Epic Bandit rod build and test run

When I first started fly fishing I didn’t really understand why some people had so many rods. Surely a 4wt and 8wt would do. Well maybe a 6wt and 10wt would be handy too. Then I bought a 9wt in Broome, because I 'needed' it. Two years ago I won another 9wt and needed a better 8wt too. I wanted to upgrade my 4wt and for a while had two. Eventually I had become one of those people that initially I hadn't understood.

Since arriving back in the Top End I had felt a need for a relatively short, strong rod for fighting barra and saratoga in close quarters. There was a small selection of rods from Sage, TFO and Redington that fit the bill. But what really piqued my interest was the Epic Bandit from Swift Fly Fishing. I already own an Epic 480 that I built while living down south for chasing trout in the New England highlands. The 8' 4wt Epic is a rod that I really enjoy casting, it is surprisingly light for fibreglass and the relatively slower action suits me. The truth is I’ve caught more tarpon on the 4wt than I’m ever likely to catch trout. But back to the Bandit.

What attracted me to the Bandit the most were the reports that it comfortably handles lines from 8 – 10wt and can even throw a 6wt or 12wt line. But most of all I really like the idea of fishing something I’ve built myself. With my decision made I placed an order with Jeanie and Carl at Swift Fly Fishing. Their ready to wrap kits are really fantastic and come with everything you need, except a rod turning motor.

The box even turns into a very useful rod wrapping stand.

Taking inspiration from the internet I built a rod drying ‘lathe’ from some MDF and a Bunnings BBQ rotisserie motor. It is a little rough, but it does the job. I'll call it a prototype and one day I might build something a bit more flash from some nice timber, maybe...

Before the kit arrived I had told myself I’d take this build slowly and not rush anything. But I could barley contain my enthusiasm to try the Bandit out on some fish, and spent a few late nights building the rod. Honestly if you can tie a fly you can build a rod with one of the Swift Fly Fishing kits. The instruction book that comes with the kit is exceptionally well written and guides the builder through every step of the process with ample photographs. 

The Epic Bandit rod blank has been finished in a colour advertised as ‘metallic gold green’, it is a really nice shade of green with small metallic flecks throughout. I decided to put a small green trim band on each ferrule and spent some time on YouTube researching the best method for doing this.

I wrapped the guides and ferrules with natural silk, provided in the kit, which turns transparent once coated with epoxy. In my view the transparent wraps allows the metallic green finish on the blank to be the star of the show.

It probably took me eight hours to fit the reel seat, grip and wrap the guides, but I was pretty pedantic about the guides. I wasn’t happy with the first few wraps, so cut them off and started over. One advantage of building a 7’9” rod was that I had enough space to put it together and spin the whole thing in the rod ‘lathe’ at the same time. This meant I could do the epoxy work in two sessions, once for the first coat and once for second, rather than needing to epoxy the rod in two separate sections. While my wrapping and epoxy work certainly isn’t to the same standard as Trevor from Swift Fly Fishing studio I think it’s better than on any of my mass produced rods. But how pretty the rod may or may not be is of little relevance if it doesn’t cast well.

I fitted my Bandit with a Redington Behemoth spooled with a 9wt intermediate weight forward and headed for Corroboree Billabong. I really wasn’t too sure what to expect on my first cast with a 7’9” rod, what I found was a rod that loaded up smoothly and easily for short casts but also had the power for long casts with a big fly. Pretty quickly I was casting a Meade’s gutless frog just as far, if not farther than I can with any of my 9’ graphite rods. I hadn’t been fishing long when a saratoga took the opportunity to hit the fly as I retrieved it through the gaps in the lilies. Alas the hook didn’t set.

A few casts later and with me concentrating more intently another saratoga attacked the fly, this time I set the hook with a sharp strip-strike before lifting the rod tip. And this is when the Bandit really performed.  While the Bandit is an absolute pleasure to cast it is bloody fantastic for fighting a fish on. I’m really looking forward to stopping a big fish on this rod. The Epic Bandit has quickly become my favourite rod for river and billabong fishing.

Now I just need to find a big fish to really test it out on.

TIDES, WIND AND MOON ALIGN...NOW ITS UP TO THE FISH

Looking at the weekend of the 4th and 5th of June, and if all the predictions are right should be a great time on the Harbours for fishing.    The New Moon is on the 5th so the tides are in line with Graeme the Greys  "In a nutshell I like 7 days to a New or full Moon and home for  9 days in between, in this area its defined by the low tide  reaching midday that's when I go home." which you can read about if you click on this link Love the Moon.

