Fly
Fishing Practice Species
By Richard
Carter
Once you learn the basics of
casting, the key to any fly angling success is to practice, practice
and then PRACTICE some more.
I use to give the neighborhood
kids a laugh, by practicing fly casting at the local school oval
or on the front footpath. The local kids and my own loved watching,
then laughing at a middle aged man waving a long thin stick in
the air. Then climbing roadside trees to untangle his leader
from the branches. This didn't help my casting confidence - the
laughing nor the line or leader tangles.
So now I increase my casting
skills and gain experience on what I call practice species. Even
though they may lack size, they provide a target, some action
and a result for the effort and time of practice. So much more
benefit than landing a bit of wool on a handkerchief in the park.
Then when doing some serious
fly fishing for trout in NZ or Tassie, Golden Trevally on the
flats behind Fraser Island, barramundi in the Top End or Longtail
Tuna in Moreton Bay - my timing, casting and presentation techniques
are all fine tuned ready to go.
There is nothing worse then to
arrive at that ultimate destination and finding your casting
and presentation capabilities more than a little rusty, especially
after spending heaps of money to do so. Let alone be able to
readily double haul that long cast to that once in a lifetime
fish just out of normal casting range. Some guides on seeing
your poor casting will not take you to their better waters that
require a higher level of casting skill, thus maybe you missing
out on some top class trophy fishing.
So what are the qualities
that define a practice species :-
· Be in sufficient quantities. Schooling species give you more than
one target if your casting accuracy still needs improvement.
· Be
easy to locate, readily available and easy to cast too. For example, Flathead are always found
near sandbars and grass patches within shallow estuaries.
· Be
aggressive in attitude and temperament.
Small choppers and spangled perch are species with these characteristics.
· The
ability to attract a species to a location with berley. Though not a kosher technique to the tweed jacket
wearers, fish that match this quality also make a good practice
species, such as Mullet, small pelagics, trevally sub-species,
small bream and larger baitfish species like yakkas and tommy
ruff.
· Being
a good bait or not too bad on the plate are added benefits. Species
such as Gar, Tailor, mullet and Yellowtail Pike all fit into
this category.
· Be
locally available. You
only need to do a few hours every few days to improve, if the
water in which they reside is close by so much the better.
Suggestion species and tips
for your practice time.
You should use the tackle setup
you would be using on that big trip as it builds confidence in
your equipment and gives a better understanding of it's extremes,
versatility and your own capabilities with it. Why practice with
a cricket bat if planning a golf holiday. Why practice with a
4 weight if going to the Gulf to chasing threadfin and barra
in the beach shallows where you would normally need a minimum
of an 8 weight. OK, so an 8 weight might be a bit of overkill
for local yellowtail pike and mullet but this is for casting
practice, not for putting the most extreme bend in your fly rod.
All of us have some little waterways
within a few minutes drive from home. Estuaries, dams, lakes,
canal estates or creeks. All this water has a few fish mixed
in with it, most times. These are our practice species and what
follows are some techniques to subdue them. I say 'subdue them'
because although their attributes lend them to being called 'practice
species', they won't jump on your hook just to please you. You
still have to catch them, and fishing no matter what the method
or species is never easy. All required a little work on information
gathering and application to make anything happen.
The majority of freshwater dams,
reservoirs and creeks in the south east corner of Queensland
have a healthy population of species like Spangled Perch or their
like. Though small on average the spangled perch make up for
it in aggressiveness and a never say die attitude. Spangles well
to bead head, weighted or unweighted nymphs and smaller bass
bugs and poppers retrieved with a stop start action. Various
colors work for the bugs, my favorites are Black/chartreuse and
Olive/Orange. Adding some rubber legs will give more "Eat
Me" to the fly.
This little freshwater creek
has herring and freshwater mullet all a few minutes from where
I live. Small tight water good practice for trout expeditions
to alpine streams. The mullet are really flighty with exceptional
eye sight so stealthy, approaches must be practiced. They almost
make brown trout seem blind, docile and submissive. (They also
fight better then the same size speckled feral too!)
When on business in Brisbane,
QLD with an afternoon to spare I would pop out to a little waterway
less than half an hour from the hotel I would be staying at.
