Bucktails to the rescue: was Fishing in Vic

The catching has been rather patchy lately with a couple of fish
poking their noses out on evening and surprisingly for the time of
year - smelters! We fished for 'em last week with nothing but
follows to show for it. Fish that were caught on evening were good
conditioned so they had been on something.

Seining the water turned up the odd green midge pupa, a single
brown nymph shuck (#16) and a micro-caddis, bright green 26 - 32
depending on the hook maker. No wonder there wasn't a lot of
surface activity during the day.

On Saturday (who knows what will happen this 'arvo) the fish holed
up in snags and undercuts during the day and would only come out
for a Brown and White Bucktail swung past their holds. Other
streamers and buggery things were ignored, while the silver bodied
bucktail pulled them consistently even from "used" water.

(The pattern is a mod of the Black Nosed Dace - leave off the red
tag and the centre black strip of bucktail in the sparse wing.)

Most interestingly, there was no sign of smelting activity while
all this was going on. We were fishing the area they were busting
up last week at about the same time. Later toward evening we
started to see bow waves and sprays of baitfish - when that
happened a largish beadhead cast to the disturbance would bring a
hit.

To round it all off there was a reasonable evening rise and we each
bagged a few surface feeders on emergers: most pleasant indeed.

The key is observation, and I am admittedly a little slow to
recognise what I see at times. Thinking back, here has been a
bumper season for tiddlers in the river ... first noticed over a
month ago ... reinforced last week and penny dropping this trip

If you're in SE Aus and the streams aren't fishing "normally" (mine
certainly aren't) it might be worth trying a few streamers into
likely looking spots ... especially if you notice a lot of tiddlers
about. Do try more than one pattern though.

many bow waves,

Steve