The Trout Whisperer's Diary
April 2006
Click these images to enlarge
Use the "BACK" button on your browser to return here
Picture #1
Picture #2
Picture #3
Picture #4
Picture #5
Picture #6
Picture #7
Picture #8
Picture #9
Picture # 10
Picture # 11
Picture # 12
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away – the Lord is an ‘Indian Giver’.
The local radio station was celebrating the ‘Indian Summer’ in the last week of February when Steve and I were fishing Lake St Clair. As if the year’s weather hadn’t been dirty enough. April Fools day was having none of the ‘Indian Summer’; it was an April’s fools joke. Snow up the mountain and yet another small craft alert, road weather alert, sheep grazier’s alert, bush walkers alert picture #1 and the TV news showed car’s smashed galore of all those skilled drivers who don’t know when to slow down.
The season is closing and I wanted to use every opportunity to wet a fly. Desperation was your friend here and while the F1 motor car racing spectacular was a ‘must see’ event for some people, the 4 day weather forecast became once more the default webpage. But as you can see, in picture3 on Friday the ninths of the four day weather map of 4th April there was no good news for the next week or so. The isobars were as tight as a fishes bum, and we all know how tight that is.
Come Monday I called my weatherman [Brendan] to confirm that the forecast for the week was for atrocious weather, but before I finished my question he said
“today is your best day” – his words were music to my ears. What? – there is a chance today to go fishing? Yeah! It doesn’t get shitty until tomorrow afternoon, mind you; you will be freezing your nuts off. Well, that was easily prevented; all I need to do is wear my nut warmers.
I soon found out how right Brendan was nut warmers or not, it was biting. Heavily overcast and winds S-Westerly 5-10kt. That’s fine; all we need to do is catch some fish. With the benefit of hindsight, I figured my best bet was the floating line with triple flies, lock-style fishing. After an hour or so casting the first tug and a boil - the fish left his ‘calling card’ picture #4 (it is hard to photograph the strike), fish seem to become active. LG – [Life is Good] I thought but LG turned into LM [Life is Miserable] as I soon found out. After about 15 fish struck the flies I was stumped.
Fish were obviously active but not aggressively feeding or could there something be wrong with my setup? I downsized the flies in the hope that fish would find it easier to take them. The strike-rate was good; they just didn’t hang onto it. After a while I took two small maiden fish, which I returned. A good fish finally hit the fly and took all the slack line out only to take flight and leave me wondering – yet again.
Still, it made life interesting and as a 1lb brown came on board, I hoped that the spell was broken – NOT. Nothing seems to be right and after about 20 or more fish hit the line, some really hard, I was no more the wiser. What the hell was going on here? The sky was still heavily overcast; the wind was light just rippling the surface, a good day despite the cold. My nut warmers worked well, but as time marched on, my feet felt more and more like a cooler brick.
By 16.00hr I gave up counting the takes I had. Before the approaching darkness I went back into a little weedy bay where I harvested a lot of good fish. I also shortened the tippet back to two flies. Ten casts or so later a good fish gave me a hard tug - yet again, and left a ‘thank you but no thank you’ message. A subsequent cast however got him, so much for fishing ‘dirty water’. The fish had taken the top fly and was running fast and furious. I worked him close in and he ran deep and disappeared underneath the boat. Somehow he managed to snag the point fly [weighted woolly bugger II]. It looked grim for a while, but finally the fish broke free and we were back in business. He came on board but the woolly bugger II was lost, broken of at the knot.
A smidgen short of 2lb, I had worked hard to get him. I fished until it got pitch, as in dark, picture #5 but I couldn’t get another fish, not tonight Josephine, not tonight...
Best estimate was that I had 30 or so strikes, got five, kept two. I could have so easily
‘bagged-out’ but a fish is not in the bag until it is in the bag.
