​An optimistic friend says that if you wait long enough, you will in fact get the fishing weather you want. Turns out he was right: after a frustrating start to spring that’s been more like an extension of winter, we finally had the sort of weekend you hope for when the South Australian Fly Fishers visited.
 
Saturday was nearly perfect – light wind, lots of cloud, but quite mild too. The insects were out in force; in fact the dun hatch was so heavy on some lakes, the trout struggled to keep up. Spinners followed, then midge and it would be fair to say that at least some of the group went the whole day always having a rising fish to cast to.
 
Sunday wasn’t quite as spectacular, with midday sun dampening the duns and quite a bit of wind. But still, there was a consistent sprinkle of rises and dry fly opportunities and over half the trout caught came to the floater.
 
Overall, the crew landed 40 decent trout from 2 to 9 pounds (a pretty even mix of browns and rainbows) plus lots of smaller fish. Looks like winter returns later this week, but at least we now know spring weather is possible!     

This weekend’s group flew in from all corners of the country; deserving perhaps of a bit of spring weather for their travels. Instead, wintery conditions prevailed for the umpteenth trip in a row, although on the plus side, it seems the insects have finally lost patience and have decided to get busy anyway! Midges emerged in numbers on evening as usual, but there was also a decent midday hatch at Cabin Lake on Sunday, with the swallows and the trout equally active. The other remarkable thing was a genuine dun hatch on the lower elevation lakes on both Saturday and Sunday. This is the first time we’ve had a proper dun hatch in September for years. Who knows what that means for the coming mayfly season, but we’ll take it!
 
For our interstate visitors, there were a few individual firsts despite the cold, most notably, Lissie’s biggest ever trout – a 6½lb brown on a Milly Midge, and Louise’s first ever trout on fly – a 5lb brown on a red superglue buzzer. Now that our guests have departed, it appears that the start of October will finally see some mild weather, and we’re all looking forward to seeing what that brings!         

​This bi-annual gathering of flyfishing friends began with a settled Friday evening and a fair midge hatch. Then Saturday really turned it on with a mild, sunny, light wind day. The polaroiding was spectacular with dozens of good trout sighted on each lake fished. In the bright, flat conditions, it wasn’t always easy to get the trout to eat, but with lots of shots, there were still many nice fish landed, including Steve’s 7 pound rainbow which we watched bolt two metres to eat a tiny Hares Ear Nymph. Fish of the day was Cam’s 8 pounder caught fishing blind, although he wasn’t complaining about the excitement factor, given the fish took him 40 metres into the backing! The near-perfect day finished with excellent midge hatches on all lakes visited, plus some big tailers!

Sunday was supposed to be nice too, however someone forgot to tell the weather! Until mid-afternoon, it was cold, windy and cloudy, with the odd shower thrown in. After seeing all those fish the previous day, it was frustrating to search the same bays and shores with hardly a touch. But then, at about 3 pm the wind dropped out and the action started; slowly at first with the odd midge rise and tailer, ramping up to a phenomenal midge hatch towards sunset – and more tailers in the shallows. While violent thunderstorms stopped play a few minutes early, it was hard to be too disappointed given over an hour of about the best sight fishing you could hope for.
 
A mixed weekend for sure, but with enough good sessions to give it a solid pass mark.       

​Have we mentioned the weather lately? Apparently it’s supposed to be spring, but cold fronts have kept coming straight up from Antarctica and winter has lingered – cold, wet and windy. We’re happy with the continuing rain, but could we have a little less of the cold and wind please?
 
Into these unrelenting conditions came the stoic crew from Southern Fly fishers. In fact, more than stoic – the crew were keen to get out into whatever nature could throw. Fortunately, trout are a cold water species and no matter how bad the weather, they can be caught. Thanks to their willingness to brave the elements, every one of the five fishers caught trout, and there were even a couple of significant captures. Ian caught his largest-ever trout, an 8 pound rainbow caught fishing deep and slow on a flashback nymph. Meanwhile, Rob caught his very first trout on fly while searching the flooded flats with a bead-head nymph. Apparently, he’d spent many months pre Millbrook trying to break the duck, so this fish was a most significant achievement.   
 
