Old and wise

I was fishing around a rocky shore near the mouth of the Swan River on Friday, and I saw some really big fish down there.

The average black bream we catch around here is somewhere between 25cm to 30cm. I get fish around 35 cm from time to time, but fish of 40 cm plus are very rarely caught. I don't know about catching them on bait, but for fly fishing, we feel that any black bream reaching 40cm mark is a great catch.

Anyway, I was standing on a rock to spot fish, and I just could not believe my eyes. Among those small to medium size fish, there were some big monsters reaching 50cm. I cast at them with different flies and kept down sizing tippet to the point where it would not be possible to land fish, if I would ever get a hook up, but the fish were just beyond my skills.

Smaller fish are young and naive, and they will hit anything whether it is a piece of stinky prawn or a badly tied clouser minnow. Big ones don't make a stupid mistake like young ones do. It says those big bream can live up to 30 years. For those years, people have thrown at them all sorts of stuff, but they have passed their tests.

I was completely defeated by those old wise fish, but I was glad just to know that those monsters are still out there, swimming happily and laughing at us for trying to fool them.

One beaten fly fisherman


I got this consolation prize on Saturday morning.


Another consolation prize