The weather went bananas again on the 6th of April snow covered the mountains down to 900m in the morning and in the afternoon 120km/hr wind gusts were recorded, it was 'brass monkey's' weather. The Cape Sorell Waverider buoy observations located at 42.12S, 145.03E (Approximately 10 Km West of Cape Sorell, West Tasmania measured 14m wave-height, not an all time high [22m] but enough to have a second look at your last meal, or that of the day before or that of the day before that. Watch out when that brown ring comes up, and swallow it immediately. The good news was that the surfing conditions were excellent; for the brave or suicidal.
Droughty Hill wind gust of 178 km/h was the highest recorded since the site opened in 1995. It is the second highest wind gust ever recorded in Tasmania (the highest being 200 km/h at Mount Wellington on 20 March 1998).
The Spirit of Tasmania coming from Sydney ran 6 hrs late and got a real beating and the passengers had as much in their stomach as the trout had all summer – nothing.
The morning dawned on April 25th, ANZAC day and I needed some closure for the season 2006.
The weather forecast looked ideal on the website, which a quick call to the weather buff Brendan confirmed. ‘If you want cloud, there is not going to be any’ he said, ‘Liawenee’s remote weather station shows at this moment -30C and no wind’ he continued, ‘the good news is it is going to be warmer today than yesterday’ he said. ‘How warm?’ I asked ‘about 100C’. ‘What was it yesterday?’ ‘90C’ he replied. Great day in the morning, a whole degree warmer than yesterday – heat wave condition – NOT. I covered my nut (above my shoulders) and put my thermal nut protector (below my shoulders) on and got going.
Today I didn’t think of catching heaps of fish, that has been difficult all this season, but I wanted to go up there enjoying the day, the air the view the boat and everything which goes with fly fishing and having a day out and about.
On the way through the country lanes autumn was all around me and the end of the season nearing picture #6 one season down, five left - who knows?
The lake greeted me with a ‘glass-out’. picture #7 Not a ripple in sight. Although the air was freezing, it was a glorious day and I was going to enjoy the day, fish or no fish.
About ten fisher folk had the same idea, some trawling, some spinning and some fly fishing but all trying to catch our elusive speckled friends in Gods own temple. picture #8 and picture #9
I cut across the lake to the eastern shore and fished for about an hour without success. Fish are thinking of ‘other things’ or was it just another ‘one of those days’ I wondered?
I cut across to Tumbledown bay. No less than seven boats were fishing there thinking that fish were positioning themselves ‘for other things’. In any case they were not feeding and after about an hour or so one boat after another left, including me. I picked up a little breeze and fished a shoreline and rose three fish, but could not make contact with any of them and I have to admit that I did not mind one single bit. I was here to enjoy the day, ANZAC day.
A day to remember and a day to enjoy.
As many of you know (those who know me and those who read my book) Australia is my adopted home of 40 years – this year.
ANZAC day has a special meaning to me too. As Australia mourns its fallen sons, I mourn the loss of my own father. A man I can’t remember, a man I never knew, a man who was taken away from me in a conflict on the other side of he world in which he had no say and from which he never returned - my Dad – Rudolf Samerski.
I went out on this ANZAC day to my favourite Tasmanian Lake in God’s own temple to find closure for the season and closure to my sorrow.
The day was complete and I was happy and I remembered all those young boys which left their families never to return and those which never could wet a fly again and yet they were only nineteen.
So I dedicate this last fishing trip for my season to those young men and my Dad with the lyrics of Eric Bogle’s and John Munro’s haunting words:
Now when I was a young man
I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played
"Waltzing Matilda,"
As the ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli.
And how well I remember
that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water;
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well;
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell --
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
But the band played
"Waltzing Matilda,"
When we stopped to bury our slain,
Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.
And those that were left,
well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more
"Waltzing Matilda,"
All around the green bush far and free --
To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.
So they gathered the
crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.
But the band played
"Waltzing Matilda,"
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.
And so now every April, I
sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.
But the band plays
"Waltzing Matilda,"
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing
Matilda.
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
If you would like to contact me for comments or contributions click here: thetroutwhisperer@bigpond.com