Lake Liddell - July 2004

Lake Liddell

Date: July 2004

This outing was postponed from one weekend to the next due to the weather. The Friday before we were to go it looked rather promising for the Sunday with light winds forecast and a top nudging the early twenties. Ripper we all thought. The plan was to meet at the MacDonalds at Singleton at about 6:30 – 7. As is custom with a few CCFR members, we were “fashionably” late and arrived at the Maccas at 07:30, grabbed a quick feed and watched Hamish warm his crotch with the boiling water for his tea…. Off to a good start there! The light winds we were expecting were far from light and were actually quite gusty. Not to be put off we proceeded to make our way up the New England Highway to Lake Liddell ready to do battle with some carp. As we past the lake it was looking a bit windswept and as we started to launch the boats the rain started. Top in the twenties I don’t think and in fact if it was any colder the rain would have been white powdery stuff. Hamish, Jerryn and I took off around a corner in an attempt to get a spot out of the wind. We found a spot that was less windswept than the rest of the lake and jumped out of the boat to see if we could sight any fish to cast at. Suffice to say it was a pleasant and muddy walk up the bank and back, and good exercise which we needed to keep warm! Plan B…. Find the others and see how they are going. We rounded the corner and across the main basin and saw Bob and Ken in the distance. We dropped the electric in and tried to spot fish in the shallows as we drifted wit the wind. The fish had the ability to spot us well before we saw them and about as close as we got was seeing the mud stirred up off the bottom. We head the joyous cries of Matt across the lake and saw he was connected to a fish. We carried on for what seemed like 10 minutes and Matt was still playing the fish. We motored over to see the fish that he had managed and it was a 15lb beauty. We stayed fish the same area where a creek was runn9ing into the lake and saw a carp teasing us right up in the shallows, cruising with it’s back out of the water. No more fish or hits in that area we decided to move on. Ken and Matt decided to move up into the shallows to give Ken a shot at that carp with the dry back! We went looking for somewhere out of the wind and found Bob who had just played out a smallish carp and tried to fish the same area as at least you could see the bottom (sometimes). Nothing doing after about 40 minutes we pulled the plug as the rain started gett8ing heavier and more consistent. We headed back to the ramp across the lake that now had whitecaps on it and pulled the boat back onto the trailer. Big Bob had already exited the lake and was busily setting up the BBQ for lunch. Ken and Matt weren’t far behind us and Ken had that dry backed carp in a net so we could get a snapshot of it. Another huge fish over 11 pounds and his first carp on fly. Whilst the conditions were – ah – shit, we still persevered and at least there were some decent fish landed. Lunch was great thanks to Bob and Anne and the drive home was full of great conversation.