Nariel Creek - a hopper heaven by Arno Crous

The Hume freeway heading north linking Melbourne and Sydney, stretches flat and boring over the plains that skirt the rugged mountainous Victorian High Country. We eagerly take note of the rivers that we cross, knowing that some of those harbour some fantastic trout water higher up, but down here on the plains they run way too hot, sluggish and sediment laden to provide a home for our speckled friends. Some of them hold some good sport in indigenous fish like Murray Cod and Golden Perch or introduced species like Redfin (English Perch) or carp, but that all for another story or trip… This trip is to explore a minor tributary of the Murray River, the Nariel Creek. Much more of a river than a creek, but never the less, it’s been on our to-do-list for some time…

Pictures I’ve seen of it thus far brought back memories of my beloved streams and rivers around Rhodes and Barkley-East in South Africa’s North Eastern Cape. Inch worm eaten semi-bare willows lining pebbly gravel based classic pool-run-pool stream, with the odd stand of thin, tall poplar trees here and there rounding off the picture… our dreams and imagination weren’t too far off either. I felt like arriving home when we pulled the tired, insect splattered Nissan Patrol in under the welcome shade of the oak and poplar trees of the camp ground. As the old Patrol rests lazily with her exhaust ping-pinging as it cools, we hastily un-packed and set up camp while admiring the idyllic camp ground right on the banks of the river.

The haste was because the trip up from Melbourne took most of 4 hours out of the daylight after a later than planned departure, so the sun was hinting at a good night’s rest behind the horizon and we still needed to explore the valley. Our camp ground is at the bottom end of the open valley (or top end if you look at the map with the N symbol at the top) with one access road running up (or down) the guts of the valley for about 10km, crossing the river half a dozen times, before the valley proper pinches down to where the farm land ends and state forest takes over.

From here on there is still a massive amount of river all the way up to its source high up, but it is virtually impassable terrain. Despite being in the freely accessible state forest, it is rugged enough to see maybe a rod a decade, if that. A rough gravel track does climbs the ridgeline next to the river valley, but it is soon snakes up away from the river in its effort of providing save access across the steep mountainous terrain. It does drop down the other side of the mountains to another gem of a trout stream, the Gibbo River… also on our to-do-list and hopefully to be reported on in the not too distant future…

Australian state law ensures that virtually all rivers and streams are state owned (the streambeds up to normal high water level or something…) and the land owners can’t deny you being in the streambed for recreational purposes, provided you either find access to the water via a public bridge, road crossing or politely ask permission to cross private land to get to the water. This makes any river crossing the heaviest fished section of any river, but still we were childishly

excited in our journey along the valley road as we stopped at every possible viewpoint of the river… cameras clicking away while we strain to catch a glimpse of trout activity… and we were not disappointed… a rise or two was enough of a confirmation to vigorously stoke the fires of our excitement.

Heading towards the tail end of a hot summer we expected the river to be very low and getting uncomfortably warm for our speckled friends, but the flow didn’t look too bad with picture perfect pools and runs seemingly stretching for ever either side of each vantage points. This stage of summer pushes a healthy amount of insect life into the skies over the streams, including a smorgasbord of hoppers in broad selection of sizes and colours. On the way up, the patrol ploughed a tunnel through the insects, collecting, amongst others, a large hopper that got stuck under the driver side windscreen wiper. It was dressed almost exclusively in bright yellow. Bright yellow body. Bright yellow wings… everything.

It reminded me of a hopper pattern I bought a while ago, but never got around to casting it to a trout. It’s called a Wee-CreekHopper and I bought it in bright yellow because the locals swear by it, but I always thought it looked too bright and too simple to fool a wisely trout... now, looking at the real thing though, the pattern made sense. When glancing at the hopper trapped under the windscreen, I could understand the triggers that Murray Wilson was after when first dreaming up this fly. Simple and very quick to tie, it looks buggy, is highly visible in any light and floats all day like Donald Trump’s ego.

Like kids in a candy store it took will power to keep moving on past all the awesome water until we have scoped out all the sections we could see… and no, it didn’t help make the choice of first fishing spot easier. With angler access allowed anywhere along the river, there is thus no booking a specific fishing beat to either guarantee exclusivity to a section of river, but it also doesn’t tie you down to only one section for the day.

After much deliberation and discussion, we settled on a river crossing closer to the camp with no parked vehicles that would have indicated fishermen already on the water. It’s normally then difficult to know if an empty parked vehicle indicates a single fisherman or two or whether the fisherman has gone downstream and is fishing back up or fishing upstream from where parked.

Even though it’s already well into the latter half of the afternoon, the temperature is still climbing into the mid-thirties with light variable winds. At least we knew what insects loved this hotter weather and we were thus not surprised to find the grass on the river bank swarming with grasshoppers of all sizes and colours.

Every step lifted a small cloud of hoppers clicking away in flight. I fished out the WeeCreek hopper from my terrestrial’s fly box and it seemed out of proportion once attached to the long, light leader.

