Please throw me your rope

I had a maiden voyage on the raft today, and I hate say this, but I don't think I am in hurry to be back on the raft again.

The raft was very stable and it was nice to sit & relax and drift along. In terms of paddling and fishing, things didn't go as well as I was hoping, and at the end, I had to ask my friend to tow me behind.

Additional info (2012/03/04):

I sent the raft back to the manufacturer. The customer service at Flyweight Designs has been good by the way, and they gave me refund as they promise on their web sites.

Besides it was very hard to fish with, for me, the main problem of the Flyte Packer was a location of the valve. As you can see on the picture, the valve is located on the top of the tube, and this was getting in my way when I was paddling. The raft is very slow on the water as you can guess from its shape, and the problem of banging the valve with my paddle for every few strokes was too much for me to bare especially when you are paddling as if there is no tomorrow to stop the raft getting pushed away with the wind.

Also, one of tide-downs / straps came off before I could use those on the water. It looked like the stitching came loose, and I thought these would be too weak to secure a bag, paddle, or anything.

My fishing raft

I bought a raft.

I am not a big fun of boat fishing. I would rather wade and fish on any day. I guess, it is about simplicity and sense of freedom (no engine failure, no problem of a trailer going off the road, etc).

But there are places which are too deep to go on my feet, and the other side of the river or estuary always looks fishier. So, I am hoping, with this raft, I can get to those flats and drop offs that I can not reach by simply wading.

I blew it up to see how it is like. It is quite roomy and feather light. To be honest, it is so light that it feels bit scary to paddle out. I am worried, if it gets punctured, the air shoots out, and I might fly off like a cartoon character.

Anyway, I now need to get a set of paddles and PFD to have a test ride.

Sea change

Fishing on our home water has been pathetic for the last couple of weeks. We have been checking everywhere, but we haven't had much luck.

It is always unpredictable around here, but even comparing to the normal level of uncertainty, it is getting beyond our understanding. I don't know what the tide and wind are doing right now, but we haven't been able to crack the code. Bait fish everywhere, the tide is running fine, but we don't get much action.

So, I suggested Mike to have sea change. We decided to ditch the Canning River all together, and instead, we went to fish somewhere else on the Swan River yesterday.

Well, I got 4 fish and lost one, and a few more hits between. It was a matter of casting out and getting my fly back. No thinking was required. Cast, retrieve, and bang!. It was as simple as that.

I went back to the Canning today and again I got no fish. May be they were all caught during the Christmas break and ended up on the BBQ grill.

この辺りのクロダイは、潮の流れや風向きや太陽の高さやフッシングプレッシャーなど、色々な事に左右されるため、パターンを使かむのが難しい。それでも、今までの経験から釣れる場所やフライを選ぶ事である程度の読みは可能です。

ただ、ホームグラウンドの川は、どういう事か最近めっきり釣れません。ベイトも沢山いるし、潮の流れも良い感じなのに、クロダイの反応はとても悪い。

こういう時は、気分をリセットするのが一番。という事で、昨日は、スワンリバーの方を探ってみる事にしました。結果は、４匹にバラシが１匹。釣れる時は、こうも簡単に釣れるのに、釣れない時は、アタリの一つも無し。

潮の流れに理由があるのか。水温のせいなのか。それとも他に原因があるのか？簡単に答えがでないところが面白いと言えばそうなんですが、釣りはやっぱり釣れた方が面白いです。