me) increases. The sun is gradually getting higher in the sky, insects start to hatch, the days are getting longer and my grass is getting shorter. You see, if I don’t cut the grass, I don’t get a leave pass. If I do the dishes, I can catch more fishes. If I wash the socks, I can play with my….

I cocked the trigger and loaded the car. Destination – small creeks and drains for a hit of twigging action. When I rocked up I was greeted with nice clear-flowing water. It was flowing very nicely indeed, as was my anticipation.

I quickly spotted a small fish… well, they’re all actually quite small in these parts – anything pushing the pound mark is a real trophy. Can you spot the fish? You can click on the photos to make them larger.

I managed to get a take from this fish but failed to hook up. Kept strolling along amongst the ferns and spotted another. It was too tight for a back-cast and the situation called for a bow-and-arrow cast, which I love. Without hesitation, the little brown trout angled up to the dry and opened its gob. Gotchya! While only small fish, it still gave me a large amount of satisfaction. I reckon every fish on the dry fly is worth five on the nymph or wet, unless you’re talking saltwater, then dry fly eats become a hell of a lot more challenging. I took a couple of quick snaps of this fish and sent him back from whence he came. It swam off with gusto in the cool water, sat back in the exact same spot and to my amazement – appeared to begin feeding again. Surely not?

From this point on I started seeing a few little fish here and there, and with the bright conditions they were very flighty. I blind-fished a few fastwater sections but drew little response. I rounded the bend to a slower pool but didn’t sight anything. On the right hand side was a under-cut bank that looked very fishy. Popped down the dry and sure enough, out comes a healthy specimen. I set the hook but the fish flung off while performing some aerials for me. I was using a barbless hook and tension can be important if you want to land ’em.

Further up the creek I spotted a tiny trout sitting in the tail of a drain pipe. So small that I probably should have let the poor little bugger be. The tempation got the better of me so I had a crack. I put several casts up into the drain but the fish didn’t move. It was only when I shot the fly halfway up the drain that he finally noticed my fly and engulfed it accordingly.

 I managed another small fish further upstream then I arrived at a fastwater section. The water drains off the hill rather quickly, and as the creek is only forty centimetres wide the effort hardly seems worthwhile. Had it not been for the fact that on a previous trip, my good cobber Andy hooked a lost a fish by prospecting likely sections, I probably would have left it alone. I tied on a buoyant Deers Hair Red Tag and began prospecting. The water is too fast to really polariod anything, apart from a few sandy patches – although the depth probably exceeds sixty centimetres – Which is more than enough for a hungry trout to sneak around in. I’d flicked away for around twenty minutes or more and on this particular cast, my fly appeared to become stuck in a small vortex. This was ok though as my flyline had lined the bank so all that remained was a small amount of tippet and my fly doing these sweet little donuts next to an undercut bank. It made the fly look quite realistic and very buggy. I stared at the fly for what seemed like 20-30 seconds and then a trout races out from the undercut and smashes my fly. I’m on!! I couldn’t believe it, I think I even let out a solo yeeeooow. With a real lack of water to play the fish out in, he raced upstream and downstream a few times before I got him on the bank.  It was a real specimen for a water of this size and I’m calling it for a ‘Ditch-Trophy’ (please note – that is not a silent ‘T’).

I continued on, spotting and spooking a few fish in the system until I arrived to the rainforest section. The creek no longer flows down a steep open plain but through a rich and dense myrtle forest loaded with ferns. I was quite happy to stroll along taking a few pictures and eventually packed the rod up and consumed the environment around me. Here’s a couple of photos from my post-fishing stroll.