20180425 - Corroboree prep comp outing

So my usual fly fishing expeditioner has entered the local fly fishing freshwater comp without me (seeing I have been turned off comps for a while now but may have to change that as I need a new rod or two that is the regular prizes for such comps)

So we planned a foray into the fresh in prep for the comp in a little over a week 

I got to sleep in this trip as Peter volunteered to get his boat ready and pick me up at my place on the way to Corroboree Billabong. He had to leave town at 4:45am to pick me up at my place by 5:30am. I only got up at 5:15am as my stuff was ready to go the night before.

When almost to the billabong, we met up with a couple more fly fishers at the Corroboree Tavern and then proceed straight to the billabong a short distance down the road from the tavern

There was a bit of a traffic jam at the boat ramp but everyone was efficient as they could be and we were very soon on the way to our first testing area. It was a testing area as we would test out flies, methods all day to refine and fine tune our fly fishing - in the areas of casting, retrieval and fly selection.   

The casting has to be tight and close to structure, shadow and weed edges, the retrieval would varying depending on mood of fish and many other factors, fly selection is endless so we were basically trying to work out colours, as too fly type which always varies greatly – surface? sub surface? or deep flies? Flies with pulse, size, weed guards or not......... the list goes on endlessly

Our first testing area proved quite testing as no fish other than tarpon showing or being caught. Our fly fishing companions in the other boat got four toga which raised our enthusiasm!

Peter and I used different fly lines and flies to work the full water column and to test as many flies as possible but to no avail! 

Eventually the next spot was decided to be visited.

This proved quite fortuitous. 

Peter had been focusing on weed guarded whistler style flies made mostly of bunny fur. These have been very successful for us previously. He was casting right to the back of the weed/lily beds. Once as we spoke of the best part of this style of fly fishing of when the toga smashed the lilies to get at flies drag across the lily's surface - it occurred - the toga twice whacked the fly on the lily but the fish failed to hook up.

I cast into the area and miss it by a metre or two but still managed to get a nice toga out of the exact lily edge area Peter had been casting into - was it Peter's fish??????. 

This capture proved very fortuitous for our theories on how to fish our chosen flies during the comp which we continued to refine, tweak and test til 4pm in the afternoon.  

Prior to this instance, for about a half hour I had wanted a little bit of action, any action! So I had switched over to my other rod with a small damsel pattern on the end of the leader - for which Peter has dubbed the type of fly – the "Corroboree Chihuahua" (why?? I have no idea - maybe small with lots of bark and attitude!). 

This fly shown here is the one that got the 61cm and a heap of tarpon

But the basic concept is a marabout tail, and a emu herl collar just behind bead chain eyes. Hook size is about a four.  you could add some peacock herl along body area but i am using a short shanked hook and didn't see the need. I used all olive materials and fluoro green thread. It is suppose to be a version of a damsel nymph but this fly here has been chewed on severely!

With this type of fly, once in a little personal competition when nothing else about, we decided to see who could catch five meters of combined length of tarpon in the shortest time. I think we both caught over 6m of 10-20cm tarpon up the creek to the right of the boat ramp that day in a very short time – so we knew it was a successful pattern in this location - well for at least Tarpon anyway.

So the night before I had tied a 12 of these - well my version of it for this prep comp day of fly fishing (but sadly in hindsight - without weed guards!!!). This just in case a tarpon fiesta was warranted if we couldn't catch anything else of merit

I was casting to a few boiling tarpon in the middle of the waterway while Peter persevered casting his larger fly into the back of the weeds looking for those bigger toga we have caught previously. I was hooking plenty of tarpon in the 35-45cm range and having a lot of fun (because it seemed I couldn't catch anything else on my usual flies) 

On seeing Peter's action with his lily attacking toga - I cast towards the area but missed it by a few meters. Still I began to retrieval my poorly cast fly. Surprisingly I came up tight to a nice 45cm toga – Man! they are a most beautiful fish! 

As we worked our way slowly along the water way - Peter kept casting to back of weeds and I cast to the edges of weed lines. Peter was using a fast sinking line. I was using an intermediately line (usually use a full sink line) with my tiny fly on the end of a long light tippet. I would let the fly sink and then retrieve a little, followed by a short pause before repeating this till back at the boat.

I was regularly picking up small toga and good sized tarpon in close to weeds - and once away from the weeds and shadows  on way back to boat - a heap of smaller tarpon. All this on this same fly little fly. I also got a few other species - long tom, catfish and even (praise the fishing gods!) my long-time nemesis - a couple of quite small Barra - one 35cm and one 25cm. 

We had several follows from similar sized Barra. Peter got fish on his big fly too - Toga and some nice (greedy - given size of fly) tarpon. Along one lovely length of waterway, Peter got three 45cm toga in about 6 casts over a 200 metre stretch. Later he had a vicious take from a thick chested 55cm toga. Peter also gets a small Barra and a plethora of good tarpon.

While starting disheartenedly slow- now we were having a great day - for the day we ended up with 17 toga - the biggest 61cm and most in the 45-55cm range, along with a few smaller ones. 

Once, on the way back to the start of our run area - I cast my tiny fly along a tip of weeds and letting it sink, I felt the take on the drop and strip struck, coming up tight to the biggest fish of the day a 61cm toga! You beauty!!! So unusual in our experience to catch such a decent toga on this small fly.

In the end a great day was had, plenty of tight lines with beautiful silver fish - then thankfully with the odd fish in a lovely golden brown colouration with brilliant pink spots in one of the most picturesque places to fish anywhere in the world! All, only a little more than an hour outside of Darwin

Who would live and fly fish anywhere else!

So more flies to be tied, most definitely a few with weed guards to get deeper into the weed beds.

We have marked a few spots to concentrate Peter's efforts during the comp. Our casting was getting much tighter by end of day, our retrievals finely tuned to our target species and the toga's at times subtle takes

But Peter - remember to bring the net on comp day! (unlike today!!)