November 2004
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The high was 1028 (nowadays called hectoPascal [hPa]– used to be millibars [mb] and before that [Hg/mm]) and the forecast was for variable 10 knots and 24oC just what the Dr ordered.
November hadn’t been very kind to us in Tasmania, the wettest in 80yrs or so the newspaper made us believe. They know, most of their staff started work then.
Donger was on time – I like that in a man.
This was our fourth trip together since we were re-aquatinted and the second in November. Earlier this month was winter, winter in November? If you have read chapter VIII of my book ‘Fishing and the Weather’ you already know that an Antarctic front can hit you in the back and before you know there is snow down to 800 m. Well we didn’t have snow that time, but we certainly had thermal long johns and thermal gloves on and the ‘high tech’ Gore-Tex jacket. By nightfall we were close to freezing our hectoPascals off and the 4WD heater was on ‘6’ as we left the boat ramp and headed home. Five fish for the day and all on ultra fast sinking line.
But that was three weeks ago and today was a new day, a 24oC day and possibly a ‘dry fly’ day, the glamour event of fly-fishing. If you have a strong heart or a good reliable heart pacer you can stand the excitement dry fly fishing will give you.
Beetles, more precisely Gum Beetles, were floating on the water. Five here, ten there another ten over there (you noticed I’ve gone metric?). Hey this is going to be fun, or so we thought.
From November on, come 10.00 hrs on a warm day, the little beetles get active and start flying. Either to find a mate or to find tucker. In either case they get blown onto the water and float for a while. When they’ve drunk as much as they can, they get heavy, tired, drown and sink.
Often the fish are not in the least interested to come to the top and feed on them but if they do, it is a heart stopper. Three or four pound fish surface from nowhere, like silent submarines, pick up randomly half a dozen beetles and submerge again. It is all hands at battle stations then; because you have only 10 seconds to get your one cast out and place it accurately in the path of the fish. Careful not to line him, and a meter or so in front of him. Than you have to persuade him to take your fly instead of the other twenty naturals floating nearby. But there is a way, there is always a way.
I have been on the water at night and in the beam of the flood light seen hundreds of thousands of beetles floating on the water. It looked like somebody had emptied a hundred beanbags onto the water; I kid you not - and all the fish are ‘chockers’ with beetles.
We soon realised that today not a bloody fish cared if there were a hundred or a thousand of the little blighters floating on top.
Sadly it was back to the ultra fast sinking line, deep, deep and stripping! Gum beetle imitations are usually not fished deep. So if you can’t match the hatch, try something entirely different.
Donger had three solid hits on his home made nymph, a dandy little number but he could not stay connected. I stayed with my twin ‘combo’. A bead head at the point and my favourite caddis (see book page 55) a meter above it.
I am not one for competition fishing, unless I am in front. I had the first fish, the one on the far left and as usual we investigated his stomach contents – gum beetles! Surprised? Not in the least. Fish take them after they drown and sink, not the fish, the beetles.
Donger and I went tit for tat and as the sun set we had three each, about the same size each as well.
Picture #1 - Beetles don’t come in all shapes and sizes but in most colours from light green to dark red/brown. I heard that the colour changes with age/maturity but then I wouldn’t know. I’ve always been green behind my ears; maybe maturity passed me by. It makes life so much more enjoyable.
Picture #2 - Fish just gorge themselves full with the little protein balls to the point that the stomach is extended and looks like a sock full of pebbles.
Picture #3 - Clearly on beetles, yet they took our nymph and caddis fly. Opportunistic feeders! Remember that phrase from the book? The proof is in the pudding of the eating or is it the pudding of the eating is in the proof? If you look closely (arrows) there are a few black ants amongst the beetles, not quite clear on this picture but when we scraped this mess apart, it was quite evident much to our surprise, because we did not see any ant on the water.
Picture #4 - The entrance looks like a who is who in the beetle/insect world. Clearly visible are the black ants (1) and a common black beetle (2, lookus beetleus sixleggetatus – translated into modern English – looks like a bloody black beetle with six legs) amongst the Gum beetle. I personally believe that the food in the fishes mouth is regurgitated from its stomach while he is trying to throw the hook. You try to run, summersault and jump with a gut full of booze and food and see how much stays down. Picture # 4a & 4b
Picture #5 - Well there is no catch and release here. From 3 lb to 1.5 lb, a valuable food source and expensive to buy every fish worth its weight in petrol. Smoked/grilled trout on the home BBQ is nothing to sneeze at. Anybody can buy a turkey, but trout not feed with chicken pellets? That’s another kettle of fish altogether.
Picture #6 - It’s a survivor, I picked him/her/it/the insect person (you’ve got to be politically incorrect nowadays or they write nasty e-mails) up from the water to see what it was. Donger thinks it might be a sedge fly, not that he is often right, but in this case he might be mistaken. I googled ‘sedge fly’ and nothing comes up looking like it. The clear wing shining like a solar panel in the sun was fascinating. So if you are an atheist, a bank manager or a dentist and know what it is, feel free to let me know.
Picture #7 - Unlike the natural, the imitation Gum beetle fly can come in many shapes and sizes, designs and materials. All take fish when fish want to take them. Shown here are just some of my collection which I tossed together to get this story onto my website. There are many other designs, don’t be too afraid to make your own. Only the fish decide what is a good look-a-like, nobody else.
To finish off where I started, with the Beatles: “It was a hard days night and we were fishing like a dog”…
If you would like to contact me for comments or contributions click here: thetroutwhisperer@bigpond.com