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.

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 !

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