I'm going to be brutally honest for a minute. The drought we had in NSW Australia between 2017-2019 killed my love for fly fishing. It was gut wrenching driving over your favourite spot and seeing it bone dry and later swept up in flames of bushfire. As was seeing videos of large sick Murray cod struggling to survive in Lake Keepit as it dropped below 0.5% capacity.
Throw in 2 years of 'you know what' after that and a perfect storm brewed where I couldn't tie on a fly, or sit behind the vise and make some for when things went back to normal, whenever or whatever that looked like.
But even with the rain for the past 2 years our local go to creek was still not recovered, we found one fingerling trout which gave us hope but it would still need more time to heal.
A work trip to Guyra a few months back saw me take advantage of the last of daylight savings and fish a new creek, absolutely full of hungry little rainbows and the long asleep embers in my soul began to glow.
It made me realise what had been missing these past 4 years as the world turned itself inside out.
Today I dusted off the vice and sat down and tied a fly, it felt good and I didn't have to force myself to do it.
I also caught this fat hen rainbow and made caviar for the first time, and this afternoon I'm going to smoke the fillets and make pate.
It's good to be back
1 comment
Good read, better news! Take care mate and get out there.