The Fly life

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Redfish in Hong Kong

Hi again,

We are still on our vacation from sunny sydney and I'm happy to report that we finally got to go fishing! Yes there will be an actual post concerning fishing here in Hong Kong. So Look out for it!

I'm not writing the post till I can get the photos consolidated and organized. Korea will also feature for some fly matters. Just to whet your appetite, Justin and I went out and met with Redfish, (and lots of them too!) Right here in the middle of hong kong.

It was a truly unique fishing experience from what we were used to in sydney and one that we throughly enjoyed.

So be prepared for tales of smashed lures, lost flies, and general fishing bliss.

Till thenm

Tight lines and good fishing

Sunday, December 23, 2007

End of our Seoul trip

Hi all,

Tomorrow, my Significant other and I fly back to meet with my folks and Justin in Hong Kong. I'm sad to say that despite my most ardent wishes and efforts, it was just impossible to fish. We had to meet her folks and various social engagements took piority over the piscatorial needs of this now fishing starved writer.

However, I have good news in the sense that I now have a permanent fishing contact here in Seoul! Yu Ran was kind enough to take me to the local fly tackle store.(ok so we dropped by 3/4 stores and one of them was fly oriented.) I was actually invited on a Rainbow trout hunt earlier this morning but my having to go to church was more important.(If Someone made those trout you better respect that someone..) jokes aside, I got some fresh water tips from him including a used rvis reel that he had spooled with wt line.Sweet! I'll be posting a review of my impressions that I have gathered on this less often written about fly fishing destination!

Till the next post!
Tight lines "ham sa midah"

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

First time the team left sydney

Hi all,

I'm writing this just to give an update to whoever that's been reading our blog. As you would know by now, we have been through a period of much stress lately with Justin going to HongKong and all. So we decided to take one big holiday!

My significant other and myself have been on holiday since the13th of DEC and will be till the 3rd of Jan 2008!

Never to fear, Fishing is still riding high on the agenda so you will still "enjoy" the usual intermitent ramblings of this crazy sheepfly maker to keep you entertained.

We'll be visiting Justin in HK as well as a little detour to Korea so I'll just snap a few and clue you in on what has been happening over here in the FF team. Keep in mind that it's winter season in both countries and that Christmas is around the corner( read this as:" tackle shop tours and freezing my buns of in hope of miriculously unlocking a locations secrets without any local knowledge to help...)

So till the next post

Season's greetings and tight lines!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Introducing the Ladies

We have been blessed with having female company on many of our fishing trips. Contrary to popular belief, we have been enjoying success on the water on a constant basis. Without further a do, here are some pictures of the ladies in our piscatorial lives!





Thursday, December 6, 2007

The Pink Pillie

Yes Yes I know...

Posting deluge...

I'll give a bit of time before I post the other entries that I have thought up.

But for those who are interest, here's how I did the Pink Pillie! (I do apologize for the poorly focused pictures. Hopefully a new camera will solve things in the near future)
Also I'm doing all this in the office with my boss' (spare) vice. Not really ideal conditions but do tell me if anything is unclear and I'll redo it from the comfort of my home.

1.) Set the eyes and take the thread to the end of the shank and back twice
2.) lacquer to hold everything in place
3.) let the lacquer half dry and start attaching the "bottom" wing above the eye
4.) don't secure beyond the eye
5.) attach the top wing (secure this past the eye)

I used some translucent bluish hair for the bottom wing and ultra hair + crystal flash for the top wing. Happy tying!



I'm all by myself

Hi all Reuben here. Sorry for the long silence from me. Work/study commitments had me all tangled up. Furthermore, our Piscatorial Swarae ( don't even know if I've spelled this right) has been reduced by the departure of Justin. He's left to pursue better career prospects over in Hong Kong. On the Brighter side of things, We've now gained a Hong Kong Corespondent every time Justin gets away from His desk for a fish. :P So here's looking forward to even more fly fishing in ever more unchartered locales!


You'd already guess from the last post that the last boat trip with Brendon was to be the final boat outing that included the 'full team'. The next time we were to meet was Justin's last big send/ fish off! (I'll update you all on the activities of those quite fish less but oh so memorable days in later posts.)