Here I have a small practice session with my casting while targeting
spangle perch using (with above average success) a small version
of the US One fly trout comp winning fly the "Tassie Tarantula"
by the Australian team, big Australian bass like them too which
is an added bonus. Nothing like casting in the late afternoon
after a day of meetings and catching a few fish for fun as well.
The spillway and river below the Pine River dam is one such example
of practice water. Close to the suburbs, with plenty of spangles
just waiting for your small flies to come by. Ensure the fly
is just under the surface for a more acceptable presentation
and better hookup rate.
Remember these are not huge fish,
so don't strike so hard that they are launched into the air or
loose their false teeth like in cartoons. Timing of the strike
will take some practice, but persevere, remember this is practice
for other things. If you can't hook these little guys, how will
you hook a large trevally on the flats of Hervey Bay or the average
stream rainbow in the mountains.
To the south of Queensland most
of the coastal freshwater creeks (that are not too polluted)
will have freshwater mullet and herring which will respond to
a little bread berley and imitation bread flies. White to tan
spun and trimmed deer hair or chenille based flies on #12 to
#18 dry fly hooks or other bread pattern flies, placed in the
berley trail will see results. 
In this one local waterway we
constantly saw mullet, tailor, bream, flathead and whiting schooling,
jumping and even caught a few - all a hop step and jump from
home and within sight of a major NSW Central Coast town.
Along the saltwater coastal areas
of Australia there are many canal estates, small creeks, numerous
jetties and rock walls. In and around these locations you will
find Mullet, Small bream, Gar, Chopper Tailor, Salmon trout,
Yellowtail Pike plus more than a few other species. All of which
will readily take your presentations, if at sometimes induced
with a little berley. The berley can be just mushed up bread
or a little more involved like my favourite berley of finely
minced prawns mixed with bran or bread crumbs and a little tuna
oil as an optional extra.
Bread imitations on the smallest
hooks you have we see the Gar and Mullet covered. A stubborn,
tail walking, half kilo Mullet will test most fly anglers, and
for me are tremendous fun on light tippets. The bigger Gar are
great eating, my mother quite likes a fillet or two of gar, so
encourages me to practice my fly casting on water near her house
then visit her afterwards with the results fresh from the water..
Small 'Silicone Surf candies', deceivers, clousers, other baitfish
or prawn imitations will see the salmon trout, pike and choppers
on the end of your fly line. Remember use little hooks and tie
your patterns small, most Australian anglers casting to local
species use hooks far too large for the species targeted. These
small but feisty fish will definitely put a bend in the fly rod.
Larger pike on a four weight trout rod will at times see your
backing in the water. Be careful with your expensive light weight
rods as you do not know what may hit the fly. As in my case when
badly timed strike and a 34007 #8 clouser fly cast to pike was
hit by a 11lb school mulloway that came from under a canal pontoon.
Result, one fish handlined in and one 4 weight Loomis broken
at the handle (this was before I learnt to strip strike). Why
a fish this size took so small a fly is beyond me but shows large
fish will take small flies.
Whiting are the another perfect
practice and training for weighted nymph trout tactics. Also
a great little scrapper and tasty in the pan. These fish introduced
my kids to fly fishing, now it's all they want to catch, I am
constantly harangued to go fly fishing for whiting each summer
when their numbers are high and hook up rates increase. Sight
fishing at it's best, perfect imitations of their larger look
a likes Bonefish - shy, panicky and wary in clear, shallow estuary
waters. Located in nearly all the coastal estuaries along the
east coastal fringe of Australia and readily accessible.
These line burning little fighters
will give you much experience in line mending to help control
fly drift. The stealth, accuracy and control used in these clear
waters while chasing whiting will assist in later forays for
more advanced sand flats species like queenfish, small barramundi,
threadfin salmon and Indo-Pacific permit in northern Australian
waters.
Most whiting locations offer
superb wading locations with firm sand underfoot. Blood worm
patterns in sizes 12 - 6, small yabbie/shrimp/prawn patterns,
Crazy Charlies and their like, retrieved with stops and pauses
every 30 cm will see results. With the overbite of the top jaw
of a whiting suggest using patterns that ride hook up for better
hookup rates.
