Fly fishing up north

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Given the cold down here and my upcoming trip figure I'd reminisce about last years trip:

I’ve only recently come to fly fishing. Like most folk, out of ignorance, I’ve associated fly fishing in fresh water with trout (or salmon, if you were lordly and able to afford a trip to Yemen). Trout — never mind salmon — pose a number of problems to an angler based in Queensland. To enumerate:
1.   The tyranny of distance; even the New England area, arguably the most northerly of our fresh water fisheries featuring trouty fish, and thus closest to QLD, is a fair way off, more than a lazy Sunday’s drive, for certain. The Snowy Mountains and Victoria are an even longer way off, Tassie seemingly as distant as Mars, and New Zealand, I suspect, exists in a parallel universe. I’ve heard rumours of trout in South America, but hey, that’s another continent, and the Northern hemisphere is, well, northern.
2.   It’s apparently generally cold in trout-frequenting places and this seemingly involves the donning of large plasticky attire that must feel horribly unnatural to a person used to wading up a stream in shorts and shirt.
3.   I own a certain unfamiliarity with trout and other salmonoids. I’ve caught a few on lures, its true, but...
4.   While the allure of trout remains undeniable I am just a fly newbie, a learner. I need to target species I know.
5.   Did I mention the tyranny of distance?

Like most fisher folk I’ve got my favourite spots. Most of them are in North Queensland, even Far North Queensland… (Sounds a long way from trout, doesn’t it?)

I caught my first fresh water fish on fly a little over a year ago on a stream about 18 degrees south of the equator. It was a sooty grunter. It took a pink and white clouser on a number 4 hook. You remember your first.

Northern species

In case you’d forgotten, salt water crocodiles inhabit many northern waters. This is a species you want to avoid when wading a creek. Most waters that are accessible from the road in North Queensland and likely to hold a croc or two are so signposted. Take a signposted stream very seriously if you intend to wade the water — and don’t. Most of the creeks I fish lie in rainforest country. There are no crocodile warning signs. They are tributaries of bigger creeks or rivers which may, and probably do, these days, hold crocs. Crocodiles go where the food is; this means bigger waters. I know most of these little streams from years of fishing them and have friends in the national parks who tell me they are not big enough to hold a salty. If you wish to fish unknown waters, check with locals – ask if there’s the possibility of crocs or check with national parks offices nearby. The fishing I’ve just done featured creeks I’ve never fished. I followed my own advice and asked. I didn’t get eaten by a crocodile, for which I am eternally grateful.

Species you don’t’ want to avoid are sooty grunter (Hephaestus fuliginosus), also known as ‘black bream’ or blackies, the beautiful silver-chain-mailed jungle perch (Kuhlia rupestris), the odd barramundi (Lates calcarifer) but these tend to frequent larger (i.e. crocodilian) waters, Indo-Pacific tarpon (Megalops cyprinoides), which, though not the giants of North and South American waters, are a lot of fun on fly, and, once in a while, spangled perch (Leiopotherapon unicolor). I’ve caught all of these on lures in rainforest streams but only a lone (and perhaps stupid) barramundi, a few tarpon and quite a few more sooty grunter on fly. Sooty grunters have been my most frequent capture; on one day I took 18 on the fly. That was a halcyon day; I also took two tarpon.

Flies for the northern fresh

I am no expert on flies that work; no doubt there are others who may have plumbed north Queensland waters with different and very successful flies than what have worked for me. But what have worked for me are clousers. Colour does not seem wildly important; bright pink and whites or yellow and reds have worked. But I’ve also had success with a red-eyed, black bodied clouser in a deep pool. I’ve caught sooties with olive and/or brown woolly buggers, bass vampires, crazy Charlies and others of the strange hybrid flies I’m addicted to tying. These were often a mix of deceiver and clousers or woolly bugger and some weighted fly. Tungsten bead heads were good to get them down. I even did all right with a largish nymph pattern that resembled a copper john (tied on a number 6 hook) until I lost it in rocks on the bottom. I did dive for it and peer in the clear water under rocks – using goggles. You’ll note a certain joy in the detail here; I doubt that I’d be poking about in shorts and goggles in Tassie waters looking for an errant fly in October. Then again, maybe I would.
Most of these flies are streamers, or nymph-like, or salt water variations of trout patterns I like the look of. Most of them are weighted and, given that most of these fish tend to take most of their food below the surface*, fished deep, on or near the bottom. Some have been taken as they sink. I don’t use weed guards and am happy to go swimming for a fly that is hung up or trapped between rocks. A swim is one of the joyful by-products of the fresh north fishing scene. [*I need to insert a rider: I’ve certainly had fish hit lures and even a fly or two once or twice when it hits the surface but most of my takes were by unsighted fish… I also recall a sunlit morning a few years back when sooty grunter of sizeable proportions were slurping large flying ants off the surface and I wished I was a dry fly fisherman.]

That's enough reminiscing about last year's trip... Starting to get twitchy. Roll on October.