This was going to be an interesting trip for most of us from the outset. We were going to fish a local private dam (with permission of the owner!) for a fish that many of us had never caught on fly before. Golden Perch were the expected target, and the fish were supposed to be a reasonable size.

Sunday the 21st of September was the date set down for the outing and the expected 20 CCFR members were keenly getting their flies and gear ready for this one.

We met at 06:45 on the Sunday morning and proceeded to our destination. A few rules were laid down as to where we could and couldn’t fish etc and we had our lines in the water by about 07:30. Chris Bannerman was the first to hookup and in no time, lose the fish, but it was early so plenty of time to make amends! Well it didn’t take long for the next hookup and a nice Golden Perch was gently brought from the water for a photo.

Justin Duggan was the one to get first runs on the board with a nice fish. This lifted the excitement level considerably as the rest of us moved around the dam. It didn’t take long for fish to be caught and Chris Bannerman seemed to be getting one after the other, much to his delight!

There were too many fish being caught to keep count. Bob Williams hooked up on a nice fish that looked different to the others being caught and on closer inspection turned out to be a Silver Perch. We weren’t expecting them to be in this dam so this was an added bonus!

Chris Bannerman landed a thumper of a Silver as did Hamish Read. These fish were a good 2kg plus and fight a lot harder than the their Golden cousins.

Most fish were caught on smaller flies such as woolly buggers, tadpoles, small vampires etc and what I found interesting was that the retrieve rate needed to be much faster than I had expected for golden perch… It took me most of the morning to actually get a bend in my Strudwick 7 weight and land a fish, but who cares, I got there in the end and I was a happy fella!

All in all I think just about everyone got at least one golden perch (by my counting there were 7 that didn’t land one, but will be dead keen to have another go at them.) Bob Williams, Matt Zahra, Hamish Read, Chris Bannerman and Warren (Wozza) Yuile caught over 4 each. A good effort.

A very successful outing. It is probably the first outing we have had that saw plenty of fish, unbelievably good weather and the most CCFR members in attendance.

Thanks to the owners of the property for giving us access, it was really appreciated.