Anyway, I've been by myself ever since Justin left and was busy till recently when I got a couple of days to test a couple of flies that I've been developing.I'm happy to report that I've finally settled on what I think to be a winning design.

Ever since Brendon, Justin and myself found a new "aussie bass" spot, I have returned to the spot determined to get one of these freshies on a fly. A few patterns were tied in anticipation but one seemed to be a winner. This resulted in my first Aussie Bass on fly.

I had a couple days off and decided to take the opportunity to see if this same fly would work on our usual saltwater target the black bream. This chance came while I was to meet my colleagues for our usual car pool to work. I was about half an hour early for the car pool :) and tied on what I've now started to call the "Pink Pilchard" 10 minutes of casting saw a decent Bream and one small Flathead (which I dropped in a spectacular fashion) This Bream was followed by a couple more decent sized ones. I was happy enough with the success and will update on the next time I take the Pink Pillie out for another test run.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

No Kings Yet, But Still Had Fun

Brendan has returned to Sydney after a month of 'living-the-dream' at Thailand, Singapore (and god knows where else :P) and was itching to get into some action. The weather was starting to warm up but water temps will still take some time. But we decided to head out anyway... cos it's the weekend!

The plan to try for some squid over at Clifton Gardens and then heading over to the Wedding Cake marker to see if the rats are ready to play. But alas, the sun was well and truly alive and bright when we got to clifton, meaning that the chances of us hitting a squid was pretty slim. But we tried anyway. We found a small school of squids (all less than 10cm in length) and tried for them nonetheless.... nope, still no squid. Reuben hooked a cuttie and thought that it was pretty 'fun' to let it 'reload' its ink-&-water concoction and then swinging it into the boat hoping to change our skin colour...Brendan then caught another cuttie and we thought it was time to find some rats. Off to the cake.

The tide maxed out and was gushing out of the harbour faster than the speed of sound (...okay, I'm exaggerating, but u get the point). Brendan rigged up a cuttie - which eventually decided to make the cake pylons its new home - while I hooked on some pillies I brought (as backup) for the trip. The pillie rig wasn't reaching the desired depth due to the strong currrent and a small splitshot was added to help it get down abit more. I casted it beside the cake, and it didn't take long for a willing customer to "thank your mother for the rabbits".... in another words, something took the bait. I was expecting to see a bream but was surprised to see a trevally come up... the water temp was still quite cool after all. The next 15 minutes saw me pull up another two trevors before it went quiet. We were starting to think about stopping over at Rose Bay for a feed but Reuben was determined to land something. He casted and let out a fair bit of line to let the current bring the bait out... it paid off and he boated a trevor. And now that everyone's happy, we headed over to Rose Bay.

Feeling ready for another round after lunch, we headed to an adjacent bay to have a bit of a mooch around the moorings. Reuben spotted a school of tailors feeding (smashing was more like it) on the surface. The birds were getting pretty excited too. We rigged up some plastics as fast as we could and were into the tailors. They were not big, but their aggressiveness made up for the fun.



It was time to bring out the fly rod. I tied on a small experimental baitfish pattern that was intended to be tested on the sambos and managed to hook one up. The fish started to ignore the fly and I switched over to a red-head bendback that was larger. I hooked another two and that was about it.



Reuben and Brendan was having a ball at the back, one on the fly rod and the other on a spin rod with a hard-bodied lure. They took turns on the fly rod and must've hooked more than 10 fish in a span of less than 40 minutes. Reuben's flies were gobbled down with no questions asked. We might have gotten a couple more if we stayed on but Reuben's "special fishing permit" from his other half had expired (for 3 hours :D) and he needs to return for 'sentencing'. We've had a good day and was happy to leave it at that.

Until next time, good fishing to you all!
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Kingie madness

Summer is here. Together with burnt skin, a swarm of flies buzzing in your face, loads of anglers come the king fish. You could almost say that the capture of this pelagic has become somewhat of an obsession for Justin and myself. From new gear purchases to researching new connections, flies, lures and even bait, this species has caused quite a stir in our piscatorial activities.

