Eyebrookitis

Many years ago now when we were fishing Eyebrook you would catch a fish and you were descended on by boats. Most of these would anchor as close as they could and if you were drifting then quite often in your drift. There were a good number of boats, fish would be localised and you could easily see anyone catching in at least half the water.

We named the phenomenon EYEBROOKITIS and after Sunday I can confirm that it is still as virulent today as it has always been and just as infectious as swine flu!

It was the MNTFA Eric Goodman Trophy and as it is judged by your two heaviest fish it was definitely a success with three fish over 5lb. Ash Cooper was 3rd, Karen Slater was second but with Eyebrook's biggest fish of the year a 14lb 15oz rainbow, Pete Daniels took it by storm.

We managed to get the threat of a duck out of the way for Phil after 10 minutes with a nice rainbow on a Carrot Fly dry but it didn't follow through on the promise it showed. I missed out on the fist drift as we started our drift half way towards Robbo's cabin but unfortunately because of the higher winds the fish seemed to have run up wind into the calmer water. Once back out of the wind I put on the orange hoppers and started to catch fish.

Three down and I said to Phil, orange is working great mate, I've got orange on but not as much interest as you, here have one of these. Very nice he said BUT THERE RED! Well there you go - the colour blindness working in my favour again, sorry!

We managed to catch 6 and 2 by about 12.30 but after that I got enough takes to keep me on dries but none of them were sticking. I felt the afternoon was a bit frustrating as I was getting enough interest to keep me on dries but the fish went off a bit. Also there were more people that decided if you can't beat them, then join them and there were more anchored boats sitting over fish that made the drift and the return trip very difficult.

In hind sight Ash Cooper and Colin Faulkner were catching on intermediates and Boobies and if I had changed then maybe I could have kept them going.

I was a bit too grumpy maybe but I must ask myself the question "I never catch big fish, why am I fishing in a big fish comp? never mind I must support where I can as Powie does a magic job of the organising!