As a few of you would know I've been wanting to tick a few freshwater species off the list, so when a member off another forum (Goody1971) asked me if I'd like to join him for a trout hunt, I didn't have to think too long about my answer (is the pope bloody catholic?!?). So on Sunday I drove up to his place, keen as mustard to catch my first wild trout! After a quick chat we jumped in the car and made our way to Goody's favourite little stream, and boy did it look good:
Well, it didn't take me long to discover that trout fishing is a lot harder than it looks. Thank god Goody was there, otherwise I would have spent the whole day casting in the wrong areas and retrieving my lures from trees. So after a quick tutorial we started casting and it didn't take long for Goody to have the first fish on the board:
A beautiful little brown. Not a bad start! By this stage I was getting pretty excited, but I quickly realised that Goody was a class above me as a fisherman - he was putting cast after cast within an inch of the bank, while I spent the majority of my time snagged on timber or stuck in a tree. For the first time ever I also saw the massive advantage of reeling and casting with opposite hands. Because I cast and reel right handed, by the time I'd flicked out a lure, swapped hands, flipped the bail arm over and started winding, my lure was already halfway to my feet. So I decided to switch to left hand retrieve - let's just say this made things worse hah. But while all this was going on, Goody landed a couple of beautiful little rainbows, despite letting me have the first few casts in all the good pools:
Goody was doing all he could to get me a fish, and fortunately I started to sort my sh$t out and started landing some casts in the right spots (after changing back to right handed retrieve). It took some time, but after losing a nice fish, I finally managed to stay connected to one:
A fat little rainbow, and my first wild trout. You little ripper! I was stoked, and I think Goody was pretty happy for me too. By this stage we'd almost reached the end of the stretch of stream we were fishing, so after a couple more casts we started making our way back. On our way to the car, we decided to have one last cast in a fishy looking spot and first cast, I was on again:
A brown this time, and another first for me. I couldn't have been happier! Goody also managed to land a nice little brown while I was de-hooking mine, which was a perfect end to this little session. However, the day was still young, so we decided to explore some other streams with the hope of finding a bigger fish:
We explored some beautiful areas but, despite a heap of strikes, follows and hook-ups, we couldn't land another fish. But I couldn't have cared less - I'd ticked two new species off the list and I was over the moon. Thanks heaps to Goody for taking me out - you're an absolute ripper and a gun fisho! I learnt a heap and can't wait to give it another crack.
Cheers!