Justin and myself have always subscribed to the theory that lighter is better when it comes to our gear choices. Keeping this in mind, we have attempted to land these brutes (however small they may be) on lines as light as 8lb mains and 10lb leads.Due to us mostly fishing from the shore or wharfs, we have endured constant break-offs, had our lines wrapped around pylons and basically been dragged around wherever we are fishing.

To cope with these issues, we have upgraded our eggbeaters to ones capable of 15lbs of drag, fished a little heavier lines and leaders and have experienced some success bringing in the yellowtailed brutes.However, bringing them up onto land has been a source of heart wrenching despair.landing nets are out of the question due to the height from which we fish and rope gaffs are being sidelined due to the fears of injuring the fish.

other matters associated with our current obsession would be to land "kingys" on the fly. Other than a boat, we have had no real opportunity to land them with the magic wand.

we will continue on our quest to land these piscatorial beasts and hope that you, our readers will be kept interested,amused, and informed by our journey.

If you're in Sydney, pick up a rod, spool up and join us on this very worthwhile pursuit.

till then

Tight lines and good fishing

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Fish That Saved Fly Fishing... In Singapore

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It may seem like a big claim, but true nonetheless. Given the small land mass and non-existent management of both fresh and saltwater fisheries in Singapore, it comes to no surprise that many people end up catching nothing at all. And because fish are hard to come by, people end up keeping anything unfortunate enough to take the bait. The mindset of the typical singapore fisherperson is not a beautiful one and much can be attributed to the lives led by many of the early migrants of the country. Almost all of Singapore's chinese population originated from China; coming over in search of a better future in the 1800s after the place was colonized by the British. Many came to work as labourers at the strategically located sea-port. The hard life fostered a mentality of "grab all you can" and that apparantly, is still evident in the people today. But since this is a fishing blog, I shall leave the political economic rantings out.

Things started to change, albeit slowly, when fishermen started to release their catch. And not surprisingly, the individuals practicing catch-and-release were those fishing with artificial baits - lures and flies (but predominantly lures). Another characteristic of these fishermen was that they were young and better educated, and were influenced by the American and Australian fishing magazines they read. The past five years saw a huge increase of young people taking up the sport, and also choosing to fish with artificials. It was also during this time the fly fishing started to have new followers.

With the poor catch rates from the saltwater, people turned to the freshwater reservoirs to cure their fishing itch. The only catch however, is that fishing in most of the freshwater reservoirs is against the law as these reservoirs store water intended for drinking. The Singapore government has designated fishing areas in a few reservoirs, but they soon become overfished by the unethical bait fishermen.

The most common fish in the reservoirs that readily take flies and lures is by far, the Peacock Bass, and they are the most accessible proposition for the new lure/fly fisherman.

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The origins of the fish in Singapore is not known, but there's no denying that they are an introduced species. However, these peacocks are not the same species as their South American cousins and (unfortunately) don't grow as big. But other than that, they retained the aggressive native that these fish are well-known for. And not surprisingly, catching these fish on fly is alot of fun.

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In the beginning, people were catching them on surface flies like poppers, muddlers, gurglers and sliders. All it took was to cast and strip the fly back quickly and fish were racing against each other to take a bite at it. But the fish soon started to realise that these 'creatures' were not food and no longer fell for them. And when the surface flies stopped working, the creative fly fishermen switched to sub-surface flies. It did the trick, and the fish were lining up to gobble the offerings once more. As the fish got even smarter, they became alot more selective in the flies that they'd take.

The selectiveness of the fish prompted myself to try different things in order to tempt these (now fussy) critters to take a bite. What I did was to experiment in the following areas:

(1) DIFFERENT FLY SIZES

The general rule of thumb is to downsize the fly as the fish get smarter/fussier. The most widely used flies would be the clouser and the charlie.

(2) DIFFERENT COLOURS

Brighter colors would be first choice, and tending towards the more natural tones. An interesting observation made was that big peacocks would eat the small ones, and people have had success with flies tied to resemble the small fish.

(3) DIFFERENT RETRIEVE TYPES

Start with a faster retrieve because these fish are aggressive by nature. Too slow a strip and the fish will ignore the fly. Experiment until the fish start to follow the fly in - and maybe even have a go at it. That's when you know the speed of retrieve is right. Then it's time to think about whether the fly is at the right depth.

