Day1 of two hard days of competition at Corroboree Billabong

First day found us on the water before dawn but already several boats out there on the water given the number of empty trailers in the carpark. The ride out to our first spot nothing but spectacular!

One boat got on to the water at 3am to ensure they got one of the very few water flow channels into the billabong before anyone else. The backwater wast covered in herons, cranes and other water birds indicating the abundance of baitfish. As we past them just after lines in (6:30am) one of the anglers was hanging on grimly to a very bent fly rod. Later found out it was an 87cm barra – well done for the early out of bed effort (thinking I am getting too old for that sort of thing!). They caught nearly all of the barra caught in total during the comp. This team eventually came second for the competition mostly due to this extra effort to get out early onto the water and some prefish investigations before the comp started.

We headed right to far end (30+ minute run) of the billabong to a shallow bay (average 12feet deep) that is fully lined on all sides with lilies and deep grass, we had caught all the main target species of the comp here in the past.

I got a 42cm saratoga second cast off the front corner while Peter was still rigging his rod, then a smallish tarpon on the fourth cast – so really thought I was going to do well for the day.

The intricate pattern on a saratoga’s sacles never ceases to astound and fascinate me. Magical!

But not so – 9 dropped toga for the day for me, and only one to the boat, as well only two small tarpon left me with only 125 for the day. A few years back I was the FW Tarpon King, catching the largest tarpon for two competitions. A full line of tarpon is easy most trips, so it shows I wasn’t fishing too well at all. The front runners of comp were getting 1000 plus points. Very sad for me. The other guys in club know I can fish and asked me if I had forgotten how to fish later that night at the debriefing – quite embarrassing – but we all had a good laugh about it.

So for the first day, I was 30th out of 32 anglers with my 125 points. I might add two of the participants had never used a fly rod or fished in tropical waters before Day One and one of them did better than me on Day1. Time to quit maybe was the thought more than a few times. But the nest day was beckoning and the eternal optimist of a fly fishing had me quickly dreaming of better success.

My fishing partner had a much better day although he dropped 7 toga himself – I netted 9 toga for him (largest 50+cm) and 10 tarpon (mostly small ones largest 35cm)

Peter was 10th at end day one with just under a 1000 points – both of us regretting those so many dropped fish. Team wise I was really letting down the team score.

We were mostly using Peter’s smallish orange collared black tailed fly, Peter’s flies had a touch of gold prismatic flash while mine had none. Peter also used pink and black as shown here pinned in the corner of a Saratoga's mouth

Normally you can pick up lots of tarpon on outer edge of lilies. You cast way back into the lilies and use slow strips, always anticipating the subtle slow take of ‘toga (but at times they hit like a freight train, especially larger ones). Then once out of weeds a meter or two, you leave the Saratoga zone behind so start a crisp staccato strip to entice a tarpon to take the fly. But not today. Peter got a 28 and a 35cm tarpon this way. I hardly got a follow – lack of flash issues???? Who knows just wasn’t my day, bad karma maybe? And the more you miss a fish or drop a fish - the more you get too tense and the even less fish you take – bad circles of grief all round! We did chop and change flies a little but it didn’t change success rates too much. Man, we needed a plan for Day Two. (well maybe just me, peter was doing OK)

Thinking on it, we only fishing the top meter or so of the water column – which we found out next day we should have fished deeper.

But aside from my low score card, both of us had a great Day One, so great as always to just be on the water. I actually danced a little jig when we started motoring to back of billabong such was my excitement and anticipation. So, great day fly fishing, although the day was also frustrating with too many dropped fish, as too weather stiflingly hot at times and not many tarpon of size.

That evening with all teams siting down for a combined three course meal at the Corroboree Park Tavern and some debriefing and scores presentation for day one, and then straight after, I hit the sack like a dead man till the alarm buzzed at 5:15am next morning, to do it all over again.

Day two up on blog soon!