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The mice are evolving down under!

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I thought you guys might be interested in an evolution of mice (or meeces?!) that I have gone through over the past year or two targeting our premier native freshwater fish, the murray cod.

 

These fish are the apex predator and depending on who you ask, grow up to 1.8m/6' and over 110kg/250lb and can take animals up to the size of ducks, turtles and anything else it can fit in it's mouth. Most of the fish around here are well below the maximum size, but fish of 1m are a definite possibility. Even small fish will take or attack lures or flies that are half their body size. I love fishing for these fish from the surface as they readily take surface flies and lures with an amazing ability to appear out of nowhere in even crystal clear water and suck the hapless target from the surface with a huge 'boof'. Some great videos can be seen here (not mine unfortunately).

 

A year or so ago, I came across the dirty rat by Jackie Treehorn and tied up a few to try, but found that they didn't create enough commotion for my liking, so I upped the foam and tied in a stack of foam discs to increase floatation as well as noise. While it worked great, it was a long tie especially for something that spends it's time bouncing off logs, tree roots and rocks and even with some glue involved, the discs eventually worked their way out.

 

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Original dirty rat tie

 

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Stacked foam pattern

 

About the same time I came across a pattern used by another aussie cod fly angler, the big poppa. So I combined the two, using the marabou body and tail from the dirty rat with the foam body of the big poppa. I also switched from using marabou to the fluffy waste feathers on the edge of a cock pheasant rump. They are soft and create great motion like the marabou but can easily be palmered under the foam to give the shape and colour of the body. They're also 'free' if you use the main feathers for other patterns. I also started adding the pink face mask, most of the rivers are lined with trees and almost all my casting is done into shade, so this adds a nice bright target for me to see in the shade or low light conditions.

 

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While I tried using zonker strips, I keep coming back to the furled wool or furled wool/mono tail. It just has the right shape, action and doesn't fold up on the hook as often as the zonker strip. Whether the fish can see it is another story.... You might notice also that I don't trim the ends of the foam off the hook eye, I always use a small snap on the end of the leader to facilitate easy fly change and the foam helps hold the snap out straight. Hook sizes range from 1/0 for small flies up to 10/0 for the bigger stuff.

 

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Meece evolution lineage

 

This year I've started playing around with a tie to beat the occasional trip where all the fish short strike. I started with the conventional stinger, but cod have a tendancy to shake their head while being handled, and being pinned to an 80cm/25kg fish in a kayak doesn't sound like my idea of fun, so I've tied up a few on shiner hooks as well.

 

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Stinger

 

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Shiner Hook

 

And to throw in something different on slow days, I tied up some 'wiggle mice' to see if wake style flies can pull fish.

 

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And the end result, a beautiful 'bucket mouth'

 

AV3.jpg

 

Now I just need to come up with a foot long swimming possum pattern and I might be able to draw up the huge 1m+ grandmas hiding deep in the dark pools on a moonless night.

 

Steve

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Thanks Blane

 

I know I'm heading in the right direction when I can regularly outfish what is usually classed as the 'traditional' method - large diving lures or surface lures. Flyfishing for cod with any popularity is only really a fairly recent development and some of the US tournament fly rods (Sage BASS, Flystik etc.) are now common down here. I built myself a 7' #10 specifically for these fish and wouldn't mind a #12 at times to throw those 12"+ flies I mentioned above.....

 

They come in a few colour variations (though they all end up that mottled white/green when they get towards that size), my favourite is a leopard pattern:

IMG_0103.jpg

 

There is also another species of cod locally, the trout cod (no relation to salmo species) that is on the endangered list, but thanks to some consistent stocking and management, they are starting to show up some numbers. To the point now where I sometimes see nearly as many trout cod as murray cod! 20 years ago when I first started fishing for cod they were vary rare indeed.

 

IMG_0138.jpg

 

Less than 6 weeks til season opening!

 

Steve

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ditto, also love the cod! Thanks for posting! Great stuff seeing some Aussie Sweetwater....keep em' coming.

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Thanks guys, I'll post a bit more on fly fishing for cod once the season starts up again in December and our native perch when I get the chance.

 

Steve

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Very cool, I can see why they call them trout cod, if you squint your eyes real hard there face looks like a trout.. Thanks for posting!

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Good looking flies! Is the style of weedguard on the shiner hook fly good in woody cover?

 

Don't know yet, first time I've tied flies on shiner hooks. I normally don't bother with weed guards as I'm not retrieving through gunk on the surface much, just casting into exposed roots, into/over fallen trees, rock walls etc.

 

Personally I haven't had a lot of success with weedguards full stop, but that might be my tie rather than the weedguards themselves.

 

 

 

Despite being highly aggresive at times, they can be very selective and narrow minded. Once while drifting around in our kayaks in the tail end of a big pool, my uncle and I couldn't get a take for love nor money despite hearing the fish boof around us at times. In the near dark, I felt something crawling up my neck and grabbed a tree frog that had climbed aboard somehow. I flipped it into the river, and it had swum less than a rod length before dissapearing into a fish's mouth with the usual 'boof'.

 

Four weeks now!

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