When it comes to a fly fishing trip, plans are made to be changed. On this occasion, we had enough rain to dirty many of the systems we had planned on fishing. Our original plan was to fish the Nariel, The Swampy and perhaps even the Tumut. When we woke in the rain on the Saturday morning of Cup Weekend, we had some hard decisions to make. After the breakfast of champions, we packed up our wet camping gear and shot off to the Swampy. This river is a tailrace and so they tend to be clearer after rain than the smaller streams. As was expected, the river was high and with the weather starting to improve, we felt we would get a hatch of some description through the the day. Well we didn't. The rain continued sporadically and while we still managed to catch the odd trout on a dry fly, nymphing was by far the most productive method and while we had a great time catching small trout, we didn't come accross any sizeable fish to write home about.
The Swampy Plains River.
A nice little Swampy rainbow.
We pulled the pin mid afternoon and after a quick re-charge in Khancoban and a couple of phone calls, we made the decision to head to the Thredbo. By current reports, the fishing had been good. Not lots of fish, but some larger rainbows scattered through the system feeding greedily on just about anything. I've always had a soft spot for the Thredbo. It's a beautiful stream with so much diversity. Slow glides, pocket water, riffles and runs... It's technical fishing and the fish have seen a lot of anglers. But this is rewarding angling. There is the need for constant mending of the line to achieve that all important drag free drift and in high levels such as what we experienced, the river has lots of current seams that make this hard to achieve. We found the most productive fishing to be below the hatchery. This area typically sees a lot of traffic and so if you plan a trip there, be prepared to do some walking and leave enough water for other anglers. We fished upstream through the day, methodically covering every inch of water we could. Nymphing through the faster water resulted in plenty of strong little rainbows up to around a pound. Copper Johns and hares ear nymphs proved productive as searching pattern.
A couple of Thredbo River rainbows.
We polaroided lots of fish in the slower water. Some we're still paired up, moving fast and thinking about spawning more than feeding. Don't waste your time with these fish. Finding a more stationary or actively feeding trout was a much more likely prospect. But if you really get your heart set on catching one, then try a big woolly bugger drifted down to the fish and stripped back. While we fished upstream through the day, we'd scope out likely spots for the evening rise to come back to. The parachute adams was our most productive dry fly but make sure you carry a decent selection because the fish can get very selective in a hatch. On the way home, we fished above the Ski Tube in rather tough conditions. Currently. there is so much undergrowth along the river that in these high flows, moving upstream proved very difficult. We spotted two tiger snakes but fortunately they were very quick to get out of the way.
The Thredbo River above the Ski Tube
We managed a couple of fish but the fishing in the lower Thredbo was considerably better. This will no doubt change as the weather starts to warm. We camped on Lake Jindabyne while we were there. We did spend a morning walking around the lake to try and polaroid some trout but we didn't come accross any fish. Since being back at the shop, we've had some great reports on the fishing at Eucumbene. But the Thredbo river is a very special place and who would complain about catching beautifully conditioned rainbows up to 3 pounds on dry flies! If you're planning a trip to the Thredbo or Eucumbene, feel free to give us a call at the shop on (03) 9621 1246 for up to date information to help make your trip a success.
Happy fishing,
Andrew
No comments:
Post a Comment