THE SEPTEMBER TRIP

I HAVE FOUND OUT THAT THERE AIN'T NO SURER WAY TO FIND OUT WHETHER YOU LIKE PEOPLE OR HATE THEM THAN TO TRAVEL WITH THEM. ~MARK TWAIN
I’ve fallen into an annual routine. I’m that old.
Every September, either the week before or the week after my wedding anniversary, I go off for the first fishing trip of the season. Normally I go up to Eildon and camp by the Big River. The campsites all have little bays for a few dozen tents/vans but this time of the year you can pick your own site and it’ll be deserted, or move on until you find one that is. That’s the point of the trip, to get away from everyone after all. The fishing is generally lousy, too much rain at that time of year muddies up the water but the season has opened so it has to be done, because you can.
September here means little insect activity. Your best bets are the black beetles and green midges, but if your luck is in there can be good fishing on Baetid mayflies (little blue/grey ones and olives in #16) and if the weather’s ok the stone flies (black #14) are sometimes out early, tie a few just in case but don’t rely on using them. Most fishermen just stick to using bead head nymphs under an indicator because the trout seem to hug the streambeds. If the fish think they are stoneflies returning after their night hatch to lay their eggs in the stream, or the nymphs themselves getting ready for the night to come isn’t clear, just that they seem to get the job done.
Some of the best fishing I’ve had on these trips has been on a dry parachute style foam-stone pattern (called a Grammy Stone, and first tied by Eildon's own Mick Hall for use on the Rubicon) but I usually spend most of my time with a nymph or flymph (tied “Pete” Hidy style.)
To get the trip right not only do you need the weather to be obliging, so the water doesn’t look like tea, but you have to time the trip right. Stoneflies hatch at night and seem to want the full moon. So you need to be there a couple of days before the full moon when most the stone flies and there nymphs are most active. As you can imagine it doesn’t often work.
This year the only time I could get away included my wedding anniversary. Vicky wasn’t impressed. The day was actually the best dry fly day I’ve ever had in September with fish rising greedily to anything that looked vaguely buggy, but not to anything specific that I could figure out. The “I’m almost a beetle” patterns (based on humpies) and the ubiquitous Adams all worked, a great day. I fished a small tributary of one of the better known rivers that flows into lake Eildon, your have to forgive me for not being specific here it’s just that I don’t think it can handle the fishing pressure of being labelled in print as a great early season dry fly option. The fish were mostly rainbows, possibly still in the stream from late spawning because I’ve noticed that by November there are definitely less of them, especially the big ones. By big I mean big for that water. Anything over 1 ½ pounds will normally be the “fish of the day,” over 2 pounds “fish of the trip.” This year I caught three “fish of the day,” which I’m sure you’ll agree is somewhat confusing. My best from these tributaries in September was over 4 pounds, but that was a few years back and it has probably put on weight with each passing year.
Chris went with me one year, just to see what I did. He’s not a bad fisherman if you tell him what to tie on, although his casting isn’t very good, particularly on the first trip of the season. I told him how difficult it was, that he shouldn’t expect to catch anything and made him practice casting before we went. When we arrived I decided that I would forgo my usual hike into the unknown and fish a stretch near the road. Well first I walked twenty minutes down stream (keeping well away from the water in case we were to fish on the way back). I, not knowing what to tie on, decided to start with a nymph, with a royal wulff/royal coachman varient as an indicator. After a few drifts I pulled out a small rainbow with it’s pretty parr markings. Chris then took over and tied on a straight bead-head nymph. He caught the smallest fish I’ve seen in my life, the nymph was almost as long. What’s more he pretended he couldn’t unhook it so I’d have to come over and acknowledge he’d caught one. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’ve caught bigger things in a jam jar. Latter he got a nice brown, I never measured the fish but needless to say it was the “fish of the day” in more ways than size.
On my return I had to face Vicky’s full wrath. She even sent me a curt SMS text message on the day of our anniversary, but seeing as there is no mobile phone coverage where we were camping I didn’t get it for a couple of days until I was driving back. It wasn’t as she suggested that I’d forgotten, how could I forget it’s the same day as Bilbo Baggin’s birthday! I just didn’t see that it mattered if I was there or not, and I’d sent her a card timed to arrive on the day anyway. I think that now it has become a forbidden date to be worked around next year. One year I plan to go back on the anniversary itself just to see if it was a fluke. I’m tempted to think that in hindsight it wasn’t a great day on the stream and that just knowing that I can’t go makes it seem better. If I ever divorce and remarry remind me to do it during the closed season.
This year I met an American called Jim from Montana out on the river. I was fishing dry flies up from my camp site and he was fishing beautiful little wet flies down stream from his. He was doing even better than I was but then again his flies were all such attractive ties I almost ate some of them myself. We swapped stories and flies, later at camp whiskey toasts and phone numbers. I’ve always found you meet nicer people in a trout stream than almost anywhere. On his way back to the states he dropped in, as he was flying out of Melbourne after his holiday. He used our shower and spare room for a night. Vicky asked what I knew about him, and I realised I didn’t know anything except the contents of his fly box, which was enough.
I realised from her tone that I’d used up lots of fishing points inviting him and that I’d have to watch the calendar a bit closer next year.