(4) DIFFERENT SINK RATES OF THE FLY AND FLYLINE

This is done in tandem with the sink rate of the flyline. The idea is to keep the fly at a certain depth for the speed of the strip that is used. Most flies fished on a standard floating line tend to move closer to the surface as the fly is stripped back. This moves the fly out of the feeding depth of the fish and reduces the chances of getting a strike. A right balance between the line and fly sink rate should be achieved. There are sinking poly-leaders that are available that can be attached to the front of a floating line to obtain a sink tip. Multi-tip lines are also available in the market and is a viable option as well.

(5) DIFFERENT LEADER AND TIPPET POUNDAGES

The debate continues - monofilament line or flurocarbon line. Here's my logic: fish that can see a monofilament might not see a flurocarbon but fish that can see a flurocarbon will definitely see a monofilament. So I choose to use the fluro. The Berkley Vanish offers good value for money - buy the 250yd spool and not the 50m (leader) spool.

And as for line thickness, fish as light as the situation allows.

(7) DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE DAY

First and last light would be my preferred times of the day.

(8) DIFFERENT SEASONS (FOR THE FISH)

Year end is usually the spawning season for the fish and they tend to hang around closer to the bank. If you notice two fish hanging around one particular spot, they are usually a breeding pair. Repeated casts to agitate the fish will most likely solicit a strike. And if you hook one, please release it after having your fun.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2007

A day to live for

We have fishing days and then there are "Fishing Days". You know what I'm referring to. Those days where everything seems to go right, where nothing seems to take you from the fishing and the fish are great. These days seem to burn permanently into our minds and the 1st of October was such a day.

Planning for this day was not as easy as expected.Prior day engagements and party composition were hampering at a limited level. We ended up agreeing upon meeting at the chosen location to catch the early morning tide.

The first hour of the day was to be spent casting jigs for squid.(we were hoping to bait up and tangle with the kingies that have been reported in the area). This proved to be a futile exercise as neither Justin or Myself even tempting a take by any squid. However, it was a very pleasant experience. The first of sunlight kissing the water below the Harbor bridge coupled with the cool morning breeze made for some beautiful fishing surrounds.

Having called it quits with the squid, Justin and Myself made our way over to our decided spot. As it was a decidedly "bait" day, we proceeded to load up the spinners and cast out. after about a cast or two, Justin spotted an eddy forming and suggested casting our baits in that direction. This decision was rewarded when I hooked up with a nice silver trevally that was followed up by a decent 'green back' Tailor on the very next cast. Things seemed to slow down after this, with fish only nibbling and Justin landing a small bream and a snapper.

Things started heating up when a tug boat pulled in and we started reeling in the lines. Justin hooked up with a nice king fish that provided much sport. So much spot that the crew of a boat docked nearby and the tugboat actually slowed down to watch the action. It was all we imagined it would be. Blistering runs and Justin using every trick in the book to land the brute on six pound line and a 8 pound leader. All was going our way till the last 2 meters or so of line. At this point, with all hopes on landing our first big king of the season, the leader inexplicably gave way. Justin was somewhat disheartened but the look on his face when he said "this is what I live for" told me that it was great just to have the privilege to tussle with such a great fish.

After the episode with the kingie, matters took a turn to the quiet side and we were content to soak in the scenery and mull over the battle that occurred as the rest of the party trickled in. Jake joined up alongside us and the bite slowed to a halt. Continued casting found me a little alley where there was a bunch of fish willing to 'peck' at least. I indicated this to the rest but they were happy to try in their chosen spots. What happened next has kept the smile on my face till today. I hooked up with an unknown fish that was pulling my already tightly set drag. Blistering runs towards the horizon and lunges for the deep had Justin and myself speculating if it was a King. Deep in my heart, I was harboring the thought that I might just loose this king as well. This fear slowly dissipated as the fish was brought closer to the surface. Head shakes as it exhausted itself betrayed it to be a nice silver trevally.


As I said. nothing could spoil the day for Us. It's one of those days to remember.


