The Swampy Plains Trip- Nov 2001

The Swampy was at its sparkling best for us on this trip and aside from a couple of windy days fished like a cracker. Clear and reasonably low water for most of the trip provided us with superb dry fly action. Many fish were caught and all were released with the best a brown of 5lb. Plenty of other fish to this size and bigger were dropped, often right near the boat.

Morning hatches of caddis saw fish rising from the very start and often the first fish or two were caught within sight of the car. Morning hatches of caddis persisted through the early afternoon before tapering slightly about 2.30pm and then returning to full strength a couple of hours later. Rising fish were found all over the place especially in the tails of pools and in the bubble lines.

A number of fish were taken off the rock walls this time round with the low flow meaning currents were often relatively sedated. Polaroiding was sensational with the best fish caught being sighted and cast to, every dot on his back visible as it took the dry fly. Plenty of fish were found in this way. Searching with big dry flies in the roughest of water often brought up fish after fish. The best was eight fish from one gravel bar drop off. All on the dry and most in the 2-3lb class.

Other hatches that were occurring were the odd kossie through the day and on last light. An olive dun which appeared through the afternoon, great clouds of spinners, also in the afternoon and stoneflies in the morning. There really was a lot of insect activity.

Only ten fish were taken on nymphs for the entire trip and these were flashback beadheads fished dead drift under a dry fly. All the rest of around two hundred fish were taken on dry flies with no down and across fishing with nymphs or wets needed. Of the few other anglers encountered most were fishing blind with nymphs downstream which was a bit of shame considering the conditions. The fishing on the surface was so good that for the last four days we only fished with a double dry fly rig opting to leave the beadheads out of the equation altogether.

That is about all we are going to say about the trip. We could provide a blow by blow account but we feel it is best done with a few photos. So sit back and enjoy browsing through the next few snaps. All photos blow up to full size, just click on it to do this.

Enjoy a taste of paradise!

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