Recently while on a short break away with the family during the October school holidays I got the chance to fish a small head water stream I’d wanted to visit for years. We had visited the region many times before but I’d never been able to sneak away for a day to explore it ! After visiting a couple of local beaches to check out the amazing rock formations and wild life on our first day I got a leave pass to fish the following day with my son Louie who is a mad keen fly fisherman and always up for an adventure on a new river or stream.

Who ate all the pies ! Louie’s first fish of the day

The day started out a little over cast and drizzly, but soon warmed up and became quite muggy which was just the conditions we wanted, hoping for a small hatch to occur mid morning. We arrived at the river and set up our rods we were both fizzing with excitement to be fishing some new water. We decided to try out the new Epic 590G Reference rod I’d recently been given by the guy’s at Swift Fly Fishing to play around with, a new range of rod’s they have just released, Born of the same pedigree as the Studio Built Custom fly rod range but without customization options. The Epic Reference series are built using the same premium quality grips, reel seats & industry-leading blanks, “A high end rod with mid range price tag “is where it sits in the market.

The river was up slightly and tannin in colour due to the run off from the surrounding swamp land that drains into it higher up in the headwater’s.

A stunning fish that we found rising on the edge of a riffle. Louie got into position and first cast with a wee #14 HI VIZ Pheasant Tail emerger was into the above fish and taken 100m downstream through a couple of deep snaggy pools.

The fly choice of the day was #14 Pheasant Tail HI VIZ emerger..

We fished up for a few kms and landed half a dozen nice fish up to around 6lbs. We also spooked a couple of much larger fish during the course of the day that would have gone close to double figures !

We really only scratched the surface of this wee stream and will definitely be back again to try our luck on another section along with visiting another couple of little gems that are in the area. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of rolling the dice on a new river or stream and coming up trumps, exploring new regions, learning new water and it’s secrets…….it’s what keeps us going as anglers !