2018 Trout season opens in style in Cornwall

It's been a long while since I've written anything for the post, but Stuart's recent action has inspired me to try anew. I can't quite promise that the fishing will be quite as tropical as his however. It's been a very busy few months with various pieces of University work, field trips, and opportunities all limiting the amount of time that has been free to fish (relatable for many I'm sure!). The few windows of time that have come free have however invariably coincided with the very worst that Cornwall can throw at us in weather. The kayak has been in dry storage for 3 months, and the itch to wet a line has been growing exponentially.

The last proper attempt at any angling, fishing off a small mangrove in Indonesia.

With the season for trout fishing in rivers opening on March the 15th, my mind has been fixed once again on the charismatic British species Salmo trutta. With information about fly fishing for wild trout in Cornwall being limited to a few dubious forum posts, I've been using the last few months to gather and mull over any information that I can, including scouting a few likely looking streams. My more grandiose targets would however have to wait for breaking in the season, in the thick of deadlines half a day seemed all that could be spared.

Cornwall's formidable weather hadn't quite played it's last card though. Over the week prior to March 15th  a worrying forecast was forming, heavy rain and an incoming cold system (again!). As the day neared a small window opened; between 2 days of heavy rain and the incoming cold, March 16th sat happily as a sunny day of 10 degrees. That was that then. Usual work bag was exchanged for a somewhat larger rucksack filled with waders, flies, leader materials, bits and bobs and of course some study materials for Uni. Overladen, I arrived at in time for a marine noise lecture at 9am and then jumped straight back on the bike at 10:15.

The rain however had not been without consequence. The river Kennel was double the depth that I had ever seen it previously, and though while reasonably clear in the shallower sections it was a far removed image from the gentle stream that I had ended the 2017 season on. Still, here I was, and fishing this early on in the season was always more about being out there than finding loads of fish. Previous hotspots a little above the tidal reaches had failed me, so I headed a little further up than I had fished previously. Here the river narrowed, deepened and quickened in pace. Some of the wading was dubious, with pools over 5ft found.

Tricky wading

Given the fast flow, depth and poor viability, heavy and obvious flies were my choice for the day, hoping that something down there might take some curiosity. In order to effectively cover the variable depth and notice any takes, I employed an adjustable yarn indicator- a trick learned from the expert himself, Nick Hart. This however did not prevent me getting hooked up in many of the above-water obstacles, truly wild fishing!

My optimism was soon increased as I spotted a couple of 4 inch trout shoot upstream in my 3rd pool up. I soon found myself covering a fast deep pool on the right hand side bank, with a plethora of branches to get caught in upstream and a half submerged tree trunk 6 meters down from these defining the brackets of the run. Keeping to the left on a shallow sandbank, it was possible to lightly flick the fly on just the leader and 3 feet of fly line to the branches upstream and keep track of the leader and line as it passed level and slightly downstream to my right. It was real close quarters action.

On the 3rd run through, much to my surprise, the yarn indicator suddenly shot forwards and under. My arm jerked to strike, and this time the snag seemed to be moving. Fish on! It gave me a right merry dance around the deep pool, and was soon diving for the trunk downstream, using all of the strong flow in it's favour. As I put the brakes on best I could it changed tact and made 3 energetic leaps of protest. Eventually, with the light rod's limited power, I brought the bold individual level and was delighted to hold my first trout of the year. And man, these Cornish browns are just gorgeous! After a couple of quick snaps the 9 inch individual was soon released back, with all but pride intact.

This fighting fit individual was a very welcome sight indeed!

After enjoying the moment for a few minutes, returning missed calls to work colleagues and a few mouthfuls of water, I explored a little more upstream. The stream threw up some surprising features to be fished again, however this time it seems that I had gained my full reward in one fish. Just as I was making my way through the last couple of (very) overgrown pools, a large dark olive landed on my right arm, bringing to mind the great hatches to come later in the season.

However for now it was waders off and in the bag and back up to studying at campus. Here's to all the fish of 2018 to come, and let's hope some better weather comes our way soon!

Dan.

Quest for a King

**Sorry for being totally absent the last few months, I have been having a great time here in Tasmania and unfortunately haven’t found time write up reports...! I’ll kick off with one from this weekend, and hopefully get around to writing up a few more over the coming weeks **

For the last few years, kingfish have been on my mind a lot. They are one of the ocean’s great fighters, being renowned for their sheer strength and ability to run into and snag the angler’s tackle on any structure they can find. Since moving to the other side of the world back in July, the prospect of catching one suddenly became a reality. Although the species is found over much of Australia, they haven’t really made it over to Tasmania yet. It’s almost exactly like the situation of seabass in Norway. The odd individual heads up from warmer waters in summer months, but they are in such low densities they can’t realistically be targeted.

I like a challenge when it comes to fishing, so catching a kingfish whilst on my year abroad quickly became an obsession. On arrival I did some research, and after talking to some local fishermen it became apparent it would not be easy. As they are such a new arrival to the state’s fishing scene, there aren’t yet any known hotspots, and their behaviour isn’t really understood. All I got was that I might get lucky if I fished enough around structure and baitfish from December-April. Once November came around I started fishing places I thought a kingfish might be found but had no luck. I then visited New Zealand (a real hotspot for Kingies) for 5 weeks, dedicating 5 days at the end of the trip to fishing. Although I had some great fishing, none were caught.

