THINGS THAT SNAP THINGS THAT D O N’T

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After reaching the glide I noticed a large amount of fish sitting in schools feeding on caenids, I managed to pick a few on a small size 18 plume tip, one of my go-tos for caenid feeders. Ultimately, I could have approached this water a little better which could have resulted in a couple more fish. By this point, I was over an hour into my two hours and only had five fish to show for my efforts.

I seriously needed to find some more fish if I was too, in my mind, get a good score. I knew I’d be able to find some numbers in the shallow riffle above the glide so I returned to euro nymphing and managed to pull another three fish, one being in the last minute out of a small tail out pocket. I was happy with my score of eight considering how well the beat fished overall.

Looking back at this session and returning to the same section of the river after the comp, I probably could have approached the water better than that, the techniques I used and where I positioned myself to fish the water. The more and more comps you fish the better you get at being able to define the good water from bad and how to fish it, that’s when the real numbers start to come.

Second Session - Mersey River

My next beat was number 10, one I was very familiar with as I had fished it in the Nationals held at the end of last season. To me, this was an advantage as I already had an idea of where the good water was and how the beat fished.

Like my last beat, it started with a large, deep pool and a solid run at the head. When I fished it in the nationals I didn’t get a touch in the first run and spent about an hour trying to get one out of there, so I knew not to get stuck on it if the run was fishing poorly. For this session, I made no changes to my setups apart from switching out the plume tip to a CDC sedge, another favourite fly for the Mersey.

After scouting the beat, it was time to start my two hours and try to make something happen. I started fishing the little riffle that flowed in next to the major run with the CDC sedge with no success so I went straight into nymphing the run and within a few casts I picked up a small rainbow just as I pulled the nymphs out of the dead drift into the swing.

After missing a few more I moved up to the next section, a small glide and fished nymph under dry to land a few browns in the tail out. After watching Garth Jackson clean up on nymph under dry in the slow water when I controlled him in the morning session, I knew I had to give this technique a bit of time. I then pushed up into the next section of my beat, a large chute with soft water on either side, tapering off into a slack hole. The first cast in the slack hole with a nymph under dry resulted in an angry brown coming up and slashing at the dry without me watching and was late to the hookset. Luckily for me, I had luck on my side to hook and land it, a wise comment coming from my controller for the afternoon, Jason Garrett, “you’re meant to set the hook when they eat it”.

I managed a few more fish, fishing the chute including being obliterated by a large rainbow. By this time I had 30 minutes to go and six fish on the board so I legged it up to the run right at the top of my beat. Not even bothering with the slow tail out below the run, I put my ‘nymph under dry rod’ up on the bank and started madly nymphing. By the end of my session I had landed six more fish, my final score equating to 12. A result that I was very much pleased with. After consulting with other anglers after the days fishing I had gone better than I had thought.

Third session - Little Pine Lagoon

I had practised on Little Pine a few weeks before the comp in blue sky, windless conditions. Every angler