The Fish That Ruined My Season — Nick Taransky

The fished that ruined my season

By Nick Taransky

For 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 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

Opening day may have looked good, but I avoided the fish with great pecision.

starts to heat up. “Heat up” is maybe too accurate. Spring had gone from freezing cold to stinking hot in a blink, so when we got to one of the Monaro tablelands rivers, the trickle of flow, and oppressive sun beating down already felt like Summer. We walked and looked for a few hours without seeing a fish or any signs of hatches or insect life. Eventually, we saw a couple of deep cruisers but they were hard to track and intercept in the tannin stained water. The day took a turn for the better when we saw a couple of termites flutter by and splutter onto the water. It was odd, as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and no forecast of rain, when they usually appear, but we weren’t complaining. For whatever reason, these tiny insects seem to bring every fish in the river up when they appear in numbers. And sure enough, within ten minutes, they were everywhere, and starting to cover the surface of the pool that we were camped on. The fish were onto them in no time too, and maybe ten fish were rising on random beats, mopping up the increasingly dense fall. For the next hour, in that joyful frustration, we tried to catch these elusive cruisers. The problem was, that there were now so many termites on the surface that the fish weren’t cruising in any predictable pattern, and getting your fly in front of one was a lot harder than it first looked. Often, the fish would take a real insect only an inch or two from your fly, and then another two feet further long, having missed your fly and half a dozen other naturals in the meantime. We did rise and miss a couple of fish each, and Troy eventually landed a nice plump fish of a pound or so. I did “sort of” catch one, but when I landed it, I realised that it was foul hooked in the eye, so I’m not counting it! As quickly as it started, the action stopped when the inevitable cold Easterly came in. Another enjoyable day, but still no “legitimate” fish on the board for me.

On the assumption that Troy was a bad luck charm, I changed partners for my next trip out. It was November by now, but the weather had stayed unpleasantly hot, so I was happy enough working and waiting for things to improve. A window of cooler weather had Fred von Reibnitz and me deciding to have a look at a couple of the Monaro streams to see how they had fared after a couple of hot Summers. We’d had a few fantastic years on the Monaro, but the recent heat was a cause for concern. The plan was to check out the “Golden Mile” on the Kybeyan, as it would hopefully still be holding some fish. As we feared, the level was way down and there was no flow at all, but at least the pools still Termites bought the trout up, but not to my presentations.

looked clear and healthy. The day itself was bleak and cold, with a pretty fierce wind buffeting us most of the time, but it was really more of a survey than serious fishing day, anyway. Thankfully, we did see a couple of fish rise and spotted a cruiser or two, but despite fishing to them, we didn’t have any success. Again though, another pleasant outing, and good company, despite Fred not proving any better luck than Troy. The season was coming into the “sweet spot” in the Snowy Mountains and some bountiful fish days were just around the corner…

So I thought…

Maybe it was having had such a wonderful extended trip to the USA, rod orders and other projects on the bench, or more likely, the seemingly never ending heat, I just didn’t feel the urge to get out for a fish. Before the year ended, the heat itself as a factor was overtaken by the “Black Summer” bushfires. Fishing was the last thing on most peoples minds for some time, and by the time it was over, we’d lost a decent chunk of the season, as well as a lot of land surrounding our fisheries. So it was with a bit of trepidation in February that I headed out again with Troy, to look at the Kosciuszko National Park though Kiandra.

