Match The Hatch - Flying Ants

How on earth can you match the hatch, when thousands of insects are floating downstream on the current lines; and literally hundreds of fish are slurping them off the surface?

But I am getting ahead of myself!

It was a perfect day - very little wind, hardly a cloud in the sky and the river was shining like silver as it flowed down a lush green, tree lined valley. Man, the upper reached of the Russell River sure was a picture to behold. But getting there had a few challenges, check out the boat ramp in the pic hereabouts!

Main "boat ramp"...upper Russell River

A bridge somewhere!

But we were soon on our way and zooming upstream....I decide to head as far upstream as I could (read - DARED!) Past sand bars and shallow rocky rapids, under old railway bridges and high motor ways, sunken timber and prop busting logs....it was an exhilarating ride! And as Keith and I came off the plane....lets catch our breath, take in all of this natural beauty and have a coffee under the shade. Being in such natural beauty sure made us realise just what a paradise Tropical North Queensland truly is.

How's this for morning tea!

While heavy into "fishy" conversation (err...what lure mate and stuff like that?) we did notice that there were little splashes all around us. Upon closer examination we discovered that hundreds of sooties & JP's were actually slurping floating insects from the surface. Wherever the main current line drifted downstream and as far as the eye could see in both directions, fish were in feeding mode - in all  my years of fishing tropical streams, I had never witnessed such a feeding orgy. What this did show us however, was a few things like;

1. The river held fish stocks way above expectation
2. Fish will feed way out in the open if food is there
3. When they are singularly focussed on drowned flying ants - its hard to get a lure to match
4. Do we have to carry fly fishing gear as well?
5. The bio mass of insect life was huge - this event occurred literally for miles downstream

Nice sooty...on a GREEN popper!

At first we tried to cast our offerings, poppers and hard bodied diving minnows to these slurping fish. We had a few half hearted follows and even managed to land a couple of sooties - but in the main, a cast would receive instant "interest" on the touch down, but after the initial inspection the bloody fish would realise that this big lump of plastic was nothing like a little delicate drowning insect and bugger off. Man it was frustrating!

I'm really not sure how it happened, but we switched out attention to the deeper snags....that's right, we decided to fish the river side with the most current. Maybe this is where the most "burley - insects" would end up anyway and maybe, just maybe, these areas held the most actively feeding fish. The tally was mounting.

Show off Keith...I caught one too!

JP on that green thing...deep diver!

NOTE - many reader will know what lures we prefer in these fresh water upper reaches - Rapala SR5's (get it)...but initially these weren't the flavour of the month either. I can't remember how often I changed my lure, but it was probably more than I have done so for the past 12 months combined, such was the frustration at seeing all these feeding fish, but not hooking up often enough. I tried deeper divers, shallow runners, medium runners, poppers of all shapes, sizes and colour - I tried poppers with "flash" on the trailing hook but this made no real difference. And then I found this little deep diving green thing that was in the bottom tray of my tackle box - it was brand new, but had been there for years.

Now that's a nice JP Keith!



Yeah, yeah, two at a time...see that green lure again!

I cast to the steep bank up in the shade, cranked it down and BANG! I was onto a quality sooty. Had I finally cracked the code? (Oh, Keith had found something that worked for him too - the tally was mounting). At one stage we drifted over a submerged snag in about 2 metres of water. I could see a quality big black sooty lying just downstream for the main log....but we were right on top of the structure by now, so more so in hope, than expectation, I tossed my little lure about a metre and started to wind. In a flash I was on...we couldn't believe it that a quality sooty would slam our lure right next to the boat....amazing stuff.

Quality lure crunching sooty!

Not too long after this incident, a similar thing happened on the opposite bank. But this time it was a monster JP. She just rolled over the timber and snaffled my little green lure......unfortunately the hooks pulled right at the boat so a photo opportunity was lost - I would have loved to show you how big, shiny and beautiful it was!

And then it happened; I lost that "magic" lure....not sure how, but the leader pulled from the double and I wound in the limp, lifeless braid. I retied another lure and off we went........I again was faced with the dilemma of choosing the right lure and by now Keith had switched back to the SR5 (get it again) and was out fishing me 2 to one....bugger. It was my boat too!

Tried this lure for a while too!

Keith again...he was getting ahead in the tally count!

If you can't beat em, join em I say........so with great reluctance (oh yeah!), I tied on my all time favourite, the very special, wonderfully successful, proven time and time again...SR5.
So what's my favourite sooty lure you ask ?

As we drifted down the hours passed - we had lunch under another beautiful shady tree and watched more fish slurp insects from the surface. I can't believe this was still happening. We followed the main current flow, switching from side to side of the river, and caught dozens of sooties. Under shady trees we picked up lovely JP's and in back eddies, the very acrobatic, silver sided tarpon crunched our offerings.

Beautiful silver tarpon

It was such a wonderful day we even forgot the time, the light was perfect, the weather superb and the scenery...well, a picture tells a thousand words. Just have a look at these and judge for yourself.

Check out that view!

By about 5:30pm we decided that we had better make a move to go home...so reluctantly we packed away our rods and zoomed the few remaining k's to our launch spot. Reflecting on the day we were in such a BUZZ! What a magnificent day it had been, Keith and I were absolutely stoked...and why wouldn't you be after fishing in paradise and landing about 50 fish.

Catch you on the water, regards Les
www.fishingcairns.com.au

PS - what's that lure again?
PPS - what colour, perch or green today?