All up, the boys landed about a dozen, an even mix of browns and rainbows. There was even some twilight midge action when the wind died to a mere gale.
 
Over the next week or so, it looks like spring will make a welcome return. However when the inevitable ‘bracing’ weather returns, the Southern Fly Fishers visit will be another reminder that trout can still be caught.     

​Trevor and friends joined us for the final day of winter, and the start of spring. The weather was suitably unpredictable from gales, to blue sky, to calm evenings, and finished with a bang (literally) with a Sunday afternoon thunderstorm.  
 
The two highlights of the weekend were evening midge hatches, and polaroiding. To midges first, and we’re starting to see the benefits of all that grass being flooded a few months ago. Midge numbers are booming, and come evening, any patch of glassy or lightly-rippled water is likely to be broken by the classic tail-wagging ‘rises’ of trout gorging on chironomid pupa. In fact, Mark rates the rise on Cabin Lake last night as the biggest midge rise he’s seen at Millbrook – and after 25 years fishing and guiding here, that’s saying something!  
 
As for the polaroiding, despite all the rain and runoff, some lakes are beautifully clear and given half-decent light, we’re polaroiding trout cruising the bays and edges. They’re typically fussy early season fish, but some are absolute beauties and worth putting in the effort to fool.
 
Beetles – both aquatic and terrestrial – are also beginning to feature. All up, spring is off to a good start.  

The recent cold snap brought blizzard conditions to Millbrook on Saturday night.  We woke up to a Winter wonderland on Sunday morning.

Today we headed out to the lakes with Chris from the Calder Fly Fishing club.
Over the past four days we received 100mm of rain and yesterday a good dump of snow.
Today we found the fish in the shallows exploring the new ground, some lovely browns were landed on large rabbit flies and also a few on the midge.
Overall a great day out considering the past few days.
​It looks like we are going to be in for a bumper spring with all this water about. 
​

Members of the Sydney Flyrodders have been making a winter trip to Millbrook for several years now,
and we were delighted to host them once again for a long weekend from 19-21 July.
 
The theme for this trip would be 'wind (though the photos don't really show it) and water'.
It blew pretty hard most of the time and most days - and after 16 inches of rain since the start of May, the lakes are either full or nearly so.  The Cabin Lake and Hillys provided decent shelter from the persistent northerlies, although some of the best actual fishing was in gales on the more exposed lakes.
 
Sight fishing was surprisingly good.  There were a few tailers about, particularly in the shallows at Cabin, and plenty of trout polaroided on all lakes fished - though they weren't particularly easy to fool.
For sighted fish, the best flies tended to be stick caddis, various small nymphs, and red buzzers.
​Blind searching was most successful with black Woolly Buggers and Olive Magoos.  
 
Overall, this was one of the tougher trips for this crew, with 5 anglers landing an even 20 trout over three days. But there were plenty more sighted, hooked and lost - and the cabin fireside was the perfect place to recharge and plan the next day.

We're looking forward to seeing the Sydney crew again same time next year.     

​On the back of the wettest May/June the Millbrook area has seen for decades, the 13 anglers of the Forum crew were met with exceptionally high water for this early in the season. At first, this seemed to go hand-in-hand with great fishing: on the Friday evening the crew arrived, 10 trout were landed.

Subsequently though, the fishing was a bit tougher. While the scoreboard kept ticking over, the catch rate was down somewhat on a typical July weekend. Not so the fish quality though: there were six trout landed over 6 pounds, and three of those were over 7 pounds. There were also 'what might have been' moments for Ollie, Cam and Barney. The double-figure fish are out there!

Sight fishing highlights included some amazing edge polaroiding when the light allowed (as Rob and others will attest!), plus some genuine tailers in the flooded margins on Saturday afternoon, and a big midge rise Saturday evening.

Overall we had our chances, many of those were converted, and things are looking just great for the coming weeks and months.