This area contains a number of our most respected rivers, including the Eucumbene, Murrumbidgee, Tumut and Yarrangobilly, as well as numerous tributaries. It was pretty sobering to drive through the devastation, but like the fires of 2003, I’m sure that nature, and trout will prove to be more resilient that it can first appear. Eventually we made our way past totally burnt areas to an unburnt section of the upper Murrumbidgee. The water looked OK, so we thought it was worth a bit of prospecting. I wasn’t even that surprised that on the third cast in a rocky run, a fish slashed down the fly and I was hooked up solidly. Until I wasn’t. The fish just bounced off as they do from time to time. Still, with such instant action, there would be more to follow. Except it didn’t. Three hours later, we’d spooked one fish, but seen or risen nothing else. Another blank day. But hey, there was still time to snap out of it and get some fishing in, and a few fish as well…

The other thing coming up was my month in Tasmania, for rodmaking classes and Cressy Cane, including fishing with our Japanese guests, Tomonori Higashi and Naoto Shibuya. That would be a lot of fun… Of course, the rest, as they say “is history”. No classes, no Cressy Cane, no Japanese visitors, no Spirit of Tasmania, and worst of all, NO BLOODY TOILET PAPER. Etc etc.

Luckily for me, working from home, in many ways it was business as usual through the lockdown. I took a dent in income from class cancellation, but there are many people way worse effected than me. Personally the extra workshop time this season was a wonderful opportunity to work on some new projects and techniques that I wouldn’t have tackled if I’d been out fishing, so it was nice to have plenty to pour myself into.

Derek working on a two strip cane rod.

One project that I did on a bit of a whim was to make a few “two strip” split cane rods, which, unlike the hexagonal (six strip) split cane rods, can be made with only a few basic tools and without expensive planing forms. When we did come out of lockdown, I was able to teach this technique to Derek, a young guy who lives near me. He is now up and running as a new rodmaker, which is something for both of us to feel good about.

It was during this project that Derek suggested that we maybe get out for a fish before the end of the season. The end of the season!!!! Oh yeah, it was May and the season was just about over. It was then that it clicked that it was coming to an end and I hadn’t caught a fish. It got me thinking, maybe that makes a story, “The season without a fish”! It felt like cheating though to have that story without at least one last attempt to catch one. So on the 31st of May, 2020, in the last week of the season, Derek and I headed up to the Snowy mountains. I was pretty sure we’d see some spawning fish, but had no real expectations of catching anything, particularly on a dry fly. Right up top, the forecast was for snow, with possible blizzards, and gale force winds, so we opted to stay a little lower, and fish the Moonbah, out of Jindabyne. The weather wasn’t quite as bad down there. Let’s call it “bracing”. A few little sleet flurries, and a blustery cold wind persisted for most of the day, but it could have been worse. The water was cold enough such that we each took turns fishing, while the other stayed on the bank to get the feeling back in their feet. At least the level was low and clear, and looked nice. We didn’t see any spawners, which would have been fun to watch, but did flush a few dark fish from under the banks. After an hour of taking turns of fishing sections of the river, Derek rose a fish, and had it on for a few seconds before it came off.

A delicious glide, with a high bank and bubble line ruined a perfect record. Derek fished on...

Over the next hour or so, we both managed a few more half hearted rises without actually fully connecting or landing a fish. Around mid afternoon, when my turn came up, it was on a delicious glide, with a high bank and bubble line on the right hand bank. “It’s now or never” I thought. I’d make it my last set of casts for the season, maybe my “perfect” season… I carefully worked my way up the bubble line, with smooth drifts, close in against the bank. Nothing. The, disaster struck. A nose came out, quietly clipping down the fly. I struck, and hooked up solidly. The fish put up a good tussle, but despite me barracking for it, Derek soon had it in the net. A typical stream brown, still silver, despite the time of year. So there it was, the fish that ruined my perfect season. Of course, I was very happy to see it. I reeled up, and said “That’s it, my season over”. My first fish, on my last cast of the season. I stepped out of the water, getting the feeling back in my toes, and watched Derek fish in the fading light and plummeting temperature. The exuberance of youth… It’s a strange thing to be able to summarise a whole season in a single article. If I knew that the fires and Covid Zombie Apocalypse were coming, I may have gotten out more often earlier in the season. But we usually don’t know what’s coming, good or bad, so a lesson I’m taking forward into future seasons is to make the most of opportunities. Who knows, this coming season I may even catch TWO fish! www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.