Upcoming Goodness

Just thought I had better let you know that even though things have been a little quiet here over the last couple of weeks, there is some cool stuff in the pipeline. I am currently working on some interview questions and trying to contact a few people to get more interviews, artwork and photography up here. The first out of all of this will be a showcase and maybe a short Q&A with another great fish artist. I will try and post a few other bits and pieces in between now and then also.

I will also be sharing a bit more of what is most important in the next few weeks - a bit more information from the research I am doing on the Atlantic region.

Perhaps not a Paddle Board!

A post simply for the sake of it. I stumbled across this tonight and thought that a paddle board might not be a good thing to use chasing big fish in a remote location. I have to say that I was surprised by the size of this shark given the speed and distance this guy is towed.

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The Slim Beauty

The Knot I Should Have Learned Long Ago

I had been happily joining two sections of line together using the double uni knot for a long time. It had proven strong, reliable, and worked extremely well when joining two lines of similar diameter. It also worked exceptionally well when joining lines of quite different diameters if a doubled section of the thinner line is used. This knot creates a bit of a bump between line sections, and for some time I had been hearing of a knot that made a neater connection between lines with  significantly different diameters. This knot is called the slim beauty. Unfortunately my first few attempts didn't work out. I used step by step words and images from a knot book and just couldn't get it. I gave up on it and had almost forgotten about it until last night when I read an article by Kaj "Bushy" Busch in South Australian Angler in which he mentioned the slim beauty. Tonight I decided I would learn this knot, and I did. I watched a couple of video tutorials and gave it a go. The video below, and this video on Midcurrent show clearly how it is done. It isn't as hard as I thought, and it makes a real neat connection that I will be using  a lot in the future. If you don't know this knot, give it a go!

Some Aussie Options

My first mulloway on fly back in 2003

Taking my mind off the Flywater Exposed project for the past few weeks has been of all thing some bait fishing. It's not often these days that I fish with bait, however in a few select locations or circumstances it is the best option. I won't be going on about bait fishing in many posts, and the reason for this post is actually fly fishing related if you will bear with me.


The current situation is one I hadn't seen much of over the last few years as I had been busy with other things. The target species was mulloway, and schools of them move within range of a jetty in a popular Yorke Peninsula (South Australia) town each summer. As these schools are visible to those with good polarised glasses, they are a great sight casting proposition. Unfortunately over the last 10 years or so, these schools have become common knowledge and even on weekdays there are enough people fishing for them that fly fishing is not an option 99% of the time. So that brings me to the bait fishing part. Such visual fishing can't be passed up, but even lure fishing is difficult when a combination of sinkers, and floats are raining down on the school from all angles. So there I am with a spin rod and small live baits and fresh cut squid with a few mates. We caught some good fish. It's great fun, however none of these particular captures are overly memorable. 


Before this place gained popularity back around the time I started fly fishing seriously, when the fish were in range I was able to get a fly to the school. I caught two fish and lost another on fly, and I can most likely recount all of those hookups better that that of the bigger of the two fish I caught last weekend on bait despite the fact that those fly hookups were back in 2003! This brings me to the point of this post (finally). I picked up a copy of South Australian Angler yesterday and had a flick through while waiting to pay a bill. I haven't purchased a copy for years, but there were a few articles that looked interesting. One was about fishing for big mulloway, and the other was about South Australia's far west coast. I quite quickly realised that it might be not only fun, but add interest to those reading this blog if I plan a few lesser trips and doccument them here. The far west coast is extremely remote, and I thought that there is probably no better place to start than this wild part of my home state. I will also try and come up with some other Aussie adventures to do over the next few years while  planning for the big Flywater Exposed continues.

Unfortunately due to the crowds, fly fishing here is now rarely an option

So, how does it sound? The far west coast offers the opportunity to fish for monster mulloway up to 80lbs in deep surf gutters close to the shore - perhaps a heavy double handed fly rod will be taken along to attempt to catch one of them. I have never heard of a big mulloway taken from a South Australian surf beach on fly, so I would love to give it a go. Apart from the mulloway, there are plenty of other species to target on fly from the little tommy ruff, Australian salmon, snook, flathead and kingfish to name a few. I am thinking if planning can start now, this should come together in the summer of 2012/2013


You can find more about South Australian Angler here at their website www.saangler.com.au

My mate Gareth with another good fish caught on light spin gear and live bait

Fishing Wild

Journal of fishing travel

There are many fishing magazines available here in Australia, with only a fairly small number of them being dedicated to fly fishing. Many publications have the occasional article on, or at least mention fly fishing, but not enough to get the hardcore fly fisher excited. Fishing Wild is somewhere in between. Almost every article has at least a small amount of fly fishing content, with it being a strong feature in most others. However this is not the only attraction of what the creator of Fishing Wild, Col Roberts, has called the journal of fishing travel. An apt description, as the majority of the articles are about both unusual and/or beautiful  and often exotic places. The photography is also of a very high standard which means the focus of this great publication has a lot in common with the journey that I am planning. I certainly hope to make my photographs different from the majority that you will see in Fishing Wild as I have my own style, but I do find it inspiring - the journeys, the places, the images.

A great feature found at the end of most of the articles are the fact files. They give a range of information on the destination which can include: getting there, accommodation, what fishing tackle you need, activities available for the non fishing partner, and a big variety of other essential information for those who may wish to go there.

Apart from the great articles, there is a department in each issue called Photo Clinic which gives some good tips to help readers learn how to take better photos. Another department that appeared in older issues, Travel Doc was an interesting read regarding health issues such as diseases and medications relating to travel, all of which I will be re-reading during my planning. I am not sure if it is temporarily gone or if it will be missing from all future editions. I personally hope it is only temporary. The department I personally enjoy the most is Horror Travel Stories, it can be a real eye opener!

The pages of Fishing Wild are section sewn instead of being glued as in the earlier issues. Being the kind of magazine that many will collect, this is great news. In fact, calling it a magazine is almost an insult to Fishing Wild. It is a great read and I highly reccommend it to all adventurous anglers.

Fishing Wild is published  twice annually, in April and October. The current cover price is A$12.95. If you want to subscribe you can do so directly from their website. 

www.fishingwild.com.au

A couple of older issues from my collection