Still no fishing, as my health is still lousy ! This is the worst year ever for fishing todate.

However there is a positive event in this ‘sick’ time that was a result of a lot of hard work and effort, this is a new product, but first lets slip back a bit in time.

Remember the wonderful GuideBode Braided Butt Leader, that was perfect for loops and joining fly lines that vanished from the market about a year ago and now cannot be found anywhere around the World. The tale tells that the manufactures closed their doors, hence no more GudeBode Braid Monofilament Butt Leader.

Well fly fishing friends, your fly fishing products specialists Talon RA has now produced and stocks Talon Braided Butt Leader (just like the old GudeBode Braided Butt Leader and can supply anyone anywhere in the World

30lb, ideal for trout sized fly lines, 35 and 50 pound perfect for saltwater fly lines on 100 yard spools. 

If you require braided butt leader in a hurry, email Uncle Barry or wait a couple of weeks and buy it at the Aussiefly shop.

Are you a wholesaler or distributor anywhere in the World ? Would you like to stock this product for your fly fishing customers, then contact Uncle Barry directly

Still no fishing as I still have a sore leg and hip.

So we will talk a little about cooking, cooking on your BBQ if it has a lid of some kind.

Why a lid, thats because we are about to cook bread on your BBQ.

Bread from the BBQ

 The bread, above all its real easy and real quick.

With the advantage you can make any type of bread, and a range you will never see in any shop.

Who mainly sell so called white bread, which is the white death bread to many, because there is nothing in it.

And a bread, you and others will eat, with nothing on the bread, just by its self.

First a couple of ideas, as there are 100′s of different kinds of breads.

 Corn bread, comes with corn nibblets throughout it

Foccacia, that comes with a nice reddish looking flour and sweetish taste,  real Foccacia taste (commercial Foccacia breads are real rubbish, white death with an olive dropped in here and there on top)

There, thats just two of 100′s 

This is what we are about to produce, a Foccacia type of bread

To start,

We use yeast, Lowan, seems to be good and stays fresh nicely, as in the photo, keeps well in freezer.

Flour, bread flour is ideal, why………. because its a strong flour, that is strong/hard flour has a high gluten content, soft flour, low gluten content, which is ideal for cakes etc.

We found, Aldi plain flour is ‘fairly’ hard.

And this is what we have been using.

AND ITS FAR CHEAPER THAN ANY OTHER FLOUR

 No need for self raising flour, just use plain flour.

 Tomato sauce, yes, we use this, no I am not very mad suggesting this

Want a beautiful semi sweet bread with a reddish colour through it, then use Tomato sauce. 

AND a TRUE Foccacia taste, the trick is Tomato sauce.

And I think,  as a bonus it helps keep the bread fresh and moist.

This bread will be suitable for eating for 3 days, yes it will reman fresh for 3 days,

HOWEVER, the bread will be all eaten within the first couple of hours !

This is the reason for making two breads at a time : )

Ideal for taking away for a couple of days camping

AND makes fantastic toast. 

 OK, the above are the main ingredients

The plate the bread is cooked on

a Quarry tile, yes the normal tile you walk on, it has to be dry, well covered with ample flour.

the first couple of cookings, will stick slightly, maybe, as you don’t wash this ‘plate’ the tile the surface will improve with the number of ‘cookings’. 

The BBQ Temp

wouldn’t have a clue and don’t even worry about it.

I light 3 burners for about 10minutes with the lid closed.

Then the bread ‘goes in’ I shut down the third burner and leave the other two running on high

Cooking

Time, as long as you want almost

The longer the crustier the breads top

Normally with these smallish breads only about ten minutes.

You will know how long, by tapping the top of the bread and then you will hear a hollow’ish sound.

Once out of the BBQ, the bread is removed from the tile, which is super hot by now, so extra care or you will be burnt by the tile !!!!

 Remove the bread to a cooling rack.

To make your bread.

In this case, the two tiles as shown.

Only two cups of flour, plain flour.

Good splash of olive oil

(an nice tasting extra, if you chose, peel and cut up some garlic, pour olive oil in a pan and heat up, toss in the garlic, and cook for 5 minutes, turn off and cool,

then when the oil is cool, add this enhanced olive oil to the flour, cooking the garlic in oil, extracts the oil from the garlic, into the olive oil)

 About table spoon at most of milk, (this will make your bread soft, no milk, your bread will came out like normal white bread)

Table spoon of Tomato sauce, more makes even better taste even two spoons full, yum, as above the reason why

Salt, half a tea spoon, (this will help hold your bread together, adds taste.. a must in bread making, even if you don’t like salt to be added to your food, like me)

 All the above are added to your flour.

