Fly Fishing Lake Banimboola Saves the Day

Having fished the river during the day without success I was feeling pretty lousy. It was about four in the afternoon and not even one hit on the fly and I had been flogging it since six in the morning. All sorts of doubts were running through my mind. Am I a competent fly fisherman ? What have I been doing wrong ? Should I have  persisted with nymphs instead of streamers ? Maybe I should have gone to the Kiewa River ? “Is there any fish in this bloody river ?” Were my testicles in the right position through out the day and if not should have I adjusted them ? Or did I adjust them too much ?

It was time to jump out of my cloud of despondency and try something different. “Alright mate”, I said to my dog Bazza “we will go up to the lake and give it a go, then he said “yeah great idea”  ,well not really but there was a fair chance he wasn,t  going to disagree.

I chose the far side of the bank via a 4wd track. Setting up the movie camera on the tripod focussing it on the stretch of bank I intended to fish through to dusk.It was one of those dead still nights where voices seem to carry for miles across the water. I could see fishermen on the other side of the lake pointing at me and could hear their murmurings whilst setting up. I quickly came to the conclusion that they must of thought I was a bit of  ” w****r”, well you know what I mean.

So the seen was set and the water had that look about it where it was about to come alive with the odd “slurp” or “rise”, better still a big “smash up” on the surface of the water and that is exactly what happened. I was using a 9 weight with a sinking line with a Gold Alexandra on the end. Casting out as far as I could retrieving and stripping as fast as I could and on the sixth cast and retrieve “whack” it was on with what turned out to be a nice big brown. He carried on a fair bit and it soon brought the attention of the fishermen on the other side so I had a bit of an audience. When I finally got it in one of the bait fishermen directly opposite me said “must be local knowledge”. I guess he was right having fly fished the area for twenty years or more even though I was not a local.  I thought about replying ” no mate I live six hours away and have never been here before in my life” but I’m not a smart a**e, but I did think about saying it that’s a bit of a worry I guess. Having a smile as big a lunar park was rubbing it in enough.

So with all self doubts suddenly washed away,  my ego back in tact and now being able to sleep at night, my dog “bazza” and I trundled off back to my 4wd with a constant urge to “click my heals” but I refrained because that would have been being a “smart a**e as well.