It’s been a while between posts but not fishing, thankfully! I recently hooked up with cobbers Laneo and Nick for a float session on the famed Macquarie River.
When we met near Longford, the logistics of where to leave vehicles kicked in. You see, the mission consisted of three blokes with three cars and one needed to pull out earlier than the others. Add to this that much of the property on the ‘Mac is privately owned and you end up in a complete mind fuck. After an hour or so of knocking on random farmers’ doors we found a suuitable spot to leave Nicko’s car and were under way.
Upon launching, we noticed that mate and guide Dan Hackett had the same plan – He looked to have a couple of clients on board so we continued to launch, happy to fish the dirty water after giving them a head-start.
We began drifitng hopper patterns along the edges as nothing was showing, and soon I drew a response. Shame my own response was so slow. A few casts later and this time I was ready and soon felt the pull of a nice little river fish.
Photo by Nick Martin
This one fell to a Stimulator tied by Nik Byrne…
Photo by Nick Martin
It’s always good to get on the board early – Gives you some confidence. The plan with our vessel was to switch places after each fish. Whoever catches the next fish has to row, whoever was rowing goes down the back, with the part time role as cheif-bailer, and whoever was the bailer goes up front in prime position. This spot up the front also filled a small role as captain-blower-uppera to keep on top of the constant air leaks!
This cycle continued fairly evenly throughout the day except that luckily for the other blokes, each time it was my turn to row – Someone else caught a fish pretty quickly. This was positive for all as my rowing was… pretty shit.
Photo by Nick Martin
Action certainly wasn’t hot, but fairly consistent throughout our float. It wasn’t until later in the day when the wind blew in that action tapered off and things became quite tough. Fish also seemed to be taking slower too, either that or my strike was far too hasty and I kept pulling it clean out of their mouths. (Likely the latter).
Nick covered a riser over a weedy drop-off…
A Nick Martin image...
Nicko snares another at an attempt to score fish of the day…
A Nick Martin image...
It was a cracking way to explore sections of the river that aren’t accessable by normal methods and I cannot wait to do it again next seaon during an epic hatch. Thanks for the run gents and props to Nick Martin for the pictorials.
Photo: Nick Martin
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