by Roy “Brownie” Browne
The anticipation had been building for weeks if not months due to poor weather conditions of late , it was almost looking like the 1st postponement since the KFCs BIG BASH inception.
After several cancellations it was finally all systems go and i must say we had good numbers , its always refreshing to see such enthusiasm and club member participation at an outing.
I’m sure the delays of the past months encouraged our members to spend their lay days tying flies , sussing new patterns and prepping gear. Inventing and honing new techniques, patterns and heading out for some personal recce trips just so they might get an edge . During this time there was plenty of feed-back evident on the facebook pages.
It was to be a mid afternoon meet at the Entrance boat ramp which is familiar territory for many club members.
As we all know this is our most represented outing on the annual calendar, “The Entrance” it can deliver a diverse range of species easily accessible on fly and with the correct line selection and a good range of suitable flies many different species are certainly possible.
I have to say that due to the recent unforeseen circumstances many of the things we have taken for granted in the past have been taken away due to what the future may hold living with Covid 19 .
It certainly gives us a greater appreciation of what a great place we live in and i’m sure it has impacted on the lives of many club members who “live “for getting away and experiencing nature at its best.
As with all sports ,crowd numbers were down considerably compared to previous seasons which is a by product of Covid and it felt an “eerie strange” fishing the Big Bash without our regular fans screaming encouragement from the foreshores, bridges and Jetties as a new species was landed photographed and released, mmm🤔 think im dreamin.😂
Anyways it doesn’t hurt to dream and especially in these uncertain times.
I headed off with the Renegade in tow and picked up Dave , it was early afternoon and our expectations were high with a reasonable amount of confidence 🤔 and yes we have both had good success fishing the Entrance and were “keen as”to wet a line.
We were appreciative of favourable weather conditions and excited that the wind was our friend, so as the Renegade slid off the trailer with Dave on board i parked the Patrol n trailer , headed back n jumped on board.
Our plan was to head south of the ramp and fish the channel with shrimp imitations and an old favourite of mine the “Pink Thing”I must say it was a slight variation from the original.
I had discussed with Dave that wind blown broken weed is always an issue in the channel especially for the fly fisher but due to the low wind speeds overnight and higher tidal flow than in the past this issue was mitigated to a large extent which helps keep the fly in the strike zone and presented correctly, weed guards are also very beneficial in limiting wasted casts.
We selected one of our usual haunts and i deployed the Motorguide and Dave put it in to spot lock – gotta love this mode as it eliminates any possible noise associated with the dropping of anchors and chains , which in turn helps limit spooked fish. There was a fair amount of bait milling around the weed bed and edges of the channel including small bait fish and shrimp, these were our target areas.
Dave selected a new pattern he had been customising over the past month an olive shrimp with an innocuous weed guard, A wicked fly, i opted for an old school variation of the pink thing with a weed guard.
Another smattering of baitfish on the edges had grabbed our attention so we peppered these spots untill Dave managed a few short takes on the new pattern and then Dave was rewarded for his persevierence and came up tight on a nice pan size Flathead in the 40 + cm plus range which i quickly netted photographed and released .
We were on the board , Dave continued to pepper the edges while i decided to concentrate on the middle of the channel ,the fact my fly was slightly heavier made it well suited to the deeper water and faster tidal flow.
Dave had noticed a disturbance on the open side of the channel so we moved over to inspect he activated spot lock , then Dave grabbed some bread and berleyed up . In no time mullet and bream were smashing the bread.
Dave wasted no time and grabbed the 4 wt and bread flies and tried his luck , i persevered with my Pink thing, Dave did manage some small bream n mullet but the sun was too high and the larger fish were still a little inactive .
I continued fishing the channel and also had a couple of short takes, no hook ups but then my patience paid off with a nice Lizard hitting the net around 45 – 50 cm it was a nice start and after a few photographs we both commented on how dark the lizards were out of the channel, its very cool how fish can adapt to match the environment they live in ,it figures that small bait fish n shrimp would never see them coming.
Dave manage a few more bream and mullet and i manged to come up tight to another nice lizard around similar size.
We were both happy with our efforts thus far but more was to come and yes you guessed it , Big Bob had entered the carpark with what i believe is a major reason we have so many players on the entrance outing – Yes KFC / Dirty Bird call it what you want but we all love a feed of fried chicken , hot chips n gravy on the water.
Thanks again Bob always delivering, i’m thinking a new business ,West Gosford Bait and Tackle Uber Eats😂.
After licking our lips and wiping the remnants of fried chicken , oil and gravy from our hands and faces it was time to get back to business, many of the boys had done quite well with a multitude of different species landed . Several members managed new species,just one more off the bucket list.
I could tell Dave was getting keen to smash some mullet so we decided it was time to berley up,we headed out under the bridge and up to the north channel , whilst passing fellow members we requested updates on captures from the guys and it was very satisfying to see most were on the board.
Richie and Col had managed Flathead , mullet and whiting and
Col nailed his 1st Whiting on Fly .
Simon managed Bream ,Mullet and Tailor.
John and Richard had manage an impressive tally of fish with six different species, Bread flies were the go to fly with mullet , bream, butterfish, garfish .
Bunney landed some bream so the outing had been rewarding for most participants .
Dave and i anchored up in the north channel , darkness was upon us and so were the mullet and bream , its incredible how aggressive these fish become under the cloak of darkness,with all their inhibitions gone we were both managing some nice bream and good size mullet and they certainly tested our skills on the little four weights. Several bust offs on larger bream and mullet due to light leaders and angry fish.Double hook ups on solid mullet and bream were not uncommon but unfortunately they created serious issues with our leaders , these fish ,double hook ups were certainly proving difficult to control.
A couple of over excited casts on my part also didn’t help the cause and several re rigs were required .This is quite painful in the dark with 2 fly rigs on light leaders. Once two leaders meet underwater with angry double hooked up mullet it gets pretty ugly.
But this is awesome fun and i could never tire of this type of fishing .
Fortunately for us their was enough of moons light beam projecting a reflective pearlescent glow onto the waters surface thus helping us to sight fish as they engulfed the floating presentations,yes a hard ask in the dark but achievable .It is amazing how our eyesight can be tuned in to these conditions.
I have to admit we had aggressive fish but it felt as though we had an almost telepathic feel for fly line and leader to fly.🤔
We certainly managed to land some good fish and we also managed to loose some .
Eventually the fish wised up to our presentations , the school had been spooked by all the commotion and only the small fish remained. We decided it was time to ‘call it’ so with tangled leaders we laid the rods in the locker and headed back to the ramp extremely satisfied.
We chatted with some of the boys at the ramp who also had good success, its great when an outing delivers especially for newer members . Lets hope they now have a greater taste for what fly fishing can bring to their lives and the places it can take them. There is a saying that fly fishers follow and it is “effort for reward” this is so true.
Lets hope they take on board what they learnt and continue to put in the hard yards because this is not an easy gig and we all know that reward comes to those who listen , learn but most of all persist.
Finally the Renegade was on the trailer and we headed home.
Well done guys and a special thanks to Bob for the KFC dinner we really appreciate it and id also like to give a special mention to all the boaters who took the non boaters on board for the night.
As i say “Fish hard or go home”.