Here are the tides (Saturday..but Sunday is similar)

 As you can see, there is over four metres (4m) of movement which means plenty of run ('No run no fun') and plenty of water to launch and retrieve early in the morning and after 2pm.  You don't often get great tides like this.  I have Bynoe tides here but Darwin will be similar and if you fish Darwin make sure you have a look at these links from 'The Stig'  Darwin Pt. One  and  Darwin Pt. Two.

Now the wind according to the predictions is almost non-existent, but as you know anything can happen...again I have Bynoe which would be my pick, and this is for 2pm on Saturday at 2 knots whereas Darwin is 3 knots for the same time.

The synoptic from BOM shows great weather too....

  
So, all in all looks like the perfect weekend....see Graeme the Greys post from June 2013 by clicking on The Game Plan and here is a few shots of fish on a weekend in June on similar tides but no where as good weather, so this weekend should be a beauty.

'SEE THROUGH' FLIES

Just been talking to Big Dave about fishing from the beach as he too is land bound for a while, (Trailer is stuffed) so he was going to try the beaches where he is working out bush.  We got to talking about the flies that seemed to work much better than others, the 'See Through' flies as I call them. Cathie started using them a couple of years ago when I was running out of material and I made some anaemic smaller flies with a 'sea foam' colour DNA in the centre.   Since then we have found that stuff like EP fibre and a courser type of that fibre we got from 'At the River Bend' which is even more 'see through' has been taken more than the solid type of fly in the Saltwater.   (Haven't tried them in the fresh yet)

These larger 'See Through' flies caught everything while solid flies were ignored??

Yesterday on the beach, the 'see through' with a DNA centre caught all the fish while the other from all DNA never got a hit.  All of this was in the same water only metres apart.

The stiff curly fibre material they are made from is more 'see through' in the water, does not hold water and does not seem to tail rap.

So just to prove a point, we are going to try different ones over the next week to see how they compare and whether or not its a problem with the fly fisher, not the fly!

Like surf candies but not quite..on size 1 hooks.

Here is the type of 'see through' we were using, and we will try different colours. They are almost a short surf candy, but we tried surf candies with no joy.   I'm tying up a heap of these for Cathie and Tuan (Lord) Jim who is off fishing in Asia soon.  (Might inspire another 'Lord Jim'  type of book like Conrad's?)

The green and white 'see through' flies worked on the barra too when others would not?

Green and white see through!

same fly that seemed to work when the others would not??

Still have all the other type of flies, just in case, but...I think we should call these 'peanut' flies based on this quote from Dion in 2014 ....

"Remember the Peanut theory.  It works.  For those that don't know it, the peanut theory is based on the likelihood of fish feeding on small titbits even after they are full and have fed to sufficiency.  I'll guarantee if you've just pigged out on a huge 3 course meal and someone places a bowl of peanuts in front of you, you'll probably still grab a couple (unless you are allergic to peanuts, but you get the idea)."

Dripstone to Lee Point...by foot.

Being beached for the last few months, Cathie needed a fly fishing fix, so we decided to try the beach from Dripstone to Lee Point.  Its been a while since we fished there, and as Cathie informed me its seven months since her last fishing effort.   The tides may not have been the best, not a lot of run, but what a ball we had.   Cathie ended the drought with some small 'Giant'herring and even smaller queenies and trevally, but they were great fun from the beach.  Could not get her out of the bloody water at one stage, the fish were hitting every cast and it was quite exciting.

One of the herring, they were in the shallows in droves.

We were trying a number of flies (and had heaps with us) but Cathie's see through fly with the sea foam centre caught everything, whereas another more solid fly in both sea foam and white, had no hits at all.   We have noticed that if the fly is kind of 'see through', it seems to do a lot better than the solid type of fly, even in the same colours.  Here are the two flies, the one on the left was great because its 'see through?' but the other did no good. (I was using it and that may also have been a contributing factor).

The flies..with a bit of publicity for the 'New'club.

Cathie rock hopping with her new water shoes for  Éxmouth'

My view from the beach chair...I'm taking wine and cheese next time!!!!

