The fished that ruined my season By Nick Taransky
F
or nearly all of the 2019/20 trout season, I maintained a perfect record. For the first time since I started trout fishing, in the late 1970s, this season was shaping up to be different to any other. My whole season was completely unspoiled by the landing of a single fish. Not one. It sort of snuck up on me, and it was May before it really dawned on me. Call it therapy, or confession, but I’m going to try to explain to you how it came about. When I realised my predicament, I wasn’t overly concerned or embarrassed by it, but it did give me cause to reflect on my fishing life to date. I’ve been lucky to fish so frequently, both close to home, interstate, and overseas. Indeed it was an overseas trip to the USA in mid 2019 that gave me such a relaxed attitude to the start of the season. In May/June 2019, I visited my bamboo rodmaking mentor, Jeff Wagner, and had the wonderful experience of fishing with him nearly day for six weeks. This was a rare honour. Jeff does this every year, but he rarely fishes with anyone else (and after
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six weeks with me, he probably never will again)! Most of our fishing was on central Pennsylvania’s fabled spring creeks, while staying in a caravan, literally three metres from the river. For variety, and when the main rivers were too high, we’d fish the most gorgeous little forest freestone creeks for native brookies. To finish the trip we went to the Grayrock Bamboo Rodmakers gathering in Michigan and fished the Ausable River from traditional long driftboats. It was an adventure of a lifetime and one I’ll never forget. On my return to Australia, I certainly wasn’t sick of fishing, even after 40 days on the water, but I was happy enough to catch up on some work. Before I knew it, September had crept up and the “Mexican” (Victorian – south of the NSW border) trout season was about to start. So I headed out for a day with my friend Troy, to North East Victoria to “break the ice” of the season. A few of us do this every year, so that we can have a “Victorian Opening” and then a “NSW Opening” in October, when the season starts here. In recent years,
I’ve given these up for a “Tasmanian Opening” when I spend September and October based at Peter Hayes’ Lodge on Brumby’s Creek for my bamboo rodmaking classes and the “Cressy Cane” bamboo rod gathering. As dry fly enthusiasts, our early season adventures can be a little challenging, but we usually manage to find a rising fish or two, or at least blindly winkle a few out of the bubble lines. On this trip however, despite perfect water levels and clear water, we didn’t rise or even spook a single fish. Both the air and water temperature were under 10 degrees, so it wasn’t a total surprise to “blank” the Victorian Opening. Still, it was a nice day out, talking the usual nonsense, and I even helped Troy drink his thermos of coffee so that he wouldn’t have to carry it back to the car. So it was back to work for a while in the workshop, before my next trip out, again with Troy. Time had flown at the bench, and it was mid October by now, but it’s usually around this time that the dry fly action
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