Only have 5 minutes? Read the minnow version of Refined luck here

Fly fishing amongst the willows is unique. What I love about it is that it encapsulates all the elements of fly fishing, usually each being specific to one method or another, and rolls them into one. Intensity, delicacy and pandemonium all play their part throughout the process. 

Willow fishing can be broken down into 3 distinct elements; the stalk, the cast and the fight.
The stalk requires stealth, instincts and often a fair bit of luck. The cast requires precision, anticipation and again, a fair bit of luck. The fight requires brute vigour, a steely resolve and ultimately, a fair bit of luck. Each precarious element has to go right, and as the sequence moves along, the odds of success seem to grow ever longer. As you can see, luck plays a starring role throughout. Yet, with a commitment to refining the technique and a stubbornness to endure a frustrating volume of bust offs, popped hooks and fishless days, you can tip the odds in your favour, and even convince luck to stand in your corner … if only for a moment. 

Stalking, hunting     

The stalk is all about hunting a fish. A particular fish, sighted and observed. The required intensity demands unwavering commitment. Prospecting in the willows is like trying to find a lemonade at oktoberfest. You need to lay eyes on the fish, but it is bloody hard to find them. The best way to find fish generally, but never more so than when fishing amongst the willows, is to be stealthy and steady. Surreptitiously tiptoeing the banks, as if weaving a path through a minefield, calling on any sort of structure as a temporary hide. Perpetually peeking around every tree trunk, undercut bank or fallen willow log, your eyes become trained for any sort of movement. A falling leaf and your head snaps around. A branch swaying in the wind and your focus is trained. A swish of a tail through the soft dappled light and you have locked on. 

Once a quarry has been pinpointed, you’ll experience a spike in heart rate that would threaten those in or beyond their eighth decade, as it begins pounding against the walls of your chest. This needs to be fast forgotten so you can remain fixated on the trout passing in and out of soft light filtering through the willow canopy, disappearing and reappearing as if performing a David Copperfield special. The trout is working a beat, on a hunt of its own searching for food. If their beat is in a small enough vicinity, and you can remain fixated on the trout without moving. You can afford to watch it go about its business for quite some time. If adequately hidden, you can have them quite literally pass at your feet without breaking routine. 

The cast

This is where the hand to hand combat begins. The cast, often of the bow and arrow variety, has to land on a dime, usually about a rod length away. The fly has to leave your fingers without plunging a (hopefully) barbless hook into an unsuspecting thumb. It then has to catapult its way through overhanging branches and grass tussocks enroute to its temporary destination. The mending of the fly line, wherever necessary, has to be considered and delicate. And to cap it all off, this often all must occur within seconds of spotting the trout. It’s a cocktail of pressure events that can make even the best double-hauling 16ft leader-wielding dry fly anglers go to water.

Once the fly is nestled safely on the surface film, the whole world stops. It is the perfect juxtaposition of what has been, and what is about to come. Like the brief respite delivered by the eye of a storm, time slows. The deep breath before the plunge, all centred around the one query rattling against the inside of your brain – will it eat? The manner in which they react to the fly landing can vary. Often the trout instantaneously boost across as soon as they realise what’s occurred. Alternatively, they can mooch over without a care in the world, almost inconvenienced by the deviation from their beat. But the one thing all approaches have in common, are the final seconds the trout hangs in front of the fly, questioning its legitimacy. It’s at this moment that you realise that heartbeat pounding beneath your chest never really ceased. You were only momentarily distracted, engrossed in the process. Retaining focus on what is unfolding in front of you, so close you can reach out and touch it, you are rewarded with the incredible sight of the ‘whites’ of the trout's  mouth as it opens up to hoover down the fly.      

The lid is off 

From here, hold on. You set the hook, the gloves come off and you are knee-deep in a street fight with an angry brown trout. The trout’s body flips and turns, contorting in protest, churning up as much white water as seemingly possible. Your tippet is strained to breaking point and your rod bent over itself through to the cork. The reverberations aren’t only felt through the rod and up into your hand, but all the way to your body, with the first sweltering run for the sanctuary of a willow root ostensibly pulling you into the drink headfirst. It is here you are convinced in your once questionable justifications that fly fishing is an adequate form of exercise.

Once hooked, the fish can’t be afforded any long charging runs away downstream, only to be gradually worked back in. The back and forth happens quickly, and frequently. Each run for cover combatted with a pivot of the rod pressure, each in different directions, as the fish eventually crosses off the list of hideaways it has memorised. The hook remains lodged, the tippet intact and your knots surprisingly stable. The fish reluctantly concedes, and the climax of the fight is past.

Angst, jubilation

Throughout the final stages the common and nagging fly angler’s pessimism remerges. The risks materialise more acutely and dread shrouds over you like the first morning mist creeping up a valley. Perhaps it is the fact that to now, so much has gone right, against the odds, and the prize is within touching distance. Will the dropper hook catch on a snag? Will the fish make one final run for the hills and bust off? Will the leader catch in the ferrules? A chasm of hazards opens before you.

The crescendo offers some respite. Much like every other step, the fleeting moments before netting a fish seem to drag. However, unlike the others being filled with dread, these moments, as the fish sails its way inward, are moments to savour. Barring catastrophe, a trout of significance, not for size but for circumstance, will be netted and conquered, and with it a sense of achievement rarely matched. Casting your eyes across a netted willow fish that you have just gone toe to toe with is a special feeling. I hope you go chasing that luck.  

