From the Editor’s Desk
… Lyndon Webb
One of the many delightful aspects of fly fishing is the accumulation of memories. And the older you get, the larger the accumulation. Of course there are lots of good memories in the collection, and of course some that are less so.
I lived for ten years in the delightful Victorian City of Warrnambool, and that’s where my fly fishing really began. We had four good trout fishing rivers in the area, and some productive lakes as well.
One of the rivers I visited regularly in those years was the Moyne near Port Fairy. Jim Blakeslee, originally from the USA, arrived in Warrnambool not long after we settled there, and early on I took Jim and my teenage son over to the Moyne for an inspection. We parked the car, walked in along the old railway track to the bridge where it crossed the river, then Jim went upstream while my son and I headed downstream.
Not long after we started I looked upstream under the railway bridge to see how Jim was doing. His rod was bent over in a huge hoop, so I thoughtlessly assumed he had got his fly hooked up on something. So I just went of fishing. About five minutes later I had another look – and Jim’s rod was still bent over. Then the penny dropped – he was connected to something really big! My son and I galloped upstream, and sure enough Jim was attached to a very large brown that was cruising relentlessly up and down the pool. I passed my net across, and soon enough Jim plunged the net into the water and dragged this huge fish up onto the bank. 7½ pounds it weighed. That night was the Annual Warrnambool Fly Fishers’ Annual Dinner, and Jim’s monster fish was placed on display at the door. A truly great memory!
I recall on another day visiting this same section of the Moyne, but this time by myself. I was fishing a pool fairly close to where Jim had caught his monster trout, and just happened to glance down to discover that about three feet of brown snake was curled up in a tight circle right between my boots. I made an immediate backwards leap, and the snake remained unmoved. Perhaps it was dead! So I leaned over and poked it in the ribs with the tip of my rod. It immediately leapt up and pelted off downstream. Another Moyne memory.
Many of our members have attended Jim’s residence on the upper Merri River. Each November Jim invites VFFA members to a magnificent barbecue meal that he hosts. It’s a truly fabulous annual event.
Not far from Jim’s place there’s a section of the upper Merri River that I fished regularly when I lived there. I’d park my car at the end of a short road, then walk down the hill to a very productive section of the river. There was a large corner pool there that was often occupied by a trout or two whose antics drew your attention. But on the other side of the river at this point the paddock was occupied by a foul tempered bull. When I arrived he would immediately come charging down the slope to the other side of the river, bellowing and kicking dirt in the air, and making every indication that he strongly resented my presence. Fortunately he was dumb, because about 30 metres downstream from this large corner pool the river was shallow – usually only about six inches to a foot deep. So this cantankerous bull could have wandered across to continue the altercation if he was smart. Fortunately, he wasn’t.
1981 was a significant year in our family history. I was a successful applicant in a teacher-exchange program, and swapped houses and cars and jobs for a year with a similarly qualified teacher in a secondary school near Hamilton in New Zealand’s North Island. It was a fabulous year for us, with of course the local trout fishing being a major part of the attraction from my perspective.
I joined the Hamilton Anglers’ Club and immediately made friends with several locals who were very keen the show me their fishing. They were incredibly generous, and I was taken to a number of local rivers that seemed full of trout.
A club member called Peter Scott took me under his wing, and most Saturdays we fished together. Peter was a specialist in farm refrigeration, so had a good relationship with many of the local farmers, thus having access to rivers running through their farms. On lots of occasions I fished for just a few hours and caught (and released) twenty or more fish (mostly lively little rainbows). On a few outings I fished a nymph under a dry and had two small rainbows rush out and each take one of the two flies. Fun memories!
On one afternoon I arrived at a high barbed-wire fence I needed to cross. But I had a new pair of waders on and could see myself coming to grief on those sharp barbs. So I removed my waders, and my trousers, then threw both of them over the fence. Then I laid on my back on the ground, pushed the bottom rung of barbs upwards as far as I could, and slid under the bottom rung, then re-dressed on the other side and fished on. (You do strange things when you’re young and keen and desperate to not tear new waders!)
I could go on. Of course we all could, because being fly fishers means we’re full of memorable stories of our countless exploits.