November 2005

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Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Picture #4

Picture #5

Picture #6

Mark Twain was reported to have said:

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”.

That window of opportunity opened one more time ever so slightly in the first few days of November. Slight wind and above average temperatures were forecast and due to the bad weather in August, September and October, I felt compelled to reschedule the garden work and go fishing at short notice.

Due to the rain in the previous months, the lake was 'chockers' and since picture #1 was taken, that bit of brown dirt, where you normally can turn the car and trailer on, has vanished under rising water. Picture #1

It was shortly before lunch when I laid the first line on the water, still ultra fast sinking #7, loaded with two flies. Hundreds of gum beetles were floating on the water. They must have squeezed through the same opening of the window of opportunity and were fed up with the previous two months bad weather. Picture #2

Gum beetles on the water are usually a mixed blessing and a dilemma.

Gum beetles get airborne whenever the air warms up and other conditions (which only the beetles know and we are left to ponder about) are right. Sometimes in the morning (at about 10.00 hrs) and other times early afternoon. Nobody can really tell, unless you have been a gum beetle in your previous life and I haven't met anybody yet who admits to that.

Fish sometimes take the beetles from the top and sometimes only after they, the beetles, have drowned and sink below the surface.

If you’re on the water when the gum beetles first arrive, and fish start to take them, from the top, fishing can be truly exhilarating, nerve wracking and a challenge to your pace maker. It doesn't take long however for the fish to fill themselves up to the eyeballs with the little friggers and they stop feeding altogether, they can take no more. So don't waste any time false casting, get that imitation on the water, because not before long, trout have a million ‘live ones’ to choose from.

If the fish take the beetles after they sink, the water looks dead and you mightn't see a rise or a fish all day.

But on this day, it looked that I was too late for the rising fish, as by now I figured they were up to their collective eye balls full of 'gumies' either by having eaten them from the top or the bottom.

So the old, well proven rule is, if you’ve had enough of one good thing, offer alternatives. In human terms, if you’re chockers of ‘fish’n chips’, maybe an ice cream will still be tempting.

But then there appeared to be another possibility and I don’t know why I only thought of this for the first time. The fish were just as surprised at the unexpected beetle hatch as I was. It was 7 deg C above normal for this time of year - or so it said. They just couldn’t get their mind around it and were just not ready to feed on the gummies.

Anyway, I got on with fishing and decided to do what I knew worked last week, not always successful but not a bad basis to build on.

Well it didn't, work that is. Three hours later the first fish followed in, but thought better of it and it took another hour before the first fish took the fly.

Much to my delight, my suspicion was confirmed, not a single gum beetle in his stomach. That was good news as far as I’m concerned. That reduced the available food competition by more than a million.

The afternoon breeze pushed the gum beetles into shore, there was plenty of fish tucker, but the fish would have none of it. (picture #3 & #4).

Two more fish found their way into the boat, the last one right on dark, again no gum beetles in their tummy.

I was the second last boat back at the ramp, by a minute. The other boatie told me that last week he witnessed somebody pulling a 12lb trout (clean) out of the lake – on a worm. YOU all agree with me, that’s like shooting deer with a submachine gun, it doesn’t count!

Since that early week in November and until today, it has been a terrible spring and summer weather with weather charts relentlessly and monotonously showing hostility towards trout fisher folks.  

Picture #5 showing a massive rain bearing cloud system bashing the eastern states and Tassy and more cold fronts following (top left) and obscuring Tassy (top right).

Bottom left shows strong wind patterns way back past West Australia, indicating no let-up of the wind for a week or more, as it takes usually 7-10 days to reach us here.

Picture #6 tells more of the same story, since early November, and so it goes on and on and on.

One thing is for sure, the slightest chance of a half way decent (safe boating) day I can get, I will be out there and amongst them, no matter how deep they are.

I bid you all a very happy Christmas, a safe New Year and Tight lines until the end of the season.

May your God be with you and all who sail with her.

If you would like to contact me for comments or contributions click here: thetroutwhisperer@bigpond.com