Till next time, good fishing and tight lines.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Meeting Mr Milkfish

It was way back in 2003 when I caught my first Milkfish on fly and they are to date, the most hard fighting fish I've encountered on a fly rod.

Location: East Coast Lagoon, Singapore
The East Coast Lagoon started off as a place where sun bathers could swim in calm waters away from the waves of the open sea. That is all I know. But in the late 90's, it was converted into a salt water fishing 'pond' where anglers paid to fish. The pond was stocked with the usual species found in pay-to-fish locations, namely the Barramundi, Fingermark Snappers, Mangrove Jacks,... etc. Small milkfish were sold by the pond operators and used as live baits, but many managed to free themselves from the hooks and lived in the lagoon. The fishing pond then went out of business and was returned to the authorities which built a perimeter fence around it whilst deciding what to do with it. A couple of years passed without any activity.

It was in 2003 when a young chap by the name of Nicholas (who was also a crazy fly fisho) got to know another young chap by the name of Matthew who happens to live near to lagoon and have been fishing it regularly with bait (and with good results). It came to Nick's attention that there were Giant Herrings in the lagoon and we started to have many night "operations" to target these fish on the fly. Nick caught quite a few as he was there almost every night, while I , unfortunately, never hooked one. There were many times when fish rose to our gurglers, poppers and sliders but missed the flies completely. And we would realise later that they were probably not herrings....

Another few months passed and Nick decided to venture to one of the two platforms (where water still flowed in from the open sea) in the middle of the lagoon. It was there that he saw many large schools of Milkfish cruising to and fro from one platform to another. Nick tried relentlessly to catch these fish with a bread fly but was not succesful. Determined to hook a Milkfish, Nick returned with (real) bread and decided to burley up the fish and casted his imitation amongst them. His determination paid off and he cracked the code for catching these freight trains.

Nick decided to share the 'spot' with a few of us more 'senior' fishos to aid us in the capture of our first Milkfish. The trick was to wade into the water to waist level, and burleying the bread in batches, allowing the wind from behind to carry them towards the platform. Once the bread got near, they were 'hammered' by the large milkfish. No one would believe that they are 'vegetarians' with the way they were eating the bread. The plan was to get them to swim closer and closer to us as they go for the next batch of bread burley.

I lost four Milkfish before I finally landed one. The knot gave way on the first, the hook broke on the second, the hook fell out on the third and fourth. On that fateful sunday, I decided to walk the path of the Thai workers who laid nets below the platform. They were able to wade at waist level till they were 5 metres from the platform. As I drew near, the sight of the tails of big Milkfish swimming sent my adrenalin sky high. I'd be the most unlucky person on earth if I don't hook one. A 5 metre cast was all it took before a Milkfish smashed the bread fly!!! WOOHOO!! It only took a few seconds and I'm into the backing... the fish swam around the platform and I thought I'd lose the fish for sure... but luckily, the stainless steel piping of the platform did not cut me off and after some persistence, the fish came back. I guided it away from the platform and into open waters. And it took another 25 mins to subdue the beast. But I finally have my first Milkfish in my bosom!! It weighed 15lbs on the Boga.


I went on to catch another three Milkfish on subsequent trips to the lagoon and they never cease to amaze me with they speed, power and stamina. What impressed me was that my Sth Cassette Reel (that cost me less than US$70) and Cortland 333HT line (bought at K-Mart for less than US$20) was able to withstand the runs of these rockets. The rod - a 7 wt Sage RPLXi - also performed marvelously. These fish are definitely ranked near the top of my list.

Tight Lines!
-Justin-
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

My first fishing comp


hey all,

fishing seems to follow me every where. Even to work! The company that I work at organized a charity "fish off" to be held to day. i went for the short pre fish with most of the other competitors. the team consisted of 4 people. Henry, pete, myself and boss man ( i still don't know his name all I know is he can fire me and not even Henry can save my arse)

Due to the high volume of work, we opted not to fish the whole time allocated for the pre fish. Subsequently yours truly is stuck here at my desk with not much motivation to work. Henry is teaching the boss man how to fish (he never has in his life- he's a hunting guy).

so here are some posts of the morning's pre fish.

we saw a lot of surface action setting out at the pre dawn hours. needless to say every one started flogging and it was really difficult to even get a hook up. talk on my boat led to the usual 'wrong fly' pressuring the fish' 'they aren't interested' topics. This all reminded me of Justin's experience with the sambos. with this in mind, I loaded up a spinner with a metal slice and chucked it in. I was thinking that even if it wasn't the sambos I'd have a chance at whatever pelagic species lay down there.

