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.