I then spent the remainder of the summer holiday working and travelling Tasmania. I travelled to many remote spots and fished with both lures and live baits, and perhaps had one take from a kingy. Once semester started again I realised that I was running out of chances and that I might not get one.

However, whilst revisiting a spot I hadn’t fished since August I had a chat with a guy fishing a popper, who told me to go and have a look in a bag he has behind a rock. Inside was a kingfish, not a monster like the ones found in more tropical regions, but a good one for Tas, at around 7 lb. This gave me the boost in confidence I needed to continue the so far fruitless search.  Hoewwe

This past weekend I was invited out to fish for tuna with some friends on the east coast of Tasmania, out of Eagle-hawk neck. The continental shelf is very narrow off Tassie’s east coast, which means tuna fishing is fairly accessible when the weather is good, as they come to feed at the shelf break on baitfish attracted to the plankton rich waters found there.

We left Hobart at 3.20 am, with the plan being to get out on the water as early as possible to make the most of the calm conditions forecast for the early morning. After 11, it would get too windy and become dangerous, especially in a small boat. We made it to the boat ramp at 5.30 and joined the que of other boats waiting to launch. We were soon out on the water and heading due east as the sun began to rise over the horizon.

Our journey out to the shelf break was great, although the Southern Ocean swells made it quite a bumpy ride. We saw many dolphins, several albatross species and lots of shearwaters, as well as an epic sunrise.  

As we neared the edge of the continental shelf, about 25km offshore, we started to troll lures to try and locate some fish. If we were lucky enough to find lots of activity we could then try casting lures, but to begin with we wanted to cover some ground and find the fish first. Within no time at all 3 of the 4 rods were bent over and 3 small albacore tuna were boated. They were only about 5lb so we decided to continue following the edge of the shelf and hopefully find some better fish.  My friend then boated a better fish, probably around 15lb. After the initial success we struggled to find the fish, after 30 minutes of waiting we landed a small striped tuna. This was then followed by a small southern bluefin tuna which we quickly released without a picture as the species is listed as critically endangered. The next action was in the form of a triple hook-up, we managed to simultaneously boat and release 3 bluefins. This was quite surprising as it is well known that albacore massively outnumber the bluefins off Tasmania’s east coast.  Fairly soon after my reel was screaming, and I hooked and landed the best fish so far, another hard fighting bluefin.

After this fish we struggled to find anything for about 20 minutes until we came across another small school of albacore. By now it was around 9 am, and the wind was picking up so made the decision to head back in but take a detour along the coast to a sheltered cove to do some snorkelling and tuck in out of the wind.

After some snorkelling we headed back to the boat ramp, hugging the coast. Although the wind had picked up, it was fortunately not as bad as forecast. This meant that although the ride home was bumpy, I was still able to clean and fillet a couple of the albacore we had caught and kept if we went slowly. One of my friends then spotted some baitfish spraying out of the water about 20m from the boat, so we stopped and had a few casts with spinning rods. We didn’t see any dolphins, so assumed the fish were being chased by some other pelagic fish. The guys were speculating marlin, as they had previously caught one in the area.  We didn’t have any hook-ups on topwaters or metals skipped along the surface, but I managed a fish by dropping a metal jig. I wound in a small ‘slimy mackerel’ very similar to the Atlantic mackerel back in the UK. These were the fish that were being chased, and we debated sending it down as a livebait, but we were drifting too fast for it to be effective.

We carried on with lures but only ended up catching more mackerel, so decided to make a move and troll a couple lures out the back whilst we continued home. About a minute after I got back to filleting, my rod bent over and line was being stripped at a ridiculous pace. After a good fight we wondered what had taken my lure. Once we saw colour we realised this was no tuna; the distinctive yellowtail and black line across the head could belong to nothing other than a kingfish. When it saw the boat, it ran straight for the seabed in true kingfish style, but fortunately I was able to control the fish and bring it in. We were all ecstatic, as we all knew how lucky we were to run into one of these beautiful, powerful fish.

We decided to make the most of the opportunity and try to find some more, swapping the boat rods and multipliers for spinning rods rated around 15-50g and 4000 size reels. We motored back to where I had the hook-up and I cast out a 42g SG sandeel into the swell. I soon had another hook-up and another epic fight followed. A friend of mine also hooked up on a metal skipped along the surface. A double hook-up of kingfish in Tasmania! We couldn’t believe it. Over the next hour we boated about 9 kingfish up to about 70cm, with 4 of them falling to my SG sand eel. Unfortunately, the lure didn’t make it home as a school of barracouta moved through, leaving me with only the jighead. I then switched to a delalande swat shad, which caught me my biggest kingfish and an arrow squid. I have no idea how the single hook managed to snag a tentacle! We lost the school of kingies and headed back to the boat ramp feeling elated. Not only had we had a great morning on the tuna, but we had also caught an incredible number of the “Mythical Kingfish” every Tasmanian fisherman wants to catch. I don’t think I have ever caught a fish that fights so well for their size. They also never give up; on the gear we were using they were incredibly fun and challenging to catch.

Although I have caught my kingy, I’ve still got a couple of weeks to try and catch one from the shore too before they head off back to warmer waters. I think it’s safe to say I have become somewhat obsessed with this species and will be looking into catching some of the bigger ones found at more northern latitudes!

Thanks for reading,

Stuart