Plan B - West coast exploration

We'd planned to fish our way up from our home base in Melbourne, hitting the north east of the state and then catching up with a crew from the FlyLife forum in Tumut. A good, 8 day trip - casting our range of rods, talking shop with the guys, and plenty of fishing, fishing, fishing.
But record breaking floods in that region meant roads had been cut and streams in full, raging flood. The caravan park where we were to stay had been evacuated and emergency services advised against travel in those areas. Great disappointment...


Time for plan B.


We decided to head west and explore areas that we'd heard and read about as well as drop into some known spots.
Day one saw us pull out of Melbourne's city limits and with the Woo-Hoo Mobile pointed west, our journey began.
In a matter of hours, we started fishing our first stream. A known stream, running pristine & clear - but low. Too low. The fish proved spooky and although we managed to get some looking and slashing at the dries, no good fish came to hand.


Great way to spend the day!


Day Two was full of surprises. We strung up our 6wts, the orginal two rods that we made as prototypes a few years ago before we launched HCE. Man, have they done some serious work and wow, they are still going strong - the cork looks tired but water, sun, salt and a million casts will eventually take its toll.


We found an interesting meadow stream, flowing well but tannin dark and brackish. Dark woolly buggers tied, we started to explore that deep dark stream.
Tony was first to get a fish on the board with a nice, gloriously marked brown.

Then we started to hook bream and even some small Australian Salmon!
This turning out to be a great day! We walked and cast, get smashed a few times ans just marveling at how we were getting browns and bream from the same water!


Some light rain showers fell, the sun came out to dry us off and we felt good that decided to do this exploration. Bloody cool fishing! A nice meal in the local at the end of the day, washed down with a couple of good beers. And yes, we still love those original old HCE Spec 6wts!

Solid blue-nose!

Day three saw us up early-ish, a light hearty breakfast and then we set off to explore a new stream. It pretty hardcore going, steep terrain, bashing through thick undergrowth and navigating with the handheld GPX. We were searching for access to a stream that we knew would hardly get any one on it and we soon realised why... some serious work to just get in...                                                                                                                                   


                                                                 


But when we finally won our passage, 
that first glimpse of water was both very pleasing and gratifying. 
Perfect, pristine twig water... 

Choosing the next dry...

As perfect as it was, as beautiful a stream as we've ever been to anywhere, as an amazing setting that you could possibly imagine, for some unknown reason it proved to be devoid of fish. The river bed was alive with nymphs, stone fly nymphs, caddis casings... the water cool and clear... But alas, we have concluded the trout had been abducted by aliens.

Really?

After our trek out of the barron waters, we headed to some headwaters. In keeping with todays he man theme and hit snake gully...


Great looking stream, a few fish about too. Low water again meant spooky fish but the scenery again made everything worthwhile.


Tony was driving the Retro Spec 3wt & was roll casting 30' with unerring accuracy and again it's delicate casting and gentle, refined action made it a joy to use. This is, simply, and I know I've said this before, the best light stream rod ever. Full stop. Regardless, I was loving the Evo Spec 3wt - a great point & shoot twig that excels when conditions get too tough.

Twiggy pocket water

Snake? Nope, eel!

Day Four we hit the Aire below the highway bridge and got into a few nice bream before we moved off to catch up with good friend and customer, JJ.

We hiked into a secret, ultra twiggy spot that was populated with very wary, small mountain browns - they wore dainty spots that could have been air brushed on with a template.


No room to cast, bow and arrow with the occasional roll cast was the order of the afternoon. 

Tight country: bow and arrow casts only!

It was very hard going and we really worked ourselves over getting and out... but the breathtaking scenery & lil tout made for a very enjoyable experience none of of us will forget in a hurry!

teasing the trout

Day Five we were up early... and checked out a river, the Aire, which has just dropped due to the mouth being artificially opened. We should get some great Bream fishing tomorrow and the day after once it gets a few salty flushes with the tides.
We looked at another little meadow stream which had a few trout which interested us but another called...        
                                                                    

So we headed back to camp, cooked up a nice mid arvo lunch and headed off.. It was another day of firsts for TJ, getting his first Grayling on fly as well a mullet!




















Day Six. Sleep in to rest our wearied bodies. We'd done some hard yards over the last 5 days. Today we planned to fish the mouth of the Aire, and that we did. Mullet, a lone salmon and quite a few bream were caught on our flies... Flies included Gotchas and fuzzled numbers and a few other bait fish & shrimp patterns.


As the tide turned to flow out in the late afternoon, the tannin stained river water slid out the mouth. We fished over the weed beds near a drop off and had a great afternoon session off the sand.


Some shots from today...