Being persistent

Fishing has been rather slow in the river, and I thought all fish were ended up in a fish soup during the New Year's party, or the global warming has messed up their life in the river, and they were gone to somewhere.

Well, it looks like I was being too premature to decide the river is empty. I was fishing in the morning and I hooked up a nice fish. I was letting a fly drift with the tide, and the fish took it as my line was getting straight after the swing.

As people say, persistence pays off. It was a good fish.

今年最初の良型です。フッキングしてから流れに逆らってラインを引っぱって行ったので、直ぐに良い型だと分かりました。このところ、釣れて来るのは小物ばっかり。久々の良いサイズのクロダイが釣れたので、落ちていたモチベーションもアップです。

Another creative approach

I found a lure while I was fishing yesterday. Its line was caught around a rock and the lure was just poking its head out of water. When I pulled it out to throw it into the bin, it came with a big ball sinker to my surprise.

It looked me that the lure was one of those deep diving minnows, and I don't know how much deeper he or she wanted to go by adding a chunky sinker to a lure which is already going deep, but obviously the whole thing went too deep.

I have no idea if the person knew what he or she was doing, or there is any remarkable logic behind this strange rig, but I can say that creativity is good for fishing at least. To outsmart those elusive fish, we have to try a different approach sometime. Usually the conventional wisdom prevails, much like how this lure snagged up, but on a rare occasion a seemingly absurd idea can produce a good result, and that is another reason why fishing is so interesting.

Sunday excursion to Mandurah

My friend Albert and I went to fish in Mandurah today. We were hoping to catch some whiting down there.

Before we ventured out to sand flats to find schools of whiting, we fished for bream around a boat harbour. Those pylon fish were as finicky as ever, but I manged to hook one nice fish. The fish however knew its game pretty well, and it cut me off against a pylon.

For whiting, unfortunately we didn't see any schools. There were odd fish here and there, and Albert managed to got one while he was prospecting along a drop off.

So, we left flats and went to fish for herring at the Dawesville Cut. It was pain in a neck to walk and fish on those rocks but I soon saw some fish swimming past between underwater rocks along the drop off. As I was letting my streamer swim over the rocks, fish were dashing out to hit my fly.

Soon after a couple of dolphins showed up. They looked to be mother and cub, and the mother was pushing fish against the rocky shore line. She went pass in front of us chasing our fish, and we thought fishing was over. I guess she knew where to find fish as well. A cleaver lady, I thought.


Albert casting his popper fly.



今日は、キスを釣りにMandurahに行って来ました。まず最初に、ボートハーバーでクロダイを狙う事にしましたが、いつもの様に、パイロンに着いているクロダイは攻め抜かれているようで、フライに近づいては来るけど、食いつこうとはしません。運良く一匹良いサイズのをかけましたが、直ぐにパイロンに巻かれてラインブレイク。

お目当てのキスは、フラットにはまだ入って来ていないようだったので、MandurahのDawesville Cutと言う、海と入り江を繋ぐチャネルに行き先を変更。岩場で足下が悪く釣りやすい場所では無いのですが、地元ではポピュラーな釣り場です。岸から数メートルのドロップオフの岩礁帯に沿ってフライをトレースすると、どこからともなく魚が現れてフライにアタックしてきます。

波でラインが行き来きするので、ラインにメンディングを入れてフライがなるべくポイントから離れない様に泳がすのがポイントでした。その意味では、インターミディエイトのラインよりフローティングラインと長めのリーダーを使った方が良いかと思います。魚が着いている岩とそうでない岩があって、使っている毛鉤はベイトフィッシュのパターンですが、どこか渓流の鱒の釣りに似ている感じがしました。

３０分くらいして、イルカの親子とみられるペアが来ました。大きい方のイルカは、岸すれすれまで魚を追って、僕らのすぐ前を通過。飛び込めば背中に飛び乗れる位の距離でした。イルカが来た後では釣りにはならないと思ったので、ここで今日の釣りは終了となりました。

"So long, and thanks for all the fish"