Goulburn River Oct 2010

 A beautiful Goulburn River Brown Trout - my first ever!!  I've fished the Goulburn once before and caught nothing.  This weekend away it poured rain and the river was the colour of coffee.  This fish was caught in the last hour of the last day we were away.  The gold bead nymph firmly wedged in the top lip can be seen above.

 Stormy skies of Thorton where we set up camp at the Goulburn Fly Fishing Lodge.

Coffee coloured waters of the Goulburn where the brown trout above was caught.  Notice the stream on the right flowing into the Goulburn has clear water.  The fish was caught sitting on the edge of the clear water running into the Goulburn.

New Zealand Oct/Nov 2010

A wierd timber statue of a kiwi bird that we saw on the way up back country.

A couple of nice Tongariro Rainbow Trout - 1 caught on 'Daves Run' and the other in the second pool above Daves Run.  Top fish is a hen (girl) and the one below is a buck (male).  The filleting knike pictured is exactly 12 inches (30cm) from tip to but.

Col Parkes fishing his way up to Silly Pool on the Tongariro in New Zealand.

A nice 3 pound rainbow trout being landed on 'Daves Run' on the Tongariro.  The water is crystal clear!

This video is taken using a pair of sunglasses with a built in video camera system.  We had fund trying to get the sucker to work.  I don't know if we ever did figure it out properly??  Is the light suppose to be blue or yellow??

Photo above is from a secrete location not far from where Col earned his nickname of Col (Mud skipper) Parkes. Col earned the nick name of Mud Skipper after trying to cross a small river and finding it had a bottom of quick sand (mud) that swallowed him up to his waste.

A stretch of river on the Tongariro named 'Daves Run' due to the continuous and consistant fish we pulled out of this one little stretch. In one session we nailed 4, dropped 8, busted off 2, and released 2 - all 3 pounders plus!

Some cracker fish destined for the smoker back in Melbourne!

Some beautiful rainbow trout caught on the Tongariro in Turangi, New Zealand.

A couple of nice Rainbow trout caught by David Priddy (aka Panda Priddy) in a stectch of the Tongariro called 'Silly Pool'.

Nice rainbow trout caught by Panda Priddy along 'Daves Run' on the Tongariro.

This is a beautiful rainbow trout that Col (mud skipper) pulled out of a pond in the Back Country of New Zealand. This pond was closed off to the main stream and there were 4 or 5 fish 'land locked' in this crystal clear pond. Col tried a number of different fly's before this one rushed a egg pattern fly and was quickly nailed by Col.

Some cracker fish caught by David Priddy along 'Daves Run' on the Tongariro.

Some of the rainbow trout kept were chockas full of roe (see above).  Col tried egg pattern flies a number of times and managed to nail one nice fish on that fly.

New Zealand - Oct/Nov 2009

My mate Col skillfully netting a nice brown I caught.

My mate Col getting some tips from our guide Peter Fordham.

Climbing one of the hills to get into Peter's secret 'hot spot'.

Col dressed for bear.

Col selecting a secret fly to catch the 'big one'.

Col landing a fish down a 8 foot embankment - what a mate!

Nice brown hooked in a foot of water by me!

Couple of nice silvers pulled from 'daves hole'.

