If you know
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If you know, you know.
“Well with all this rain we need to find smaller water, and there is good access around the village. People always want to get an hour out of town, but actually, we’ll park at the café and wander over from there”
I laugh in response, which was wrong, because the guide wasn’t joking.
After arriving in the Victorian high country in October, the immediate prospects of fishing were not good. A wet winter and equally soggy start to spring in 2022 had rivers running high and, at best, murky. This, in combination with my complete lack of local knowledge, didn’t bode well for my first-time flinging flies south of the Murray and north of Bass Strait.
“We’d be fishing in a town! My initial surprise was overcome briefly by disappointment and concern, then rather quickly, excitement.”
Thankfully, I had made the choice to invest in someone with local experience. Well actually, my partner Sam had, having wisely recognised that masculine pride and an aversion to spending was unlikely to result in me biting the bullet, so it was, that we rode with our guide in a four wheel drive in the magnificent high country on a rare sunny morning. The vehicle was more than capable of tackling whatever back-country trail was necessary to reach our upper-catchment stream of choice.
At least, it would have been capable, however it was not to be. We were destined for the banks near the coffee shop. We’d be fishing in a town! My initial surprise was overcome briefly by disappointment and concern, then rather quickly, excitement. This is why, I reasoned internally, it can be worth paying someone to show you some tricks. I wouldn’t for a moment have considered the urbanised river banks a likely location.
“My turn. Bang, bang. A brace that probably wouldn’t have broken a pound collectively, but that’s still four fish between us, within an hour of being collected from our accommodation.”
Any remaining discontent was quickly banished. The location was as scenic as any we’d driven past, and the stream ran clear. Not crystal, but approachable, and miles better than what we had encountered further down. A startled doe bolting across the river in front of us completed the veneer of deep-bush serenity. I’d not have been surprised had the deer worn John Lennon glasses and Birkinstocks given the locale, but it seemed mostly indistinguishable from its back country colleagues. Hard to believe that lifties and hospo workers fresh off the mountain at the end of ski season sat sipping cappuccinos within a hundred paces of us. Perhaps lattes, being Victorians and all.
Sam was up first. Pretty fresh to fly fishing, though not a complete beginner, she was able to extract a couple of juvenile rainbows from the first run, one that must have been in danger of being trampled by the spooked deer only moments before. Good; runs on the board. Nothing to write home about, but a welcome change of pace from the months of dreaming of wading a stream over the off season.
Time to move up fifty metres and try again. My turn. Bang, bang. A brace that probably wouldn’t have broken a pound collectively, but that’s still four fish between us, within an hour of being collected from our accommodation. Bloody ripper.
We moved up stream, picking apart each run as we went. Lesson number one for me was the pace at which the guide attacked the river. It was slow. Or more accurately, it was correct. And methodical. Each run was observed, analysed, and searched thoroughly. No rush – the ones up ahead can wait. This yielded many more fish, often on the third or fourth drift over a relatively inconspicuous piece of water. As was pointed out, it also minimised the chances of spooking fish in an upstream direction, potentially startling mum or dad further up.
“...mend, strip, cast, mend, strip, cast, mend, lift! Three of the feeding fish were extracted, and we left the area without disturbing those which were not on the hunt, for food at least. ”
How many missed opportunities from moving too quickly? How many fish scared from under my feet up through the better spot at the top of the pool? Curb your enthusiasm, idiot.
This point was illustrated just moments later. On a gravel patch, in the pocket below a log jam, a series of late spawning rainbows could be seen flitting about. A couple of these fish were still actually spawning – we considered them to be off limits - but every time we looked we could see a few others darting around in the current feeding happily. We sat and watched from a grassy bank as the guide considered the approach. To my surprise, he directed Sam into the stream some 20 metres below where we sat. Immediately across from us, he had spied three fish, well downstream of the others. Two of the three gladly accepted a gold headed pheasant’s tail. It struck me that the feeding fish were in the exact location I’d have stood to attack the ones further up-stream, the only ones I’d seen for myself before Sam’s indicator dipped.
My turn rolled around again, and the guide explained to me the drift, the line to attack, and how much lead was required to get the flies down to the fish below the logs. As well, of course, how to steer around the spawning fish. Cast, mend, strip, cast, mend, strip, cast, mend, lift! Three of the feeding fish were extracted, and we left the area without disturbing those which were not on the hunt, for food at least.
Across the morning we covered perhaps 300 metres of water below where we parked. Slow, methodical. Correct. We moved spots for the afternoon session. Not far, perhaps 10ks of driving downstream was required. Surely the water is too large? Yes, except it wasn’t. It wasn’t, because the river split into three branches over the gravelly plain, and essentially became a series of steady creeks. Still plenty of water, but so much more manageable than the river as a whole. Pretty handy spot to know about.
“Needless to say, a day of exposure to both professional experience and local expertise also challenged a few of my preconceptions.”
We stalked up one of the branches, spotting rainbows as we went. This offered a completely different experience to the morning session, with slow water, longer casts and a much higher degree of stealth required. We had also switched from a New Zealand indicator rig to a classic dry dropper set up. The dry flies were smaller than I would intuitively reach for, with a beaded nymph being happily held up by a size 14 parachute dry in the slack water. This was inspected, though not taken, by our targets, as was the beetle pattern on Sam’s rod. Thankfully the nymphs were not subjected to such scrutiny, and fish up to about a pound gladly accepted the offering.
We caught plenty of fish on our guided day, and both left with boots adequately filled. Not bad for an early spring day in seemingly unfishable river conditions. The real value, I came to realise, wasn’t really in the experience of the day itself, great though it was. I probably would have intuitively headed up the catchment to escape the bustling lower water, and may have even figured out for myself some of the spots that we were taken. But we had 4 days in the Vic high country. I would have burnt at least three trying to nut it out. And whilst there is merit and enormous satisfaction in figuring out a fishery for the first time, holiday time is precious. From the one day on the water with our guide, I learnt where to consider fishing with our limited time and where to look once at the river. We were even pointed to a couple of locations to check out in our remaining days (which proved fruitful and diverse).
This was what I took away from my first time being guided. Being given an idea of what works and where to consider going. I wouldn’t do it every time, but with days on the water being of the essence, and an expected further three unbroken months in the office ahead, I had no regrets whatsoever. Needless to say, a day of exposure to both professional experience and local expertise also challenged a few of my preconceptions. This was best summarised in one lesson from the start of the day:
“People always think they need to get an hour out of town. It sometimes pays to look a little closer.”