bigpete wrote:
Yeah unfortunately I've been a bit disappointed so far in sub x rounds
Yes I remember you saying. Was it the same thing? Next time I'll deliberately aim for a heavy bone.
Wm.Traynor wrote:Good hunting, Flyonline
Thanks
Been a bit of a good w/e. The family were away yesterday so I took a punt and headed to the local trout creek for a bit of a bo-peep and see how it was faring in the warm and dry weather. Not great is the answer, moderately low (though still cool temp) with nothing of any size seen though there were a number of small (6"ish) browns missed, seen or landed. Got to watch a 4' brown of a different kind scatter a large spread of water skinks basking on a sheet rock when I spooked it upstream of me. Was about to head for home, but decided to have a quick scan of a bit of a rocky gorge and was glad I did. Watched something moving up and down the edge of the creek in the shadow and my initial thought was another snake, then a water rat but I finally saw a true rise and some fin, so I quickly mountain goated it down into the water and slowly waded up to it. I had to time my cast right as it was a very tight window (using the 2wt fly rod), both casting and getting the timing right with water flow and trout vision, but managed a perfect cast (on the second attempt
) and a snout slowly sipped my Royal Wulff off the surface and I lifted into a fair lump of a fish that eventually turned into a 40cm Jack.
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As the girls were still away, I grabbed the rifle in the early afternoon and went for an evening sit looking for fallow. There is some really thick stuff along the cooler side of the gully driving in, a veritable herd of herds could hide in here so I aimed to climb the other side in the more open country and hopefully pick anything exiting the cover and heading down to the farmland below. Ultimately I think I wasn't quite high enough to see sambar coming down, and there wasn't really enough open areas to see fallow here.
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I must have pushed myself harder on friday and yesterday morning than I thought as I was beginning to feel it a little, so I packed up and headed back in the last light for an thirst quenching ale and found these two have an amorous time in the tree next to the old bush track. I say amorous, it was more like rape as she wasn't too interested, and he was!
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Back in the car, I was rolling slowly down the hill along the dirt road through a large opening a few 100ms long and maybe 100m wide, when I saw a white patch in the creek bottom 50m below me. I quickly pulled up and through the black wattle in front of me, I could make out the form of a white fallow and with the aid of the binos I could see it was a velvet spike. Unfortunately he decided he didn't like Xtrails and trotted off up the hillside. Next time.....
This morning I punched some paper with the 97k, just checking my re-build on the tripod and some new 'pest control' pellets. Unfortunately they don't fly as good as the standard diablos, so will be limited to short (<25m) ranges, though may be the goods as they appear to open out somewhat more than the domes of the diablos. Was very happy to find I could get a 1/2" group at 50m with my preferred pellets - ok a 3 shot group but the 45m group was a true clover leaf. If you'd told me that I could to this with an only slightly altered stock springer 6 months ago, I'd have laughed. Not any more
On my way home I swung past a dam that has reddies and cod in it. I'd bought a handful of worms with the idea of catching a small reddie then sending it back out wearing a hook to see if I could tempt a cod to have a bit of early lunch. The first few reddies were tiny, but the 4th or 5th was a nice 8" model, so I quickly slipped the #10 hook in under the dorsal fin and threw it out.
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I'd read somewhere of people catching small fish, then deliberately letting them swim around so the panicked vibes would draw in the big fish and the other person then tried to catch the bigger fish. This had happened to unc and I at this dam before, but not deliberately. First cast and the line jagged off to one side suddenly and there was a small bump as I tightened up and a large boil of water at the surface, followed by a brief flash of large white of a slab sided cod belly. Another cast into the vicinity and I slacklined the reddie so it could swim around freely. Again, the line jagged and I tightened into a heavy weight that peeled off line briefly before pulling free. The luckless reddie was still attached, so I sent it out for a 3rd mission. This time, I slowly drew the fish in towards me with a tight line and a solid thump turned into weight that pulled line. I was only using 6lb line, 10lb leader and a 1-3kg spinning rod not really expecting to see anything. There are a number of snags in this dam, so i was a little concerned with the big cod wrapping me up, but the lack of hooks hanging out meant that I didn't have to worry about losing the fish that way at least. The fight was not particularly protracted, though the cod did pull line often as I tired it out until I could see the large white form through the water. Holy Crap! Knowing I was into something pretty good, the pressure was on, but I was able to keep my nerve, and despite a few lunges and headshakes, I managed to put my glove on and grab the big cod.
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85cm of codly goodness as measured against my rod later and my biggest fish to date.
Still got one day to go on the long w/e
