From: Mike Wallis

Hi all, went down to Anglesea for the three days a couple of weeks ago and fished the river and beach hard on bait, lure and fly.

Day 1 - Friday: Arrived at Anglesea, unpacked, etc., and then headed down to Point Roadnight to throw some bait off the beach. I also took a 4 weight fly rod (this was a mistake). We fished hard with small (less than 6-foot) rods on an ebbing tide and managed to get several baby Australian salmon and a couple of good (bait) sized mullet. All fish were released unharmed. I pulled out the 4 weight and tied on a Jelly Belly with lead eyes. Casting was difficult when the wind picked up and I found that the fly was probably a little too heavy for the rod as it tended to overload on the back cast and then the forward cast would get shockwaves in it. This meant that I couldn't cast the distance required and the fly rod was put away. Mind you I am only just learning how to fly fish (and cast), so I suggest that someone with a little more skill would have done far better than I, but that's just part of the learning curve.

Day 2 - Saturday: Got up about 7am and was on the water in front of the Pirate Ship (kids play equipment) with my lure and fly rods by about 8am. I pulled out an RMG Scorpion 35 in silver and black (excellent bream lure) and tied it on next to the first pool I came too. Whilst I was finishing the knot, I noticed that there were several (at least 7) bream sitting right in front of me, looking at me expectantly - quite strange. I had a bit of a look around to see what was going on and noticed that there were some families throwing bread into the water to feed the ducks. Hmmm - should I be using a bread fly? Anyway, I cast over the bream and about 3 metres behind them, to my astonishment the bream raced over to the lure, looked at it and then all ran away. I think my lure didn't look like a piece of bread. I had few more casts in this pool, but to no avail.

It was time for a change of location, so I headed over to one of the small, but deep pools in the middle of the islands and bridges. I have fished this pool many times before and have raised some really good bream from it in days gone by. The lure flew out to the other side of the pool and I started the standard bream luring technique - small wind, small stab, small wind, small stab stab, take up the slack, pause, pause, pause, pause some more and then repeat. Not a sausage - bummer.

I decided to setup the fly rod so headed back to the sheltered side of the Pirate Ship and did so. I tied a Dogtooth White Bait Candy fly on my 7 weight outfit and headed back to the deep pool. After a few casts it was quite obvious that the 12 foot leader and tippet I had made up the night before was way too long for the situation at hand. I quickly retied a 6 foot leader out of 3 foot of 20lb and 3 foot of 10lb and had another go. I was happy with the leader, but after 30 minutes or so I still hadn't even seen a fish. I was getting a little grumpy so I thought I should change tactics again.

I grabbed the spin rod and pushed the Scorpion 35 to the other side of the deep pool and wound like crazy with solid stabs all the way along (this is not what I would call a bream retrieve, more of a blue water or surf salmon retrieve). I stopped the lure as soon as I could see it through the polaroids and to my amazement there were several bream chasing it. As the lure stopped, so did the fish. They eyed my offering only to turn and head back into the depths - oh well, at least I know they are there. I had a few more goes and saw a few more fish, but could not get them to attack the lure.

It was time for a change of venue, so I pulled on the backpack and headed towards the back of the big island in the middle of the river. Along the way I noticed that someone (DPI, NRE, or whatever there name is this month) had put in a little fishing jetty. I hadn't fished this jetty before so I headed over.

The Scorpion flew out parallel to the bank and landed almost silently (smile). I started with the flat-out style retrieve that drew some fish earlier and it instantly worked again, but with the same result - no hook up. This time I had some largish (probably around 30cm) bream following the lure and when it stopped they would sit with there nose almost on the lure. At one point I had two bream sitting behind the lure and one of them had a go at the other one (a quick head butt) - I pissed myself laughing and people on the other side of the river looked at me strangely - that's fishing for you.

The Scorpion was attracting the fish, but when they got close, they could obviously detect that something was wrong so I decided that I should change the lure. I pulled out the tackle box and selected a small Rapala Husky Jerk in a white and silver pattern (very bright). I tried several different styles of retrieve with this lure, but the flat out retrieve was the only one that would get the fish to follow. After an hour or so I had seen many fish chase my lure, but all turn away in disgust once they had had a good look at it - time to get the fly rod out.

I fly fished this spot on the Jelly Belly, White Bait Candy, Wooly Buggers, etc, but could not get the fish to follow. I even tried the "stick the rod under your arm and use two hands to retrieve" style, but alas this just wasn't working. I was quite hungry and headed home for some lunch.

Tim (a mate of mine who has access to really cool house down at Anglesea) and I discussed the options and decided to head to the other side of the river and up towards the back to fish a spot that we have been to several times before and have always had good results.

