Trevor Hawkins explores 3 Victorian trout streams over 3 days with the AFN film team in tow and discusses a few of his hints to fishing remote and overgrown wilderness creeks
As you’d expect, I fish a lot during the open river trout season, but I also fish mostly the streams close to home, with only the occasional extended trips to waters that require overnight or extended stays.
Of course, after so many decades of trout fishing in Victoria I reckon I have a pretty good handle on catching trout in most trout streams across the state, after all I have fished just about every one of them at some stage or another during my angling life. But when I do fish away from home, I usually pick the when and where based on previous or up to date knowledge of when certain areas are likely to be fishing their best.
So, it was with some trepidation that I accepted the challenge to take Nigel Webster and a camera man along on a 3 rivers, 3 day adventure to fit in with their schedule, rather than mine and the fish!
NO PRESSURE
In many ways, fishing for film is totally the opposite of what angling is about, I’ve only been involved with a few AFN TV shows, and this episode was the first chasing trout on the fly in MY rivers. When fishing alone, I’d normally rock up to a stream, quickly suss it out and start fishing or move elsewhere, I’m not used to only being able to cast when the light is right, the cameras are rolling and I’m in the correct position, stopping to talk to the camera midway through a prime run instead of fishing it, fishing during the non-peak time of day, and visa versa to fit in with the filming schedule, and above all, needing to make sure we caught X amount of fish, get them to hand and on camera for release shots, and preferably catch enough that are big enough to satisfy Nigel, who is used to catching larger lake trout and saltwater fish and not MY little mountain stream gems.
Well, despite a couple of dramas that I won’t go into here (you’ll need to watch the show), I reckon we cracked it and even Nigel, who’s a tough bloke to please when it comes to getting it right for the camera, came away with a big grin after catching plenty of mostly small wild river fish on 3 rivers over 3 days.
The author into one of the better fish encountered during the film trip.
MY RIVERS
Of course, the eastern half of Victoria is littered with trout streams, so I wasn’t restricted for choice regards showing Nigel three of my favourites and being confident we would get fish.
But, I’m used to fishing streams where I mostly get in and wade, tight for space streams, not meadow streams and big open rivers where there are open fields and shingle banks alongside where the cameras can be set up and fishing sequences ‘staged’ for the want of a better word. The camera man had to be with us, wading, crawling, falling and climbing, and most importantly filming while we were fishing, which, for anybody who has flyfished small streams, means constantly moving and casting.
After the first few clips around the head from Nigel for fishing (and catching fish) before the cameras were rolling, I found myself constantly asking the cameraman if he was filming before I cast!
So, when it came to selecting some streams, there were plenty I had to eliminate because they just weren’t suitable for three blokes getting along them, and especially with one of whom was filming, which needed to be done from the side or slightly front on. No boats, big rivers or lakes on this film trip, where you could simply move to get in the right position for filming and sun etc and then expect the fish to feed on demand, so my decisions on rivers had to be based on waters I felt would suit the film brief, show the trout country I love so much, and at the same time produce high enough numbers of fish on the fly to keep Nigel happy.
We decided on three streams that I know intimately that all varied in their terrain, dynamics and watersheds, one medium/high altitude remote rainforest stream, one semi meadow type creek that gets high visitation from anglers at times, and one high altitude, remote dry forest mountain river. All three slightly different, and all 3 offering a good opportunity for me to show Nigel and the viewers what is so special about our Victorian trout rivers. And all with a good head of naturally spawned wild brown and rainbow trout.
TIME OF YEAR/TIME OF DAY
My preference for selecting streams is often based on them being in remote locations, this isn’t so much based on the quality of the fish, it’s more based on my love for solitude and wilderness settings, but in selecting the three streams I wanted to show the variety and quality of the fishing not far from Victoria’s capital city of Melbourne. Two of the streams visited were only slightly more than a one hour drive from Melbourne and don’t need a four-wheel drive to access, while the third stream was further away and did need 4WD.
The beauty of many mountain streams both here and in NSW is that they can be very productive even from day one of the trout opening, probably not so much using dry flies but certainly with nymphs so long as they aren’t running bankers and dirty. But what I’ve found is the most limiting factor about early seasons on these tighter streams is the difficulty of wading when the waters are often up quite a bit and flowing hard, even if they are clear, getting in these streams and wading is extremely problematic, and the thick riparian vegetation makes casting in high water very difficult and they are mostly impossible to fish from the bank.
So, from late November on is the best time to fish these sorts of waters, by late November the waters have dropped, making wading and casting easier if not easy. After the Christmas break and around early February is when many of these high-altitude streams come into their own, the fish are often concentrated in the remaining prime runs, the waters are still cold unlike many of the more open streams at lower altitudes, and the fish really are on the lookout for floating food items and aren’t generally fussy about what fly you present.
Before Christmas though, many anglers hit these streams very early in the day and wonder why they aren’t getting good results, this is often a result of the waters and sun not hitting the water till around early afternoon. This is common on these overgrown mountain streams where even during the height of summer the water barely gets past 18 degrees Celsius. As such the water can be very cold early in the day, the insect (aquatic and terrestrial) activity can be almost non-existent and the fish are often hunkered down saving their energy for the peak period later in the day. Getting onto the water too early during this period can simply mean wading through good water. After December, the fishing can be firing from around 8.30 -9.00 am right through the day, but early season, try and hold off fishing till around 11-12.00 as the peak of the fishing probably won’t happen till around 1.30pm to 3.30 pm or so.
