Great Lake, mid June.
Casting from these rocky shores can seem a pointless task, they key is fishing at the right time and/or conditions. If it is sunny and no wind, you might as well go home so bad are your chances(or do you know something I don't?)
On this occasion it was a chilly cloudy day with a decent wind blowing from the south west, patches of snow littered the lake shore. I tied on a large tassie devil, gold with red spots. It is recommended you use light line at great lake so casting distance is maximised. Luckily I was on the west side of the lake, because casting those tassie devils into the wind is near impossible. The slope of shore was moderate.
Standing in my gum boots in about a foot of water, I made a long cast, winding at a moderate pace. It was my first cast and I watched the lure as it came into the shallow water about my feet, I wanted to see what sort of action it had. To my surprise a large green shape followed, only a meter from where I stood. As we all do, I swished the lure about in a vain attempt to keep its attention, but the fish promptly turned and leisurely swam off. Feeling confident I cast again, and the same thing happened. Within about ten minutes another two large fish followed me in. When confronted with this frustrating phenomena there are two courses of action, 1: suddenly increase the speed of your lure, to initiate a strike. Or, 2:Change lures(a smaller size may help) until you find one the fish will strike.
Here comes the important bit, for pete's sake follow tip number two, the first method has only ever worked for me once. I tied on a yellow/red/brown 10g wonder wobbler, but the sun came out and for the next ten minutes I saw nothing. When the clouds returned I immediately had a follow in, followed by a strike. Another cast, another follow in, this time I saw the fish lunge at the lure as I neared the end of my retrieve, like an idiot I jerked on the rod when I saw the trout strike, I hooked it nonetheless and an incredibly frenzied and splashy struggle took place in about a foot of water, ten seconds later the fish was off, the sun came out and I saw no more fish all day.
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Tyenna River, Westerway. 4:20pm 17 august.
The cold, dark and fast waters of this fantastic river are home to some nice fish, both brown and rainbow trout. It was a cool afternoon with moderate cloud levels, using a small black and red celta, I cast across the river and down stream, as I retrieved the fast current drew the lure across the river back towards the side I was fishing from. This particular cast had been in the water about four seconds when a fish made a savage strike, well and truly hooking itself. With the aid of the current the fish put up a strong fight. The river, being relatively narrow, meant I had not a lot of winding to do before the fish was dragged up onto the bank, (I forgot my landing net). A brown trout of 600g in excellent condition. Later examination of its gut revealed about a hundred snails, some over a cm in length. Does anyone know of any fly patterns imitating snails?
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