 Yeast, take a cup, add about 2 tea spoons of yeast, some sugar, some flour, these are required for the yeast to feed on.

Add water, in the summer just plain tap water is warm enough

Allow the yeast to grow, this will be seen as a mass of bubbles in the cup.

 NOW

add the cup to your flour mix

Work it through the mixture collecting the flour from the bottom and the sides of the bowl

The mix will seem a little wet and far too sticky, thats normal

As you start to work this flour mix, the flour will absorb the fluids

Maybe a little flour could be added ? 

 Roll out your flour mix, the dough onto a table/bench and start to need it for about 3 minutes, thats all, as its too boring standing there for 10 minutes, for me.

and as a bonus, this needing will clean your fingers and finger nails like nothing else (but don’t tell those who eat your bread)

Cut the dough mix into two sections.

This next step is where you play, what shape do you want ? Roll it out as a long worn and twist it around, as in the photo

Or just cut two lines across the top as in the other bread shown. 

Place onto the tiles the two sections

And for a nice look on the breads top,

you could paint it with milk, as in the photos

Water will make it crusty

Or olive oil and the flour

Or just flour

The moisture on the top of the breads adds to easy expansion of the bread as it grows.

 When the bread is about double plus some more, (HERE I FIRE-UP THE BBQ) allow 10 minutes to heat up) its time to add to the BBQ

Corn Bread

no garlic, tomato sauce, nor olive oil

Take a can of corn nibblets, add the fluid to your flour mixture, (lovely corn flavoured water with some extra salt)

Add half the corn

Then its as above.

ENJOY !

Still no fishing or even casting here, all because of this back problem I have, but things are on the mend now.

And on a happier note, we introduced another new product for you, the World’s best Fly Dubbing Wax, Veniard’s Premium Tacky Wax, this is great value at only au$9.50

Haven’t tried Veniard’s Dubbing Wax yet, you realy should

Something that just might help someone save a heap of money.

Have you ever had your Gore-Tex/ breathable jacket or waders start leaking

and you were told by the shop and ‘experts’ to buy another set of waders etc as this is the only way to have a non leaking set of waders etc as they are worn out.

Well news for you, as it was news to me sometime ago !

I had the problem with my waders and thought, your have done miles with these, its fair enough they are old enough and then by chance we walked past a Mountain Design shop. Everything changed from there on, my waders are as good as new today thanks to the super helpful and knowledgeable staff at Mountain Design.

The staff suggested I use a waterproofer for Gore-Tex.

I didn’t think there was such a product on Earth to reproof a Gore-Tex fabric,

Well guys and girls for about$30.00 you can buy 2 bottles for waterproofer designed for breathable fabrics.

This product is TOKO Eco Proof Textile.

We now carry a couple of the spray bottles when away fishing all the time for the just in case situation.

I would like to thank Mountain Designs for having staff that know their product range (and its a pity more shops didn’t follow MD’s lead in this staff case).

Waders.

I have heard people crying that their waders and boots only lasted a could of seasons. Then maybe you could take a look at Greys G Series of waders and Boots. I have had mine for roughly 200 days PLUS of use and so far the boots are still what could be classed as almost new (amazing !) the waders well worn and just starting to weep around the sowen seam in two small areas. Spray with TOKO and they are as good as new.

The advantage of the G Series is that they are light weight, and thus ideal for most Australia summer conditions.

AND cheaper than most waders and Boots.

The fat Brown was taken on a Talon USA 2W XF 7′ 6″ fly rod

Back to chasing the Tarpon this evening, and thinking how lucky can I be, living in Surfers and this kind of fishing only 5 minutes away fromm home.

Today 1 Tarpon grassed at 45cm plus, then a solid strike, rather unlike the Tarpon kind of strick, then within seconds the water explodes and there is chrome cart wheeling in the sky, its a Giant Herring, also known as a Lady Fish by Americans, that is connected to my little Trout Spey fly rod.

The fish measured 57cm and of course was released quicky.

Back to fishing again, as most Orders are now filled.

Tonight its chasing Tarpon in the local creeks/lakes and rivers.