Long story short, I hooked up with my first Australian salmon after about 5 odd casts and half hearted hits. It was really fun even though I was packing it in a little heavy with 14lb braid.
After landing and releasing the Sambo henry made the call to fish the heads as it looked like only luck will let you hit a fish.(they had been flogging the whole time to no avail.)

We fished to heads for about half an hour with not much luck. I hope things heat up during the comp hours. one fish just doesn't cut it. But I am really happy with my first Sambo.
(sorry , about no swell photos I was "busy") we do need a more committed camera person.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

bread fly




I've only taken up fly fishing for a couple of months and have been having limited success. Justin told me that it would take a while before i could land my first fish properly. His words were true and I only managed to tangle with fish that were obliging enough to "commit suicide".

This all changed recently when i came up with an idea to tie a sinking bread fly to be presented in a burley trail. Reason being that the bream seem to take unweighted bread pieces that were presented to them in a burley trail.

I'm happy to report success and here are the photos!

enjoy!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

false cast






Hi everyone,

Hope that the past week has been good for you in one way or another. Being a rather light work week, I thought I’d better go out to get a picture or two for the site (it’s really an excuse to go wet a line.) I visited a couple of places during the course of the week. Though not exactly new grounds to myself I learnt, as we always do in our sport, many new things and gained new insights into this ever addictive pastime of ours.

First up was a trip to a little estuary near my home. Part of the lane cove river, there was a little tributary conveniently located in the suburb of Rhodes. Having some knowledge of the place, I decided to test the place for it’s capability to produce on the outgoing tide. This time round, I came with a new plan to have some fun while waiting for the tide to change.

Packing a loaf of bread (Yes I do cheat…) and a box of lures, I arrived at Rhodes half an hour before the highest tide. First stop was a structure that I have affectionately named “bream corner”. I let out the burley and baited up. To my disappointment, the tactic didn’t work and I ended up getting impatient after half an hour. Looking over to the sand flats and seeing that they were still exposed, I thought I better try again next time. I let out another 2 pieces or so of burley and rigged up for some lure fishing.

Working my usual lure beat, I met with more disappointment. This went on till I reached the drainage pipe that marked the beginning of the flats. Here, my luck finally turned as a flathead of about 40 centimeters inhaled my lure. Luring action continued with a few small bream and tailor providing much appreciated action. As the fish at the sand flats went off the chew, I decided to try the bream corner one last time. I was rewarded with two decent bream for this decision. The day ended on a satisfying note. 15 fish landed with 5 being legal. I’m happy to report that all fish were released unharmed.

Next stop on the list was the good old bream pond at glebe. It has been a while since I have enjoyed any tangible success at glebe. The day started with 4 good bream on bread and ended when I hit 2 good flatheads on lure at the beginning of the run out tide. All in all, 6 fish released to fight another day.

Enjoy the pictures and sorry for the short reports. I will endeavor to be more succinct in my next post. I’m a bit of an airbag. I must apologize.

Till next time!

Tight lines and good fishing.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

first casts

Hello people,


The weather's warming up in Sydney and hopefully the fishing as well.
Have been fishing quite abit in the past three weeks, thanks to the
discovery of a productive spot as well as the return of Brandon to
Sydney.

First picture is the end-of-day catch after a session (the best one in
four) at the new bait soaking spot. Water depth is pretty much like

Clifton Gardens, and so is the rig used. The spot is within the Sydney

CBD. On that particular day, Reuben and me were fishing the upcoming
tide from about 11am to 4pm. There were intermitten showers but the

fish dont mind, before the first shower, Reuben hit the biggest bream
of the trip, and continued to hit 2 more as the rain came down. I only
had one bream for the whole trip. When the rain stopped, I released 2
undersized snappers, and had a bite off on a suspected big tailor. We
proceeded to land 5 Tailors. And when the tailors went off the bite,
The Trevallys came in a constant trickle till about 3pm. Would
actually be going back there this

weekend if not for the APEC making
the CBD area out-of-bounds. But the good thing is that Friday is a
public holiday, and Reuben and myself will be doing some flycasting
and fly fishing.