We had some lunch and headed off. Between us we probably had just about everything in a small tackle shop - bait (prawns, pippies and squid), two boxes of hard bodied lures, approximately 100 assorted small soft plastics, a box full of flies, two bait rods, a lure rod, a fly rod with several reels, rod holders, hooks, sinkers, a couple of spools of line, wet weather gear, cold weather gear and a partridge in a pair tree. Tim travels relatively lightly (a rod, some bait and a tackle box); it's me who has the over-packing problem (smile).

On the way to our spot we noticed that there were several groups of people fishing, so we thought there should be some good action. Once we arrived we setup pretty quickly, Tim on his bait rod and I had a bait rod in a rod holder plus a lure rod in my hand. Through the polarising sunnies I had on, I could see heaps of bream ranging from absolute babies right up to some nice size fish around the 25-30cm mark. I whacked a pippi on the bait rod and put a cast into the middle of the river. I rested the bait rod in the rod holder and picked up the lure rod. I decided to try something a little different and put on a Salmo Bullhead. This is a nice little lure that is actually slow sinking rather than floating.

I put quite a few casts out from the bank in a fan arrangement, but the lure seemed to scare the fish on splash down and the flat out retrieve just wasn't working. Time to change tactics - I pulled out the trusty Scorpion and attached it via an oversized snap in the hope that it would sink. Well, it kind of worked, but the sinking was painfully slow and the large snap caused the front of the lure to be lower than the back when at rest (I like my lures to sit horizontally when at rest). I was attracting the fish with the standard bream retrieve, but they still had the same wariness about attacking the lure as before. I tried a couple of other floating/suspending lures with the big snap, but had the same issues. Bummer.

I pulled the lure in and clipped off the big snap and replaced it with a much smaller and differently designed snap that weighs almost nothing. I was selecting the next lure to go out when bang, bang, bang, the bait rod went off and was looking dangerously like it was going to jump out of the holder. I quickly placed the lure rod against a bush and grabbed the bait rod. The fish had obviously hooked itself and was just a matter of reeling it in. It had a fair bit of grunt and its tail was really motoring along, but it wasn't pulling line so it was not going to be a big one. After a short bout I had a small silver trevally in my hand.

We continued on in this fashion with bait and lures until some bad weather came over the hill and we decided to leave. From memory, Tim managed to get a couple of bream, a couple of Australian salmon and a trevally. I ended up with a couple of Australian salmon and a couple of trevally. All fish were undersized and quickly released.

I didn't even manage to get the fly rod together and I have realised that you can really only manage two styles of fishing at once (i.e. bait and lure, lure and fly or bait and fly) otherwise the amount of gear gets overwhelming and difficult to move around quickly. I like having two different options on hand so if one fails to produce the results, you can fall back on the other.

Tim and his girlfriend headed out for dinner and a go at the pokies that night. I decided to stay home and relax with a pile of lures that needed de-barbing. Whilst I was admiring the colourful little creatures, Rob gave me a call on the mobile. We chatted for a little while and decided to meet up the next morning for a spot of fly casting tuition and some fly fishing in the river. Rob Meade is an excellent angler and excels at fly fishing. In fact he is so good with the fly rod that he has been sponsored by Sage.

I headed to bed after watching a few videos (on fishing) and dreamt of the big bream that was going to come my way on the fly rod tomorrow.

Day 3 - Sunday: I slept in a little, but managed to hit the water by about 9.30am. First off, I decided to have a go at the deep pool from yesterday. I had setup my rods the night before so I marched over, rested the fly rod against a fence post and punched the Scorpion over to the other side. I started off with the flat out retrieve and instantly had fish following the lure. I still had the same problem with the fish no actually wanting to hit the lure. Hmmm, a change of tactics was needed.

I pulled off my backpack and rummaged through the over stocked bag to pull out a box of small soft plastics. I selected a small (around 35mm) black and silver Squidgy curl tail fish. This was quickly tied on and cast to the spot that seemed to produce the most follows on the hard bodied lures.

I couldn't really feel the little lure at the other end of the line and decided that I should try Bushies soft plastic retrieve. This is where you cast out , let the lure drop to the bottom and wind up the slack. After a reasonably long pause you slowly lift the rod tip so that the lure will rise about 30 cm off the bottom and then lower it again. Now, it is a matter of watching the line that is sitting on the surface for and slight pull or twitch.

I spent about 30 minutes trying different soft plastics and different styles of retrieve, but could not raise a fish. I had a quick go with the fly rod, but alas still nothing. I tried a few more lures including some suspending shallow divers, floating deep divers, inline spinners and even a surface lure (just for the fun of it). I noticed it was getting close to the time that I said I would meet up with Rob, so headed down to the little old boat sheds next to the bridge (our appointed meeting spot).

There is a very nice fishing platform that has been constructed next to the boat sheds, so I thought I should have a quick go on the fly rod. I fished for about 30 minutes in very clear shallow water and didn't see a fish - I was really just trying to fine tune my casting before Rob arrived.