My good mate Colin and I made our annual overseas journey to do our fly fishing adventure the five days leading up to Melbourne Cup. The trip stared off with me arriving in Auckland and having my SIMS boots promptly confiscated by NZCustoms as the soles are felt and titanium spiked. Any felt boots are now banned in NZ due to the outbreak of Rock Snot in many of the streams in South NZ. The fear is that felt shoes can transport the spores of Rock Snot from one location to another. Therefore felt shoes are bannd. This year we travelled to Turangi and fished the Back Country and local streams of the Tongariro. Using local guide Peter Fordham on the first day we found ourselves in the BackCounty fishing streams not visited this year. NZ turned on the wind for us providing very challenging conditions. A couple of changes of location and Peter put us onto some superb cracking fish. All around the 3 pound plus mark. Col and I managed a nice pair of Silvers which Peter kindly took back to Taupo and arranged to have smoked for us to bring back to Aussie. The next 4 days Col and I spent our time wandering the many local streams and runs chasing rainbow and brown trout. The first few days were very windy and made fishing a case of moving from one location to another to find a spot in a sheltered spot, or resorting to waiting between gusts to make a cast. All fish averaged 3 plus pounds in weight. The largest fish we landed was a 5.3 pound frisky brown trout. One place that kept producing cracker fish for us was a location that Colin discovered called Delatours Pool (later renamed 'Daves Hole') which is at the end of a rather bumpy dirt road trail .. then a short walk through blackberry to a bend in a creek which has a drop off 10 feet down to the water. Its a shear drop off where the creek has erroded away the bank. When we arrived I polarioded 5 fish sitting about 30 feet out, and up river of us. Col and I had a laugh at the rediculous position and that it would be impossible to get a cast out to the fish, let alone land one if you manged to hook it. Directly behind your casting position is 10 foot of blackberry bush. Blackberry cuttings of branched are all over the ground, so you'd have to keep the loops of free fly line backing in your hand and let them out as you brought your line up to distance. Role casting is impossible. So the whoe thing looked rediculous and we were about to walk down stream when I said - let me have a crack at this. Attempting the impossible, third cast I got the flies in the right place and saw the fish swim up, open its mouth and take the fly. Game on! What started out as laughter soon turned to a lot of "oh shit - what do we do now"? There was nothing for it but for Col to chin down the drop off and balance on 8 inches of bank that dropped off into 15 foot of raging water. It was the stuff of legends. The fish was played into submission and skillfully netted by master netter Col Parkes! Thinking this first fish was a lucky fluke, I set about casting at the impossible and ... bang ... another fish fell to a small gold bead nymph. Chaos followed, but with the same net result - a beautiful 3 pound plus silver rainbow trout (called a jack?) ... over the next couple of days we revisited Daves Hole and managed a pull a couple of superb fish each time. Each time the water was so crystal clear we could see the fish swim up to the fly, open its mouth, and then the fun and games followed. The trip to NZ was fantastic with many quality fish being landed. We're now wondering what part of the world to travel to for our next annual pre Cup Day trip will be??

Dartmouth Dam - Nov 2008

You might be going to give this nice brown a kiss, but we're not throwing her back Barry "Bazza" Kerr! This trip was a change from my usual 'waving the wand' with us spending our time trolling the dam. This was a learning experience for me with us using what I referred to as christmas decorations, but in truth called Ford Fender rigs. For those not familiar with these, they are metal plates about 3 inches in length with reflective surfaces that rotate and send out beams of light in every direction as they are trolled through the water. Attached about a meter behind these is attached a worm, dragon fly nymph, or in my case a Tassie Devil lure. In the case of this fish I had a pink Tassie on the rig which after an hour of dragging across the lake had not produced a fish. I switched over to a yellow with black stripes (which the guys in Tassie on our recent trip said were producing all the fish their) and within 5 minutes we had a hit and catch of the brown pitured above. Our host Chris "TOR" Davies (pitured top) put the trip together and had the unenviable task of weathering the weather through cold, wind, rain and temperatures that had our teeth chattering in the front end of the boat. While the fish were sparse, the food, laughter and hopsitality were plentiful and made the trip a memorable event.

GlenLyon Dam - Queensland - Nov 2008

While in Brisvegas on business I had the opportunity to wet a line with a mate of mine Garry (Gazza) Lane out at Glenlyon Dam. Water levels were down to under 30% capacity which was a dramatic change compared to our last trip back in 2000 when it was at 50%. Fishing conditions where challenging with fish being very light on the bite. Live shrimp baits were gently sucked off the hooks instead of the usual 'boof' of past trips. Talking with other punters back at the boat ramp saw similar 'hard luck' stories. At the kiosk we were told 'you should have been here last week' ... we'll see how it goes next time.

Tasmania - November 2008

Couple of nice ''breakfast' fish (above) caught in the Meander River by myself.

