After discussions with Brownie and reports from Dean Hayes it was decided to launch at Pittown and fish below the weed that was choking the Nepean River further upstream. We left the Central Coast at an ungodly hour that wasn't even worth remembering - or was it that I was still asleep - and travelled through the outskirts of Sydney, crossing the Nepean at Windsor then following it north through Pittown to the car ferry further north.

It was still dark as we arrived and it was not until then that I realised the the keys to the padlock that chained my boat to the trailer were sitting safely at home so I wouldn't lose them. After posing for some photos with the aforementioned padlock we left it to our local expert to break the padlock thus allowing us to launch and proceed with the day's antics. Thanks Nick for the great pictures even though I accidently dropped your new digital camera in the water. I'm sure they would have come out fine. And thanks to Daniel, who's skills as a ... er ... locksmith, managed to save us the trip home to get the keys and further smart remarks at our intelligence.

Having lauched with no further disasters we headed a short distance downstream to some fishy looking snags and banks to start our day. While I rigged up I maneuvered Ivan in towards a large tree that had fallen and on his first cast landed a very nice bass on a gurgler. A quick pic and back in the drink before we moved along fishing any likely looking structure.

Working our way downstream for most of the morning produced nothing to write home about. A few more fish were caught, but as the sun rose higher the fishing got quieter and by late morning Ivan and I had anchored over a drop-off on a bend and were trying to fish it deep. The sounder showed fish holding at depth but we couldn't convice any to come up and take our flies, and the intermediate lines we had were not getting down deep enough.

By now the others had joined us and were also trying to get down deep but soon we had all had enough and decided to head back. The morning was now very warm and sunny and even though we hadn't caught many fish it was still a pleasant time on the river. Crossing the bridge at Windsor on the way home illustrated how useless it would have been to fish this far up - the surface of the river was almost completely covered in weed and unfishable.