May Club meeting fishing reports

Here a few fishing stories from the recent trips by NT Fly Fisher members
(not all of them but the ones I took notes about, will do better next time)

Dion reports first
  Had a weekday Corroboree trip
  Ventured up to Marrakai lagoon
    Heavily weeded channel requiring a stop every 50m or so to clear weeds from prop
    But once in, the water widen out
    Heaps of toga
    Some unstoppables amongst the weed
  Had a few anxious moments when a large black croc came visiting his small tinnie - totally undeterred by Dion's actions to get it to swim away

Jim spoke up next
  A few trips to FW - see recent blog entries for more details
  Water in billabongs dropping rapidly - flow out but not in
  The Barra netted quite fat
Lots of toga for Jim too, but no size (Dion and others agreed about the lack of sizeable Saratoga recently)
All fish very hungry and keen for the fly

Jim highlighted good tides for flats fishing at Bynoe on the Weekend of the 21st, with a midday low and neap tides
So no hassles getting boat in or out at the Milne inlet ramp. Meet up at Sand Palms if you have the time

Jim also had a bit of the FW Finness river action too, see also the BrokenFlagons blog entry
Jim went 10km or so upstream saying the further you go the wider the river gets
Sooties, Barra - nothing big but very willing

Jim also had a trip up to the FW section of East Alligator. Looking nice, lots of smaller Barra
But every hooked fish, drew bull sharks from everywhere
The bigger fish where under the small ones if you could get a fly through the little ones to them.

'Moustache Phil' had a ball at Lee Point in frothing water with 'fish every where'
Mostly brassie trevally by his description but very aggressive to the fly cast near the reef

At times the full plethora of pelagic species -tuna sometimes, most times - macks, queenies, trevally, and tarpon on this reef
So it has been suggested a trip around Darwin Harbour to the various rock bars and current confluences on the 28th May, dawn launch at East Arm Ramp
Tides not exactly right but still an opportunity for the club to get together and chase a few small pelagics around the harbour. Contact Richard via comments at the end of this blog if interested
We will agree on radio channel and work the harbour as a team till actively feeding fish are found - then we can encourage (or sledge) each other as we get a heap of multiple hookups

Jeff's new boat has been not quite a fish magnet but definitely a police magnet
With four out of four trips being inspected by the police in safety checks - once twice on the same day
The police were checking for compliance with some tinnies not allowed to enter the water due to non-compliance
They checked Epirb registrations, length of chain of the anchor (3m I am told) and the regular safety gear compliance

Get out there catch some fish on fly
Have a report ready for next meeting that I can write up - bring some pictures too to include in the June monthly fishing report blog entry

Spot P for Pelagic!

A few weeks ago we did a trip with the Pearce family to one of our favourite spots.  The 6hr drive was uneventful apart from the horse Chris almost hit just outside of Jabiru!  On arrival camp was set up & the fishing commenced.  Lots of smaller fish the first day, the boys catching plenty on soft plastics.  I soldiered on with the fly rod catching queenfish & eventually a couple of trevally.

??? Trevally (hopefully Dion can id)

Day 2 had us heading out wider chasing some bigger pelagics.  We focused on the feeding birds & the fish breaking the surface.  The best technique was to drift into the school, this way they would remain in the area for some time.  I persisted with the fly rod (catching only queenfish) whilst the boys jigged with plastics & metals slices.  Trevally it seems aren't surface feeding in this location as the @#$%!*# stayed down deep out of reach of the fly.

Jack with a nice trevally

Jack with a nice blue bone

Fly caught queenie

At times things were hectic, multiple hookups & running around the boat becoming the norm.  Some fish were hard to stop & in the excitement we broke 3 rods (2 spin & 1 fly).   After a while we lost interest in the pelagics, the boys wanting to get some reef fish.  We ended up with 2 nice blue bone which were released into the esky.

Day 3 had us heading to the same location with additional rods (Hayden had upgraded to a heavy spin stick).  In an attempt to stop fish finding the safety of the reef we were locking the spool by hand.  The jigging rods I bought a few years ago were no match for some of these brutes!  Jack thought he would entertain us by adding sharks to his quota..............Some very special words were used multiple times amidst frenzied bouts of re-rigging!

Hayden landed his best fish with the upgraded gear.

On a trip where 'too much fishing is barely enough', the boys would bait fish every afternoon from the beach.  The resident groper was hooked a few times, but didn't even look like being landed.  The boys donated a queenfish to some locals.

