Chris’s Weekend Report

Tim and I decided to put our winter gear to the test and hit the Maitland River on Monday, that was, until we checked the winds forecasted for the day. With gusts predicted up to 80km/hr we decided that we would be safer to fish some more sheltered water, electing instead to fish a smaller nearby river with our Watermasters. The river was in great shape and the weather turned out to be much more pleasant than anticipated.

The river had a lot of good fish holding water, with a mix of deep pockets, runs, and giant wintering pools. We both started euro nymphing, mainly targeting deep pockets and a few small to mid-sized pools. When we found that we were getting no action or seeing any fish, we decided that they must have been holding in the large wintering holes. Having only my euro nymphing rod I pulled out one of my favourite tricks for targeting this water, adding an Airlock indicator to my euro leader. Doing this adds a lot of weight to your setup and allows you to cast a euro leader a mile (queue debate over whether it’s fly fishing) and with the light leader you’re able to hold all your line off the water, almost fishing it like you would a float/centrepin rod. The first hole I tried this on I was rewarded with a beautiful fish, showing some winter colours but very clean! By this point in the day we realized that there many kilometers of water left to drift before dark set in and we knew that we had to cover water, we rowed almost non-stop for the next few hours to make it out before we were in darkness. Overall a very fun day seeing new water, a few bald eagles, and a nice fish! Our take-away was that fish are now settling into deeper slower water where we will be focusing our time unless conditions substantially change.

Rod: Thomas & Thomas Contact 10’9” 3wt

Leader:Scientific Angler’s 2X Tri Colour Sighter

Tippet:Scientific Anglers Absolute Supreme Trout Fluorocarbon 5x

Indicator: Airlock 3/4"

Fly:Eggstasy Egg