Bushbash Creek

The next pool, all nine or ten feet of it, is at eye-level from where I’m crouching in the plunge pool below. I give the little 2-weight a flick and the #14 Royal Wulff lands at the edge of the white- water in the head and quickly travels downstream. In less than a second the fly has covered half the length of the pool and is hammered by a little rainbow. I lift, but again, there’s nothing there. Maybe I’m too slow, or the angle for setting the hook all wrong? Too much slack line on the water perhaps? Too old?

One more try, but this time I lay a little line over a rock mid-current to slow the drift down, and bang, the fly gets hammered again, but to no avail. Maybe the rod’s too short, the day too long, and it’s time to try the afternoon hatch at the Brumby bar?

After several more attempts, the trout hits, is hooked, and the real problem becomes clear. The fish, all five psycho wriggly inches of it, is big on ambition but short on gob.

Welcome to Bushbash Creek, where the fish are always more aspirational than awesome, but the challenge of fishing more than makes up for it.

WHERE TO

I could be talking about almost any wooded alpine stream in New South Wales and pretty much the top end of every wooded small stream in North East Victoria, and there are at least a dozen I would happily call my favourite. But if I could only fish one, it would be Leather Barrel Creek, west of Thredbo in the Kosciuszko National Park. Upstream from the only road access, it is so covered over with thick trees in many places that it’s impossible to wade standing fully upright, unless you’re shorter than Bilbo.

A few hundred metres above the road, past the worst of the jungle and over the log jams, the creek opens up briefly and there’s some classic pool-riffle-pool water for a while. Above that, there are some great stretches of bedrock with every casting challenge you ever imagined possible with less than 25 feet of line out. Above that is only heartbreak.

Down stream, there are more open sections with generally easier casting, but the addition of terrifyingly thick and deep blackberries in places makes travel a potentially painful exercise, and God help you if you’re wearing spiffy new five-hundred dollar waders. You would be better off wet-wading with a box of Band-Aids and drying your tears on the bigger trout that live down near where the creek joins the Murray River.

In some of the deep pools of the lower creek, under the covering of low trees, it is almost impossible to get a natural drift through the complexity of currents around the boulders. In those circumstances I like to drop a very small bead-headed Woolly Bugger in from above, let the fly sink through the pool while drifting downstream, and then slowly retrieve it directly upstream. It’s as ungainly as Abbott’s ears, but quite effective.

Getting down the creek is either a case of walking the ridge line to the west and then scrambling down through the bush, or fishing downstream on the way in and up on the way back. I normally do the walk down the creek only fishing the odd pool to make time, and then fish slowly back up after a break at the bottom. If that spooks the fish, it’s obviously not for long.

The fishing on Leather Barrel is reliable in all but the highest spring flows, when wading is nothing short of mental and physical torture. Leave it for the first couple of months of the season and you should be right.

HOW TO

The choice of casts over much of the stream is limited to short flicks, bow -and-arrow and water hauling.

A water haul, in case you don’t know, involves letting the fly hang directly downstream from the rod tip with about 15 to 20 feet of fly- line out and under a little pressure in the current. You give a fast flick upstream while hauling the line with the rod parallel to the water. It’s like a flat roll-cast with a little more zing. Amongst all the overhang, this really only works with shorter rods — 7 feet or less — and is far from pretty, but in a tunnel of trees it can get your fly in places others fear to cast.

This type of cast is hard on flies, and even robust hair-wings can lose buoyancy after the first couple of drifts, so I tend to stick with simple nymphs or foam dries through the worst sections of the creek.

Finding fish on Leather Barrel Creek is quite easy because there are lots and they are everywhere, but the picture changes in North East Victoria because most of the stream bottoms are of more even gravel and cobble without the obvious lies. There can be long sections of shallow gravel riffle between the pools and sometimes the best lies are not easily seen until you’re standing in them. Look to the outside of any bends and around larger rocks or bedrock in the flow, and always throw a few prospecting casts even if you’re just looking for the next pool.

Any obviously deep water should be hammered.

I mention the Leather Barrel here with some reservation knowing how much I don’t want to bump into you and three of your mates there. I have to mention it though, because it’s a great if not humbling place to learn to cast and fish a twig in tight water, and a very easy place to find beautiful little trout, well seasoned with solitude.

No matter what tackle you use or where you fish, the thing you need most on these little creeks is the desire to push past, climb over or scramble around the obstacles to get to the next pool. The skill is not so much casting as getting the fly on the water at all, and the rewards are there for the brave or foolish.

BUSHBASH TACKLE

Rod choice on an open small stream is fairly simple as most 2 or 3 weights between 7 and 8 feet will easily do the job. Sure, some are better than others, but if you only have the one, then it’s probably fine. In the trees, however, shorter rods rule, and my three favourites for the nasty creeks over the years have all been under 7 feet.

A favourite from the past is a little Wellner 6-ft #2 that I bought second-hand and I’ve never seen another since. It’s an exquisite example of Japanese craftsmanship and a showpiece for their obsession with small stream fishing.

Short fibreglass rods are also good for this stuff, and one of the best (though now superseded) is the 5’6″ #2 from the first Scott F-series, back when glass started its comeback. Yes, it was not so talented for distance, but when it came to flicking, nothing could touch it.

My current favourite is the cheap-as-chips Redington ‘Butterstick’ 6-ft #3 glass rod that Morsie loaned me for a two-week trip to New Zealand — two years ago — and no, it’s not coming back anytime soon Peter. Unlike the tiny Wellner, or even tinier Scott, the little Butterstick will lob out much bigger flies with accuracy and authority and also has some talent on long casts in the off-chance there is room for one.

As good as glass is, in the North East I go graphite and a little longer with my new 7’9″ Circa 3-weight. It’s a tad long on the really nasty stuff, but so talented everywhere else I forgive it.

The best fly in this sort of stream is anything actually on the water as opposed to in the trees, though visibility on shaded water and general toughness would be priorities. In summer, larger foam flies are forgiving and effective.

Leaders are best kept to little more than rod length, and a little heavier than you might use on an open meadow stream. As ever, I don’t think you can go past the brown Maxima tippet because it’s not only tough but maintains its strength even when it’s been hammered. The more modern ‘double strength’ tippet is much finer for its breaking strain and more supple, but I’ve found it needs constant changing or it will break, even on smaller fish.