Ernie and I went off to Frensham yesterday evening. Ernie armed himself with several dry flies, myself some homemade dries, buzzers and pearl head cats whiskers. The weather was quite blowy but the rain held off.
Ernie had his usually spot on the large lake and I started on the small one and then moved down to the lower one. I could see the fish coming up to my flies but turning away at the last minute. This was so frustrating; it was even more obvious on the lower lake as there was a shoal of fish swimming around near the steam coming in. Eventually I got one tug on one of my homemade pearl head cats whisker flies, but that was it.
I went up to see Ernie on the main lake; he was pretty fed up, with not even a touch. I took his place and he went across to the small one. I changed fly to something that I had not planned to use from my bag, a natural coloured (grey) zonker. This did induce a take and as the line curved away I struck, it was on the line and then it wasn't. I changed to a commercial cats whisker, this induced another take, but the fish didn't take it.
Ernie came back and swapped position with me, I went back to the small lake and put on a commercial red and black cats whisker. I got one tug on this, I did see another fish come to it and saw the flash of its side as it turned away. I went back to the large lake and found that Ernie had stopped fishing. I chose a different stand on the lake but kept the same fly but still had no luck.
We left at dusk.
