The Entrance at Night – April 2006

John Robertson was my deckie for the trip and was looking forward to breaking a bit of a recent drought on fly. We anchored between Dan and the bridge in one of my favourite positions and proceeded to rig-up. John was obviously hoping for something big as his tipet was 20lb. I opted for something a bit lighter – 6lb tippet on a 7wt, with a chatreuse clouser at point. In the mean time Dan had connected with a patch of tailor and was having a ball trying to land them on his light weight trout leader. He had a fish a cast for a while there, and a mixture of tailor and flathead. We were soon out and I lost my first fly to a tailor on the second cast. Hmmm, maybe I had better make the tippet a bit heavier. John wasn’t having any luck however and he soon decided to try a lighter tippet.

As the afternoon wore on we managed a healthy number of flathead and tailor. Most of the flatties were undersize and went back, the odd oversize one being kept for the dinner pot. Across the channel we could see Dave and Paul were having similar success with constant bent rods. By dusk the tide had peaked and things started to go quiet. A westerly breeze had picked up and we moved to the eastern side of the bridge to try our luck there. Dan and Browny moved to the north side of the bridge to get out of the wind while Daniel and Terry moored not far from us to try their luck.

As the evening progressed we had a trickle of flathead keep us amused. John had gotten into his stride now and was pulling in fish regularly. He was a happy camper. Terry was also feeling pretty pleased with himself having landed two fish, his first fish on fly ever!

By 7.30 a few of the guys were calling it a night and headed back to the ramp. John and I persevered, shifting a few times to see if we could find a thick patch of fish, but only succeeding in a few more flathead, a pike and a huge octopus. John knew he had something decent on, but it was making the rod rise and fall like a yoyo. At first we thought it might have been Dave’s stingray from last year, but once it surfaced we found it to be an octopus about half a metre long! You wont catch me wading there any more!

Meanwhile Dave and Paul had moved back near us and picked up quite a few pike up to almost a metre long. With 9.30 approaching, very little tidal movement and the action going quiet we decided to head back to the ramp, following Dave and Paul. Dan and Browny soon followed, bringing a few nice fish with them.

Another successful trip to The Entrance even though on average the fish were smaller. However this may be due to the time of the year as we usually fish earlier. And well done to Terry who now has his first fish on fly.