Luck manifest
When considering brown trout conquered in the willows, one particular  afternoon encompassing all the luck-laced elements, culminating in an unforgettable fish, comes to mind. One that, at the time, was the fish of my lifetime. The day was spent on the drift boats floating the Tumut River with friends Max and Henry. The morning came and went indicator nymphing up a number of rainbow trout from the drift boat. This method is the way to tackle the big tailrace waters of the Tumut River. Manoeuvrability, access, and ease all combine to unlock some serious fly fishing that you simply couldn’t have on foot. The fish pulled hard and after numerous cartwheel-filled fights, we felt we had filled our boots for the day and turned our focus to head hunting a big fish.

Parking the boat on the downstream end of an archetypal sweeping Tumut River bend, we swapped out the indicator nymph-rigged rods, and grabbed the dry dropper set up. Passing through the knee-high grass enroute to a good polaroiding vantage point, a few early season grasshoppers emerged from the stalks. Certainly not a bad sign. Polaroiding on the first gravel bar, a number of smaller fish were holding in the shallows, feeding readily. Watching them go about their business is mesmerising. As Max was about to cover the fish with the first cast, an almighty shadow came charging upstream straight for the pod of fish. It was nothing but a blur, but a big blur. An adrenaline-inducing rush that was over as fast as it begun. We watched in awe as the shadow swiftly continued upstream and around the corner, disappearing into the deeper water. And with it, our hopes of catching the fish. Or so we thought…

With the distraction of the big fish beyond us, we turned our mind back to the smaller pod of fish and pulled a few 1 pound rainbow trout off the gravel bed. It was good fun. But we couldn’t shake the idea that the big fish was still out there, kicking around nearby. Continuing the stalk around the bend, we edged our way along every inch of the bank. Staring into the depths of every eddy, pocket water and drop off - all the likely holding positions. We were willing the profile of the big fish to materialise out of the shadows. But not to be. Henry and I took turns working all the good spots, spooking a few nice 2lb fish, but not the ultimate prize we were after.
At the end of the bend, the last towering willow stood proudly doing its best to cut the flow desperately racing away west to the floodplains of the Riverina. Having all but given up hope that the shadow of moments past would re-emerge, I approached the final spot with nonchalance. Not the best way to find trout under the willows. The downstream section of the willow, the most likely of spots, was barren. Not to be, but worth checking the pocket water amongst the roots. I poked my head over a fallen stump to peer into the pool deep within the willow tree. For a split second I thought I saw the swish of a huge tail pass into the shadow and further upstream under a snag now immediately upstream. It couldn’t be. I surely imagined it.

Still, I had to have a peep around the top of the willow and check. Gazing into the piece of still water was the single best sight I had that season, possibly across my entire time fly fishing. 6lbs of conditioned brown trout holding in 2ft of gin-clear water, right under an overhanging branch. It was breathtaking and something I felt privileged to have stumbled across. But even while marvelling at the situation, my instincts had kicked in and the familiar scepticism in successfully casting, hooking, fighting and landing this thing arisen. Drawing back on the bow and arrow cast, I analysed all the reasons why this fish wasn’t going to be caught. It didn’t paint a pretty picture. With snags out the wazoo and next to no room for the fight, it was destined for failure. But in the fly went. A beaded, pheasant-tail nymph under a royal wulff. The moment that nymph slipped below the surface film, the fish came to life, clearly dialled in ready for a feed. It beelined straight to the sinking fly. Like all fish though, it hung there momentarily, poised for the eat, questioning the authenticity of the imitation. Its nose quite literally centimetres from the fly. Time dragged on, a season’s full of fish rejections, bust offs and botched casts flashed before my eyes. Surely another failure was on the cards. Bang. The trout obliged, sipping the fly in. The rod snapped back and the dog fight was on. Equal parts excitement, dread and focus. Quickly coming to, the fish did some quick thinking and whizzed downstream around the corner. I had a decision to make. Do I get in the drink and follow the fish downstream? Or try and horse the fish back upstream around the willow? Committed to landing this thing, I was left with the only option of going with the fish and taking a swim. Waist-deep and trying to remain in control, I was heading downstream with the current, all while maintaining tension on the fish. You could have put a pair of water skis on my feet and I would have ridden atop the surface of the Tumut River no dramas. This trout clearly had some errands to attend out west, and was in hurry to do so. It wasn’t easy and odds on, that fish should have busted off. But amazingly it remained hooked.

I was simply hanging on for the ride. In the midst of a few gulps of water lapping at my chin, headed down the wrong pipe, I managed to compose myself and miraculously the fish. Regaining a handle in some calmer water, back near the original gravel bar at the beginning of the bend, the fight was back on my terms. In calmer, shallow water the fish had fewer snags to hide in and the runs became less searing. Coaxing it over to a grass bed christened by Max as the ‘trout pastures’, the netting of the fish seemed inevitable. However in the palaver of the fight, the handle of the net had snapped at the hilt and Henry was forced to cradle a handleless net as the trout buried it’s head into the grass. In the final moments, as the fish was rolling back on itself at Henry’s feet, the royal wulff got snagged on some grass. I no longer had tension on the fish and doom was impending. Yet Henry intuitively plunged his whole arm in the drink, barely hanging onto the net, and swooped up the fish.

There was nothing but jubilation from all of us carrying on like pelicans. So many things had to go right for this fish to be netted and amazingly they did. Cradling the fish for a photo before it was quickly sent on its way, I realised I was incredibly lucky to land this fish. 

Willow fishing is something I enjoy, and do a lot of. But every fish I have reefed out of the willows, none more so than this one, has been with luck by my side.