Hiking And Casting Is Great Fun But Hard Work

Me and my few friends went out for hiking and casting. Our expectations were high and it took us no get ourselves ready. We extracted our fishing gear, get changed, buckle into haversacks and started. We were hoping that it will be an experience to remember. As expected the first large pool closest to where the 4WD track met the river looked great, but as I was told it often does, it produced nothing; although it was hardly surprising considering the hammering it coped by set liners and non-catch and release lure tossers.

Little did we know as we past it by, offering only a few almost disrespectful half-hearted casts, this pool was to provide an unexpected prize later in the day. With only a minimal amount of water being released from Copeton, the river was a series of pools with small runs of water linking them. It didn't take us long to work out that most of the smaller cod were in the moving water at the heads of pools, with the larger fish probably down deep under ledges and boulders in the main pool bodies.

An experienced cod angler, it became pretty obvious why we wore a wet suit, on walk and cast trips like this. For a start, to make our way upstream we had to cross the river many times to avoid unwalkable banksides, and secondly to get casts into the deep and dark corners of pools, swimming to, and casting from, mid stream boulders, was a definite advantage.