Even when the fish are not there,
using the tidal flow over the shallow sand banks you can use
all the weighted nymph casting techniques - up, down and across
current methods. Practicing these tactics can help significantly
on the next trip to those fast flowing, gin clear mountain trout
streams in NZ. Try a strike indicator on the leader if water
a little murky or in deeper channels. Not a bad method for bream
either when using prawn patterns in dirty water. You can drift
the pattern over a likely bream snag watching the indicator for
the take. Note to watch that the drift is natural with no drag
on the loose fly line.
Small Tailor or Choppers, and
their southern counterparts Salmon trout and Tommy Ruff, because
of their schooling and aggressive feeding habits lend themselves
to be a practice species plus a ton of fun. The key to these
species is to firstly locate them as they are constantly on the
move. From shore they will congregate around headlands, rockwalls
and channel or current junctions. 
Chopper tailor on a silicone
surf candy in a waterway a few minutes from a major city. Which
can be caught with a minimum of effort while practicing your
casting.
If in a boat I tend to bring
them to me with aid of a berley trail of mashed pillies. Put
a block of pillies in a small mesh whiting scaler bag, tie off
securely to back of boat and thrash around a bit every now and
then, this will see a fine trail of pilchard parts flowing down
current. The berley will put them in the mood and if lucky a
feeding frenzy, which will see any baitfish fly snapped up. Pike,
snook and other such species will be an added bonus. Smoked tommy
ruff fillets are quite palatable, the next door neighbor I had
while staying in Whyalla recently could not get enough of them
to smoke up, I supplied the fillets, he handed over a few once
smoked, a nice arrangement.
A 12 -15lb mono shock tippet
to stop cut-offs will help, remember to check it regularly for
nicks or cuts. Choppers are fair fighters with mainly surface
runs, so let them run, enjoy their speed and acceleration, play
them out till the end. After all this is for fun and practice.
If you don't need the fish, handle them properly and let then
go. Crushed barbs or barbless hooks will assist in catch and
release. Next year you may catch him as a big greenback and they
are real line burners on fly.
The last species I am going to
discuss is a little more than a practice species, but is a perfect
fish to start fly fishing or practice on - the Flathead. Their
predatory habits, the need to hunt them instead of them coming
to you, give stimulation to our primal hunter/gatherer instincts.
It also gives you practice in stealthy approaches and presentations.
You need a higher level of angler input and skill to have constant
success. Although they readily take the fly, you still have to
seek them out. Weedbanks, sandbars, drop-offs are all locations
to find Flathead.
Remember when retrieving your
imitations that your fly must behave like the real thing. A real
baitfish needs to conserve energy for it's survival and escaping
from predators. So usually they travel the edges of the main
current and then rarely against it. So too must your fly. A prawn
imitation would be out of character with a rapid long retrieve,
so a stop-start or a slow retrieve would be more realistic.
Conclusions.
As with all the other sport fish
species targeted and the practice species mentioned stop, look,
think then cast. Fly fishing is not chuck it in and see what
happens. Successful fly anglers use their eyes and mind to reduce
wasted effort. Thus increasing success rates. The greater the
participation, the greater the reward. 
As long as you are practicing
your casting does it matter if the fish are not participating
, at least the place you do it is nice! Just as Jason Dexter
is doing here at WoyWoy, NSW only 1000 meters west of the railway
station. A few chopper tailor added the icing to the cake for
a great Sunday morning practicing our casting.
By conditioning yourself to the
practice species written about in this article you will find
next time out for a costly fishing expedition that the step up
is not all that major. You may even find the local practice species
are just as much fun and well worth you time, effort and practice.
Without having to go to the ends of the earth searching for the
ideal location and so called highly prized sport fish, when all
this can, and is, available at your doorstep.
One more point in closing, I
fly fish because of the focused effort required to catch a fish
and the enjoyment it gives. From tying the fly, to casting the
line, to presenting the fly, to timing the strike, to playing
the fish, then most times releasing unharmed the result of all
that effort. Does it really matter if the species I hook up and
bring to hand doesn't rate a mention in IGFA record books. Or
has never had a major magazine written article about it. Or no
one in the local fly club ever mentions the species at all for
fear of ridicule. As long as it has fins and takes a fly every
species targeted is more than a practice species to me. Each
is a pocket of excitement and gives me memories for ever.
So get out there and practice,
practice, practice. Having a little fun as well!