I headed over to the toilet on the other side of the bridge to pay my respects when Rob gave a call on the mobile. We met up in the car park near the boat hire and immediately pulled out the fly rods.

Rob bought down the latest XI2 7 weight salt water fly rod that Sage had personalised for him and he had received as part of his sponsorship.

We had a quick look at the selection of flies we had available and selected some nice small weighted flies - sorry I am not sure what they were called, but they were similar to a small Woolly Bugger with lead eyes.

We had a quick go up under the bridge, but I was having problems casting and snagging up on the bottom. Rob suggested we head down to the more open section of the river, so we put the rods in the back of the ute and headed down to the next car park. There were no problems casting here and Rob gave me a few hints on how to improve.

He showed me some nice little gutters that looked like they should hold some fish, so we fished them fairly intently to see what could be had. Rob was pushing out his usual 100+ foot casts with ease and I was struggling to get 50 feet, but I was having a great time. It really spurs you on when you can see an expert in the sport doing his thing.

We decided to head up the river to have another go. Once we got there, Rob pulled out some bread and said "see if you can get them to take this". I picked a spot about 40 feet away from Rob and berleyed up the water with some big chunks and some fine mist from the bread. Bream were almost instantly on the job gobbling up the bread. Rob and I both had a bit of a go with the fly rods, but the fish really didn't want to take the fly, although, at least they would look at it. I tried a bread style fly (actually called a green leech) with the same result.

It was time for lunch so we headed back to Tim's place and ate a couple of burgers to fuel that afternoons fishing.

We had a bit of a discussion about where to fish. Rob and I were pretty happy to fish anywhere and Tim was interested in heading back to Point Roadnight to have another go off the beach. I was interested in this to see how Rob would handle the situation. The decision was made and we headed off to the beach.

I took a bait rod (just in case) and a 7 weight with a sink tip line and nice long leader.

Once there, Rob decided to put the waders on. Tim and I headed down to the spot we had fished previously and setup the rods. Tim was onto a fish pretty quickly and was obviously having a good time. I had finished tying on a White Bait Candy fly and had started to cast the 7 weight. I tried quite a few casts, but couldn't seem to get the fly past the little waves dribbling up onto the beach. I remembered what Rob had said in one of his previous lessons and that is: slow down and try to wave the rod. I slowed down and stopped letting my wrist move too much. All of a sudden the rod was loading nicely and the casts were out into the breaking surf. I wanted to get further out, but was happy to have the fly out where some fish might be. Longer casts will take a bit more practise.

Rob had donned the waders and joined us on the beach. He instantly produced one of his long distance casts which sailed out over the waves and beyond the breakers. Rob's back cast when doing these long casts is amazing and has to be seen to be believed. He can get at least 80 feet of line to uncurl and sit perfectly flat, but only about 5 feet above the ground. Then he pushes the forward cast to the extreme and shoots the rest of the fly line and a fair bit of backing. Simply amazing.

Rob was starting to pull in a few small Australian salmon and showed me where to place my casts. Luckily it wasn't too far out and I could reach the spot. Rob pointed out a gutter down the beach and headed over to have a go. I stayed at the spot rob was previously fishing and kept on going. I tried some long casting and found that I simply couldn't control the rod tip enough to give the correct rod loading and the quickly realised that my arm was heavily fatigued and I should probably stop fly fishing to avoid frustration.

I headed back to my back pack and grabbed the bait rod. I put on a paternoster rig and sent a pippi way out over the breakers. Bang, bang, the hit was almost instant and I pulled in a small salmon. At last, my first fish of the day.

Rob popped back and saw that I was using the bait rod. He said to put on a small wonder wobbler, but I hadn't bought my lure box. Rob grabbed a barrel sinker and scratched some silver lines into it with a knife, slid it on my line and tied on a hook. He had a couple of quick casts with the setup, but wasn't pleased after casting the tip off the 5 piece rod. I reattached the paternoster and headed back to the rod holder. At this stage I was quite tired and reasonably happy to sit next to a bait rod. I put as much bait as I could on the long shank hook and sent the rig flying. Once the rod was in the holder it was being hit at least every 4 or 5 seconds. I watched the rod to see if a really big hit would come along and it did. I picked up the rod and struck, but was a little slow.

The sky had clouded over and it was looking like rain so we decided to pack it in. We headed home, did the dreaded packing thing and motored back to Melbourne.

All in all, I feel that fishing trip was a success as I got to try new techniques and equipment and managed to improve my fly casting a lot. The fish in the river seemed quite shut down and unimpressed with most offerings, but the beach did produce the results we were hoping for even if a little small.

It is kind of funny that after spending a fair bit of money on lures, flies, fly rods, fly lines, special spinning reels, etc; I think that I would have caught more fish if I had stuck to bait fishing. But, fishing for me is about having fun not about the number of fish caught and I definitely did have lots of fun.

Regards
Mike