I managed to sneak first cast ahead of Daryl as he graciously loses the no-you-first, no-you-first, politeness contest. As I work the run under the bridge I only manage to scare out a young trout from under the rock where he was hiding. At least we now knew there was trout around despite our initial concern of the water feeling a bit on the warm side (both of us neglected to bring a thermometer to confirm). Daryl took the next run with a medium depth pool half below the overhanging branches of a young willow. A lost little breeze chose the wrong moment to visit us and at a crucial moment pushed Daryl’s stimulator with small trailing nymph into the low-hanging branches of the willow. Not wanting to disturb the pool, he graciously moves down and across while keeping the line off the water to allow me to work the pool until we could move up and free his flies.

My first cast almost meets the same fate as the sneaky breeze is still trying its tricks, but it only caused the fly to flick in nicely under the shadows of the branches. The Wee-Creek hopper riding the surface film perfectly, while the bright yellow drawing the eye to easily follow the drift. A large snout appears around the fly and gulps it down. My timing was out and I don’t hook up. I was convinced I just put down a very nice fish, but Daryl urged me to chuck another drift through… the trout must have been extra hungry, but at least this time I was ready when the snout came up again and I neatly pulled into some weight. My trusty old 4wt G.Loomis bending and bucking under the strain until Daryl neatly slid the net under a 24carat bar of gold, dipped in melted butter! A good sized brown, as pretty as they get. What a start! After a quick pic or two, while cradling it as close to the water as possible, it was gently released.

At this stage I pointed something out to Daryl that I have noticed a few times before. Usually upon release a rainbow dashes for cover with vigour, while I have noticed a brown seems to takes things more leisurely… it normally drops down to the streambed, looking slightly annoyed at having been outsmarted, slowly building up dignity before lazily wafting away across the current as if that’s what it’s been wanting to do all along. We saw this repeated several times over the next few days, but not sure if it’s a thing or not, plus trout never seem to read the instruction manual anyway, so don’t quote me too closely on this.

Now that the ice was broken, it wasn’t long before Daryl drifted the next pool into another brown of equal proportions giving his 00wt a serious workout. Beautiful buttery colourations of a brown in good shape and size. Further up the next pool, where a fallen tree pushed the current wide, I made a long cast into the edge of the current seam, where the wee-creek hopper on the long, light leader fooled another brown. This one even a bit larger with a fighting spirit that tested the 5X tippet before the paparazzi could move in as it lie semisubmerged looking embarrassed and camera shy in the net. With gentleness that would make a brain surgeon proud, we dislodge the hopper jewellery from its lips. The lowering sun supplying a perfect lighting stage for a couple of quick pics, before it gently slid out of my hands, to do its compulsory sulk on the stream bed. That satisfied feeling of the successful release still giving a tingle in the back of my mind as I type this.

It turned into an epic day’s fishing. Some pools we had to drift a few times before we connected, others it was first cast. Everyone a brown of good proportions and in great condition. Clearly hoppers were on the menu. I stuffed up twice notably that day. The first one was in the lee of a clump of willow trees, the pool ran deep, dark bottomed, but crystal clear. Daryl just released a nice energetic brown from that pool and more to get my eye in and set up for the next part of the pool higher up, I flicked my hopper into the same spot in the same run that should have been devoid of trout from the disturbance of Daryl fighting his trout. Slowly a golden log separated itself from the streambed, drifted up through the clear water, slowly opened its mouth and sucked down the wee-creek hopper… in my disbelief of what I have just observed, my muscles completely ignored my brain’s instructions to act and only after Daryl started shouting did I lift, but way too late. Missed a log of a brown! Strangely I was not entirely disappointed. The vision of that massive brown appearing from where it was not supposed to and then slowly drifting up to intercept my fly will stay with me as a thing of beauty for ever… or that’s what I told Daryl, while I couldn’t quite make eye contact with a straight face at the time…

In the other instance, another good brown made it all the way to the net before I fumble things while trying to lift it out the water and accidentally push the fly out of the trout’s lip with the net’s rim. The trout flopped onto the rim of the net and like a basketball at the last seconds of a tense close scored NBA season finals, balancing enticingly for a moment or two on the rim before falling outside the net… therefore it didn’t count as a score and the home team wins!

Finally the setting sun forces a close to a remarkable day as we strolled back to the waiting Patrol, contently analysing our memories of the day.

Never before have we caught so many good sized browns one after another. We knew that the river was meant to hold equal amounts of rainbows and browns, but that day the rainbows apparently didn’t get the memo. It took until later the next day before Daryl found a rainbow in the throat of a run and a good one at that. A bunch more browns came to the net that next day, plus more than a few very good fish that didn’t and left us breathless with conflicting thoughts of the what if…

The Nariel has carved out a special place in our hearts, but so has the fly of the day… for me at least. I am now a devoted fan of the Wee-Creek hopper. I have tied it in various sizes and colours and I can recommend it as a go-to hopper pattern that’s really easy to tie, even for clumsy fly tiers, like me.