The Mitta Mitta

Although this Photo was taken a about three years ago it is one of my favorites because it reminds me of my of my favorite destination that being Eskdale on the Mitta Mitta river in North East Victoria, Australia. It is just on evening and I  made my nightly pilgrimage down to the river to see what the evening “hatch” would produce. It was in late Spring so usually there would be quite a variety of insects hatching such as Blue Dunns, Mayfly , Swow Flake Caddis, other Caddis, Midges, Beetles, etc. However on this occasion for some reason there was barely nothing except for these tiny little Mayflies hovering around in the fading evening sun rays. At first I  thought they were tiny midges but then I had a closer look watching them daintily  prancing up and down in the air as Mayflies do so elegantly like ballerina’s.

While this was going on there was some serious “Slurping” and “Gulping” going on on the water and at this stage I had thrown everything at them without result. I soon came to the conclusion that what I was offering them was too big so I looked for the smallest fly I could find in my box and it happened to be a Grey Duster size 16. If I had a size 18 or 20 I would of thrown that on but I didn’t so it had to do and the grey colour was nothing like the tan colour of these tiny Mayflies.  Anyway I put it on and waited for the next rise which happened to only be about 8 ft in front of me. I flicked the Fly out straight away just in front of the ring and he just “whacked” it without hesitation quite a pleasing result for what looked liked was going to be a frustrating evening.