A very foggy morning greeted us as we wound our way from Raymond Terrace northwest towards Clarence Town. It was 6am, and after and hour and a half of driving we were cruising quietly through the outskirts heading for the boat ramp.

A quick check of our gear and mounting the electric, we then slid the boat into the water next to Dave Witham's able craft. Both boats were soon heading into the fog, crossing the river to try some fishy looking snags opposite the boat ramp while we waited for the others to arrive. Before we knew it Dave had hooked and landed a small bass. Wilbur's cheers echoed up and down the river as he boated it for photos. Small bass were hitting our poppers too, some taking 3 or 4 swipes at them before giving up. Unfortunately though, there were no further hookups.

In the mean time Gordon and Steve Tizzard had arrived with Bob Williams and Hamish not far behind. We discussed the day's plan while we waited for Bill Sonnenberg to arrive with his float tube and it wasn't long before we headed upstream investigating promising looking snags with a probing cast.

By midday Brett and I had made our way above the Clarence Town bridge. The sun had burnt off the remaining fog and the day was turning out to be decidedly warm. After a bite to eat and a cool drink we continued working our way upstream looking for our first bass.

Although we had seen plenty of activity around our flies we had only managed to take a couple of herring in the morning's session. Both of us had hooked bass but for some reason unknown to us the flies were dropped shortly after.

We met Bob and Hamish heading back at around 1pm. They had reported catching 10 fish of varying size up to about 30cm from further upstream above the rock bar, so we decided to try the same part of the river to see if our luck couldn't improve. But it didn't. We must have been doing something wrong - wrong fly, wrong snags, wrong cast, striking too late, too early - who knows.

With our confidence dwindling we started making our way back down towards the boat ramp. It was 2pm and the day had been a long one. A few last casts at some likely looking snags and finally!!! a bass. Not a large specimen as hoped mind you, but a bass none the less. Our confidence was reinvigorated and we eagerly sought out a few more snaggy areas to land another small bass before calling it quits for the day.

All in all we had an enjoyable day, departing the boat ramp at around 3.30 as last man out.