Brandon returned from his holiday in Thailand and fishing comp in Fiji

and was raring to try for Aust Salmon on fly in the harbour. A last

minute trip was arranged late friday night for a sortie on Sat
morning. We located the salmon but they were very spooky, and we only
had 2 chances to cast at them. Unfortunately, we didn't hook any. Good
news was that among the 5 to

6 fly boats out there, only one got fish.
Feeling pretty dissatisfied and hearing of reports of the bass coming
on the bite, we decided to head west to the sweetwater see if we're
lucky. We tried the usual spots that Brandon "inherited" from a
fishing guide but had a big fat donut after an hour and a half of
casting.

With nothing to lose, we thought that we should head over to the weir

for a look. Good thing we did... the place looked like bass country...
tall grass on the side of the banks, sparse underwater vegetation seen

about 2 feet below the surface. We bombarded the area for nothing in
the first 30-45 mins until about 520pm when the rises / surface
activity started to pick up. At the time, I had given up hope of
catching something for the day, and decided to tie on a pink charlie
to see if I could entice a herring to strike... there's gotta be
something with all the water act

ivity happening... whenever I saw a
rise, I would cast within 2 feet of it. And on the fateful cast, my
line tightened... After a drought of 2weeks, it felt good to hit
something decent on fly again. I thought it was a herring but Brandon
called bass after seeing its forehead. The fish was guided into the
net without any dramas and I finally landed my first Australian

Bass!!! After wasting about 10-15 mins trying to get a good shot on
the phone camera (that's why the lousy pic quality), back to fishing.
Saw another rise about 60-70 ft away, put in a cast, 3 strips, and I'm
on again. But this time only a little one. And after that, they went

off the bite... the surface activity was still happening but they're
just not taking the charlie. It's pretty late anyway so we headed
back.

This sunday would be the Sydney angler fly fishing social for Aust
Salmon in the harbour, I'll be on Brandon's boat again and we'll see
if we get lucky this time round. Still do not have plans for Sat at
the moment. Can't wait for friday.

Cheers mateys!

-Justin-


The hatch "ing"

The whole idea of having a post space was born out of- like many things- boredom and laziness. Justin started it a week or two back. He posted a "fishing report" of sorts on the email. As usual, in all things fish related I blindly followed. an error in the email delivery and the lack of space for us to send the very much needed photos ("no proof ' situations and to prevent the whole "I swear! it was that big!" that is somewhat part of the sport) prompted me to think if there would be an easier and more constructive way to get out the fishing reports.

Then it dawned on me. Instead of typing and uploading photos on email and being constrained by size the name list we can remember to include, I and Justin could simply share out mini adventures (in angling terms they are interesting) more fully by posting them on a blog/page of some sort. I honestly haven't spoken to Justin Yet, but I'm sure he'll agree to this.

SENDING OUT A LINK TO A PAGE IS EASIER THAN WRITING AND SENDING AN EMAIL.

plus we can share the fun with a whole bunch of people we don't know! ( I never saw how that could be appealing..

So without further or do,

I give you Justin's email that started it all.

The First Tail Swipe
















Hi All!

A Huge Welcome to the newly (and very cheaply) created, fishing dedicated, space on what we have now know as the internet. There are countless of sites out there already offering fishing reports, gear reviews and other angler resource and we are probably following in what looks like a huge trend in the angling community.

What differentiates us from other blogs/pages/forums?

Well, it's primarily a blog about one and sometimes 2 fishing nuts. We'll post the reports. (Feel free to fight amongst yourselves in the comments columns) bore you with our antics. Stick a photo or two that you could rip. We're basically going to plaster this fragment of the web with what angling is like in our adopted Sydney and in our lives in general. So if you're a fishing nut, it's probably a good idea that you set up one as well. :)

Toodles and till next time
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