Nowhere I'd rather be.
I do love autumn. As someone who lives on the aptly-named Windy Hill, this time of year offers regular respite from gales, and the light winds and mild temperatures provide plenty of flyfishing opportunities. Granted, spring is better for lots of water, but as long as rain hasn’t been too scarce, I’ll trade wet for settled.
One of my favourite places to be in autumn is on the streams of north-east Victoria, and for a few days until yesterday afternoon, that’s where I was – in this instance, exploring the streams of the Ovens Valley with my friend Max.
Max with a typically chunky autumn rainbow.
Yes, the streams were low, though not critically so – the Ovens around 80 ML/d on the Bright gauge, the Buckland less than half that. The trade-offs were exceptional clarity, water temperatures in the 12-15C range, and that glorious soft autumnal weather so typical of the alpine valleys at this time of year: hardly a breath of wind, morning temperatures cold enough for waders, while by mid-afternoon, wet wading would have been feasible.
A skinny Buckland demanded careful, delicate fishing - and finding the best holding water.
On the north-east streams, if we were to play that game of ‘if I could only fish one time of year’ (a ridiculous proposition I know, but you get the idea) autumn would be it. Not because of guaranteed catches of large and plentiful trout – save that for those mistake-masking late spring levels, and more careless fish. Rather, it’s because these autumn streams, with their settled and gin-clear flows, offer such wonderfully visual fishing.
So strong!
True, without the cover of generous depth, turbulence and/ or a bit of colour in the water, the trout sense their vulnerability. However, in other respects, they’re comfortable and only too keen to make the most of the abundant aquatic and terrestrial insects before the more sterile winter you imagine they can sense on the horizon. In other words, make the trout the right offer, and they’ll eat.
The right offer in this case was a single size 16 red para spinner on a 14ft leader.
Establishing the right offer can take a mix of deduction, and trial and error. On this most recent trip, the trout went from being quite fastidiously selective for small, sparse dry flies like size 16-18 parachute spinners, paraduns and F Fly variants (the natural equivalents of which we saw regularly throughout the day), to happily scoffing a big dry like a size 12 Parachute Adams and a smaller mayfly nymph beneath. Who knows what goes through their tiny brains sometimes! All I could say is, if we fished good water carefully for 15 minutes and there was no response, a change in fly or setup was probably warranted.
Ideal water: structure, cover, a bit of depth, and some shade for good measure.
Speaking of good water, one constant was the need to find it, being decent cover serviced by at least some current. Shade, structure, and some depth were gold. To put it another way, if we found nice, open, easy casting and you could see every well-lit stone on the bottom… it was best to keep moving.
It was all great fun in beautiful country, although Max and I did seem to ‘tag team’ somewhat when it came to fish to the net. One session, I would do no wrong, with solid hookups and trout staying connected right through their crazy fights, while Max went through the gamut of everything from missed hooksets, to trout bouncing off or finding that hidden stick. Then, as if ordained by the trout gods, the script would flip and it would be me apparently doing my best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, while Max expertly landed one trout after another.
Another incredibly strong rainbow which wanted the nymph this time.
The results I dutifully recorded in the diary each evening show solid totals every day. However, from session to session, the individual numbers would have been, shall we say, bumpier. Just one more good reason to fish with a mate!
See you next season.
A final and very pleasing note was the abundance of young wild trout - particularly rainbows - of finger-size to double that. At times almost annoying for their fly-drowning enthusiasm, they left Max and I excited for next season. Meanwhile, right now, if you fish with thought and care, there are plenty of larger browns and rainbows to raise the stakes.
