Autumn in The Snowy Mountains
Autumn Things
The days get a little shorter, the sting in the sun loses its punch and the nights cool down to those first frosts for the season with imminent snow not far away.
Its autumn, my favourite time of the year!
I love the weather, the transformation of colour in the trees and I really enjoy what the change in the season does for our critters, land and water. Whether it be chasing a trophy stag in the hills, or one of those famously fresh run browns that move through the bigger river systems to their spawning location, it’s a special time of the year.
While savouring what will be (no doubt) a short-lived excitement for an Aussie Rugby fan, enjoying four Australian Super Rugby teams in the top six, Kiwi rugby conditions last weekend were pretty poor for free-flowing rugby. But that same weather, which soon impacted us here in the lower part of Aussie’s east coast has been that proverbial switch that has turned summer to autumn overnight. Low, clear, dry fly fishing conditions turned to nymphing and swinging flies in the space of 24 hours. While I can’t anticipate that my mighty Brumbies will keep climbing past 3rd place on the Super Rugby table, I can confidently anticipate a good close to the season with this wonderful rain. For both us in Aussie and our Kiwi brothers and sisters.
Photo by David Anderson
Tracking down a good opportunity to get onto a good fish at this time of the year, it’s a pretty obvious suggestion to hit our lower reaches of these bigger systems during a fresh, where pre-spawn, lake fish move through on their pursuit for future spawning activity in the coming weeks, across the upper reaches. Equally, higher reaches in our larger systems will also see pre-spawn migration of our resident fish during a fresh, pushing out of those bigger pools they’ve resided in all summer.
Whether swinging a fly, or nymphing a seam, it’s a great time to be out there, particularly now that the weather has hit.
Photo by David Anderson
While fishing a trout stream after March can be a pretty polarising topic with ‘trouties,’ I am all for getting out and fishing our streams at this time of the year. I really enjoy swinging a fly for those fish that are actively pushing through during a fresh. Similar to the fishing the Tongariro in winter for those famous freshwater Steelhead, or fishing off the Aussie’s east coast’s continental shelf for Marlin in summer, fishing migration runs is a period of time where the angler can get a shot a really special fishing experience and adding another special memory.
But with opportunity, comes responsibility, and as a general standard, I would like to think we as fishers do a pretty good job of looking after our environment and our fisheries. So with that in mind, if we see a beautiful Brown sitting on a redd doing its thing, or you see redds on your wading path across the river, make a different path around them and sit back and enjoy watching those beautiful fish do their thing. We don’t need to capture everything with a fly, sometimes catching a few moments without a cast can be pretty special.
Main thing to all of us, in the rain, snow, or the sun – get out there, its bloody good for us!
Tight loops and lines.
About the Author
Matt Tripet - IFF CCI
Professional Guide & Founder - The Fly Program