And I have got lucky on the first Tarpon adventure for the summer season, tonight 8 fish were grassed all 45cm or longer, all with the aid of the little Talon Trout Spey rod, at 5/6w and 12feet, its a pure fum machine in the salt !

Great fun on a Trout Spey, you really should try this class of rod

Sad day today, its trip is over time, time to go home.

Overall I have grassed 276 fish for this trip, and totaly proved the so called experts on forums wrong with their dopy ideas about Trout Spey fly rods being unsuitable for Lake fishing.

The biggest fish grassed was a beautiful Brown of 56cms. We only kept a few fish for eating as Trout are too good to catch once ! We are packing up for  the trip homeward.

Some interesting events of the time spent around the mountains, other that described earlier.

One day Bill went down to his boat that he leaves in the water, in the Lake, however this morning was some what different.

Because there right in front of him as he was about to ‘load-up’ for the day was a 1 meter Tiger snake sunning its self on the forward casting deck area !

So no fishing/boating for a while till this unhappy creature is removed.

The trailer was bought in play, boat loaded and taken away to find a hose to fill the boat with water.

Water filling removed the snake

Next step, check under the floor, just in case there was another snake that called the boat home.

Floor removed  and there in front of them was the Tiger’s skin.

Which then leads to the question, how long was the snake there before being discovered ?

Another snake tale.

We ran over a Copperhead snake in the truck, then on watching the mirrors noticed no snake on the roadway.

Opps big problem, where was the snake ?

Then we drove about 10ks to town, still no snake seen in the mirrors ! There can be now only one place for the snake to be, now and thats caught up under the truck.

Try getting out of your car or truck with the thought a snake is caught up under the car or truck, then try looking under, thats not nice but could be very exciting within seconds, maybe. We  found no snake anywhere, next step is to ‘pop’ the bonnet. BUT try placing your fingers under a bonnet thinking there could be a cranky snake there. Well as good fortune would have it, we couldn’t find this black creature !

Another tale,

I found someones reading glasses washed up in the river, if you have lost your reading glasses contact me. Yes there were in about 300mm of water and look like they have been there for many months.

A couple of pictures from the trip

A dark coloured Raibow, as if it was ready or had been spawning, however the fish was in top condition and fat as a pig.

Something thats killing the Trout

While fishing Eucumbene River we noticed that some pools didn’t have a fish in it, just a dead section of water !

Why you may ask, well the problem is from the early dawn in the morning till about 9am, one pool would be the feeding station for a group of shags/Cormorants, these birds would flap their wings up the pool, then its feed time guys, the flapping of the wings drives all the fish to one end and then its feeding time. You may not be worried but would you be if there was 52 and sometimes 53 black birds doing this !

And then there were small groups of twos and threes working pools.

Sadly I found numbers of fish with jaw like marks over their backs and even one dead Rainbow with a huge mark over its back that must have killed it.

And then there were groups of dozens of Herons feeding on little glass like fish about 25 to 30mm long, and you can guess what these were, if you cannot then I will tell you, these were baby Browns. Wonder where the Browns are all going, wonder no more.

You may say, so what. Would you change your ideas when at anytime there were between 50 and 70 birds working the stream banks over 1 kilometer or less, day after day, week after week !

What a beautiful warm day it is today !

Today I fished with Bill, for what can be only described as one of if not the most frustrating day of fishing ever.

What happened,

Bill found the fish feeding on #18 and #20 midge pupa, and went about catching over 30 fish, one after the other, in fact it was a pure pleasure to see someone so dialed into the Rainbows working. While myself could only grass 2 fish but dropping heaps !

Even when I stood where he was standing, using the same fly and leader combo, I just couldn’t match the number of strikes let alone the hook-ups he was recording.

But overall, a fantastic day was had. And the fishing didn’t start till after 8am and then to finish at 4pm.

A fish from the river taken on this trip with its damaged mouth.

Super lazy day today, did nothing except talk to a few friends till late in the afternoon. Why because there is a strong eastly blowing down the Lake. Late in the afternoon, just before darkness decended I went fishing and grassed a 42cm Rainbow.

Another fish from the river is in this photo, again taken on the Talon Trout Spey rod

Today the weather has improved, as yesterday was a shocker with the wind ripping through everything and turning the shoreline into a discoloured mess.

I waited till late afternoon and then went fishing, and this trip resulted in only one Rainbow at 41cm coming to grass, in just average condition.

A fish caught before in the river, on the Talon Trout Spey rod