My Mate Colie and I made our annual pilgrimage over to the Great Lakes in Tassie the weekend of Melbourne Cup. This years trip wasn't as near fruitful as previous years. It seems that crews trolling lures (Tassie Devils in yellow body, black strips) cleaned up with catches of 20 plus fish per boat per day being common. Being die-hard fly fisher folk, we slogged it out through hard and testing conditions. Our first two days saw bright, clear and cloudless days - unfortunately by the time we saw the fish, they saw us and headed for deeper waters. Fish proved to be very spooky under these conditions. Our third and forth days saw cloudy, windy, blustery days which made it difficult to keep our flies under control. By the fith day (and some couple of thousand casts later) I had worn my skin down to the flesh on one of my fingers through pulling the fly line over it - ouchy!

Sorrento - Victoria - Oct 2008

Last weekend we went out the front of Sorrento fishing for flathead and pulled a nice little bag for three of us. Colin cleaned up catching 8 of the 12 keepers we caught. The bait that performed on the day was whitebait. We drifted between No. 6 marker and the Fort to produce these results.

USA - Atlanta - June 2005

In June of 2005 I found myself in Atlanta in the USA on business with a weekend spare to fill in some time. Through one of the local contacts in Atlanta I got wind of a private stream owened by a guy named Bob who ran a smoke house outside of town. Following directions sribbled down on a restuarant napkin from dinner the previous night I made my way to Bob's place. An hour of of town and I found the smoke house where I wandered in and asked about the 'secrete' fishing stream. Bob said he knew nothing about any such stream. My heart sank, but thinking quickly I said that Frank Higgins had put me onto him, and then a broad smile struck Bobs face. A short while later I was given another set of directions on a scrap of paper smudged with gravy and other smoke house muck along with a set of keys to get me onto his beloved hot spot. Buying a couple of smoke house special roles and discussing the fishing I was about to do, Bob asked what kind of fly gear did I have? "Oh, just a 6 weight rod with 3 pound tippet" I replied. Bob was rolling on the floor laughing and remarked that I'd need at least 20 pound tippet if I had any hope of landing a fish. I thought he was joking with me, being an kangaroo and all. Anyway, I soon found his parting words ringing in my ears as I was busted off left, right and centre. The fishing was fast and furious with takes happening on every other cast. The battles were short lived as these bruisers found new ways to bust me off at every turn. The water was skinny, being only 8 to 10 foot across in some sections. Trees overhung and followed the stream, but all in all was pretty clear of vegitation to prevent you from casting. The challenge came in that each pool of opportunity had a tail end with overhanging branches, logs for the fish to swim under and then drop down into the next pool, hidden tree roots for the fish to swim through and do loop-d-loops, and a new one I'd never seen before when a fish hit a dry fly and cleared the water before bouncing off the bank and rolling back into the water before snagging my fly on the opposite bank! A big hole was appearing in my fly box as I lost rig after rig. Finally, one fish decided to give me a break and headed up stream and into a pool that it couldn't get back out of. I literally had to throw myself in front of the fish every time it made a dash for down stream. Despite the early difficulties, I soon worked found a couple of ideal pools to fish in and once hooked, keep them in the upper parts before tiring them to catch and release. It was a fantastic spot to wet a line. If anyone ever tells you about a secrete spot and to ask for Bob, make sure you let him know how put you onto him, otherwise you'll miss out on a most excellent place to spend a day.

Tasmania - November 2007

In the weekend leading up to Melbourne Cup my good mate Colin and I headed to Tasmaina hell bent on having the best fishing adventure ever. Making the journey over on the Spirit of Tasmania and utilising Cols Landcruiser to get about once we hit main land at Davonport. We had a plan in place to fish various lakes and streams as we stumbled on them en route to Great Lake and Arthurs Lake. We enlisted the help of a local guide for a couple of days (I always highly recommend doing this so that you can figure out quickly whats going on - you can't beat local knowledge) and we were soon into the fish. One of the things I love about fishing is that you are always learning. Our guide Chris Bassano taught us the art of dibbling from a boat across the shallows where losts of frisky browns cruised looking for their morning feed. Thirteen fish around the 3 pound mark were landed in quick succession. We're scheduled to make our annual trip again during the same period this year (2008) ... so stay tunned for some more brilliant pictures and stories to follow.