The Fly life

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I love my green Rod





I recently came into possession of a BIIX by winston and I must admit that I am loving every minute of fishing this rod. Coupled with a Felty "predator"810 reel I've been seeing much of the saltwater grounds around sydney open up to me.

I'm happy to report that despite the winter conditions, I've been landing kingies and Tailor. I'll post more when the time permits but here are the pics!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Working N Fishin.

Hi all,

Just started work not too long ago and fishing time has been cut down quite a fair bit. However, I'm still trying my best to squeeze in two sessions or so a week. Coupled with a lack of Internet access for most of April, I have been unable to post till of late.





I hope that fishing sessions are as precious and enlivening for you, our fair readers, as they have been for me.

Having figured out a host of flies to use in my local estuary and locating a school of nice sized Trevally, It's easy to say that my weekends have been eventful at least.

With limited success over last week- a lot of flathead action on surface bugs- I was itching to have a crack at good old silver.

It was a Saturday evening and I geared up. 7wt intermediate winter line(intergrated shooting head),tapered leaders of 50lb down to 8lb and a sink tippet. While tackling up, I said a silent prayer. The sessions that I have today are almost revered moments in time where all else fades away.

Tying on what I now call my "estuary special". I proceeded to cast to my usual beat. My spirits lifted as I saw the flyline go taught mid way through my first retrieve. I struck and half lifted my rod. I was overjoyed to feel some weight at the end of my line. The fight was not what we would call "a thing to remember" but up came a nice little flathead. Still things looked promising, First cast First fish.

Flat heads of similar size followed over the next half an hour or so.It was a pleasant enough session but quantity though very welcomed, was no substitute for quality.

I waited for the "witching hour"; the golden moment that I knew would let me tangle with my beloved estuarine silver dynamos.As that magic moment neared, an inspection of my tippet revealed it to be tattered and mangled in many section thanks to the raspy dentures of the flat heads that I had been catching.I proceeded to tie on a new tippet and my worst nightmare came true. Having tied on my tipped, I proceeded to strip line of the tippet spool as I usually do and was horrified when only 20cm of line came out. I frantically padded every pocket in my attire in hopes of finding some tippet material and only came up with some 50lb material. I was upset but determined not to let this spoil my much awaited session with the silvers.

with only 20 cm of tippet at the end of my leader, I proceeded to cast into the gutter that was filling up with frantic jelly prawns. The first 5 casts were nipped and tugged but brought up nothing.Then my dreams of the past week came to fruition on my sixth cast. on the sink, I stripped the suspending fly and let it sink. Strip-Jelly prawns jumped on the surface as a wake followed the fly just below the surface- strip. the surface filled with silver shapes. Strip- Wham! the fly was hit and I struck as the school turned and a lone silver shaped started heading for the horizon taking my fly line with it. This is all its meant to be I thought as more line peeled from the reel.

There was a point in the first run where I thought that I had been under gunned on this occasion as the fish did not seem to want to stop. I put on the pressure and after about half a minute of reeling I managed to close the gap between myself and my quarry. The fight then got more interesting as the fish headed for the mangrove roots that were not too far to my right. I palmed the reel for all it could take and applied as much side pressure as I would dare but to no avail. The fish made it to the mangroves. Not one to give up easily, I started to point my rod tip directly at the fish and hand lining the fish out of the roots. "I'm still in this" I said to myself as the fish was towed out of the mangroves and started charging towards me (this time holding deep. Unable to reel quick enough to match my opponent, I resorted to stripping line just to maintain the pressure while trying to coax what was by now proving to be a nice sized trevally up from it's holding in the deep.

after a fight that was one of my best in the NSW estuary system, I hauled a thick shouldered silver onto the shore. Happy snaps ensued and the fish was happily released. three more trevallys of similar size were landed over the next half hour or so with the biggest being almost 2 and a half kilos on the scales.



I had a blast and wish the same for all our readers on your fishing trips.


Tight lines and good fishing!
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