A better than average fish for the river systems fished.
WHERE TO CAST
There’s a saying that ‘trout are where you find them’ and this statement can be particularly true in smaller creeks and mountain rivers that are far more dynamic than tailwaters such as the Goulburn and Tumut Rivers, both of which go up and down but to a certain extent are very easy to read when it comes to finding feeding fish. The one real advantage of small streams however is just that, they are small, and the fish are either there or not, they can either be on the bottom or the top, to the right or left hand side or in the middle current.
Depending on the stream itself, it is generally possible to fish all those variants from one position at the tail of the pool. The only thing that might throw a spanner in the works is a deeper run or pool where the fish are holding so deep that a heavy nymph under an indicator, or high sticking twin nymphs may be necessary to get amongst a few. To my mind, if I’m having a good session fishing the shallower pools and runs with a dry or trailing nymph under a dry fly, I’m happy to by-pass these deep chutes and pools and leave them for others. The only other drawback on small creeks is the fallen timber and riparian overhangs, and I don’t have an issue with these either, and if they are super hard to fish, I leave them, as I also see them as areas where the fish can find sanctuary even from us anglers.
So, while trout will generally hold in set, prime runs, there are always the exceptions and on small streams these areas of exception can and should be explored with your fly. I reckon one out of say every twenty or thirty of these less than prime lies I cast to often produce fish for me. In big rivers that number would probably be up around one fish every 100 or so casts, and not worth the effort in my opinion. So, it pays to play the numbers game when searching and chasing numbers of fish, concentrate on the key runs and lies in small waters and keep moving, but don’t overlook or walk past the less likely sections without at least a couple of searching casts as you go.
A typical brown trout from the three rivers fished during the trip.
WHAT TO USE
I have two rods I like to use when fishing these tighter mountain rivers, the first is a little 7 foot 2 inch 4 weight cane rod that is beautiful for casting or flicking 10 foot casts into tiny pools or under riparian scrub or up and under overhanging trees. The only drawback with this rod is because it is so short there are times, where to get a drift or dap of the fly through little plunge pools while effectively dapping, I must get a bit closer than I’d like to the target area. But, with all flyfishing, there are always compromises to be made, and this short rod is so sweet to cast it’s worth the effort or risk of not being able to fish all the water.
My other rod of choice is a 9 foot 4 weight graphite, and this is a fantastic small fish dry fly rod as well, its extra length allows me to reach over faster runs and dap dries or nymphs through pockets without getting too close. But overall, it’s more of a liability on back and side casts in tight cover and I always get hung up more with this rod. One of the real benefits of the longer rod is its ability to allow me to mend the line, and this benefit comes into play far more on slightly bigger streams where there are more bubble lines and currents that can drag the fly, this isn’t always a problem on the very small creeks where the trout will often slash at or follow a fly before taking it, often even if it’s dragging slightly.
Both rods roll cast impeccably, and that is extremely important on most of the streams I fish as overhead or side casting isn’t always possible. I’d estimate that 30-40 percent at least of my casts are roll casts on my favourite tight creeks.
Slightly softer rods are preferred so you can cast short lines, often less that twelve feet in fact, more flex means more control when roll casting and using short lines and it also generally means better hook-ups from explosive close hits from fish in fast pockets, glides on dry flies.
Don’t get hung up (pun intended) using light and long leaders, I rarely go under 6 pound tippet, and on my short rod my leader length is around 9 feet. Most fish are caught close-in and on short drifts, ‘fine and far off’ are things for skinny, wide and gin clear rivers. In the three waters we fished on this trip I think I only lengthened my leader to around 15 feet on one very slow pool where the trout were being selective.
Accuracy and casting ability top the list of requirements in these smaller creeks, getting the fly into the spot is the first and overriding issue. After that fly selection is where you might fail, but generally because you are so close to the action, you can see every fish that comes up and looks without taking, so again, you start working the numbers, if the fly you select is batting around 90 percent then why change unless you are fishing to a selective feeder in calm clear waters.
My first rule when it comes to selecting flies for the types of rivers shown are that they must float in rough turbulent water, be highly visible and if necessary be able to hold on the surface if I need to fish a trailing nymph. Flies such as small stimulators are my number one fly, followed by a Royal Wulff and then an Elk Hair caddis, or parachute Adams if the fish are a little picky or the water isn’t overly turbulent.
My number one priority for nymphs on these streams is they must sink quickly, and as such I only use tungstens in these types of creek, I’m not fussed with colours but would happily fish black, Pheasant Tail or Hares Ear tungsten beadheads throughout the season in small sizes, and I would only revert to something a little larger or flashier if the water was up or slightly discoloured.
Trevor is a Pro Staff member, assistant editor, writer and illustrator for AFN publishing. He has been fishing, and specifically flyfishing for 50 years. When he gets time away from his beloved remote wilderness trout streams he also enjoys lure casting from his kayak in wilderness estuaries. He lives in Warragul, Victoria.