The Monday dawned wet & windy so reluctantly the decision was made to head home.  This was another awesome weekend with some great friends (thanks Chris & family).  I must be getting older, I was quite sore & bit worn out for a few days!

Get out there & fish!

Jon, Jack & Hayden

Few hours on the water this morning!

Gave a visit to one of my favourite small Billabongs early this morning and had a fun few hours pulling a few scales over the gunwales.

2nd cast of the day!

Roggies fly did the damage

Tally for the day went 2 Barra (56 & 60), 8 Saratoga, 2 Tarpon and, of course, 1 Catfish.

Another!

With the dry season only a handful of days old I think many a Billabongs are going to have a tough year with water levels.

Should only be able to see the two trunks!!!! Not the roots!

This photo shows just how low the water is now. Normally the water is right up to the base of the tree trunks, approximately 1.5 metre higher than it is now. Bring on an early wet!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember: “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish!”

Tight lines

Jim Churchley 

Flood plain drains

Since my earlier post this morning (I love my weekends!) I have had a couple of phone calls asking me what is meant by the water coming off the plains. The attached video from last week end at Corroboree show a well defined drain with a body of water behind it. That water on the plain was only a couple of inches deep and was very slowly moving off and was full of bait, all of which did not know what to do, stay and evade the birds or swim like hell into the gauntlet of Tarpon and Barra. Just before light this point was like a washing machine on maximum wash cycle with Tarpon feeding on the bait fish and Barra feeding on the Tarpon. "The food chain". The 80 cm Barras from last week came from this spot.

While this video shows the drain very well most are concealed by the lilies but the same principle applies and this is what I hunted out this weekend up the back of the Rockhole.

Hope this answered some of your questions for those that have shown an interest and I am sure that an answer to one question propagates half a dozen others such is the magic of fly fishing.

Remember; "You'll never never know, if you never never go! Get out there and fish."

Tight line
Jim Churchley

Thanks to the NT Flyfishers IT section for making this happen. I was lost big time. Cheers Roggie!

Love my Weekends!

Another long weekend saw me travel out to Muirella Park to have a fish. Arriving late Friday saw me being greeted by a large congregation of the locals, MOSSIES. Their presence made putting up the dome look more like a strange dance. Even more strange with a beer in one hand!

"Alive"

5 am saw the boat launched and on the water and just a few casts later, no more than 10 meters from the ramp, first scales in the boat, Archer fish. With the sun throwing its rays this billabong is a real pleasure to be greeted with in the morning, great to be alive feeling! The lack of surface activity in contrast to Corroboree last weekend stood out! Tarpon, Archer fish, Long Tom, Sooty Grunter, Catfish, Saratoga all came to the boat on fly in very quick time.

These pull hard!

Back to the camp for a bite of breakfast I noticed some changes to one of my favourite campsites in Kakadu, skip this paragraph if you don’t want to hear a Parks management bashing. The toilet block has received a lick of paint and looking good, fees increased from $10 to $15 per person per night, that’s life, the ground is an absolute overgrown mess, obviously no pre-opening clean up. The main change is that ALL the fire pits with BBQ plates have been removed so as a consequence people have been having fires all over and within a few weeks there won’t be a place to camp other than on top of a pile of ash. Maybe this is the reason why there was only one other camper (international) at the site who also commented about the same things. Park Management (our taxes) at work! Only a few years ago this site was so busy that it had its own onsite manager/ranger. I gave the visitor centre a call to ask if the channel from Home Billabong to Yellow Waters was still passable, “did not know????” Fished another couple of hours then decided to move on. Bashing ended!

Where are the larger ones??

Made a move to East Alligator and launched as soon as I got there and had Barra on within a few minutes. All the snags around the first corner upstream held rat Barra and the mouth of the first creek on left before sandbar corner had “a fish a cast” with rats. Took a run upstream to the sandbar where the river comes in on the left and fished the tannin water and again lots of rats along with lots of Bull Sharks that added to the aerial display of hooked Barra! If anyone is out Kakadu way don’t go past the East Fresh there are lots of barra and I am sure with persistence larger ones will be found.

From East Alligator snag. Thick with them.

As my truck still packed I made the call to take the run to Shady and give the fresh ago and know that there are BBQ plates there!!

Travelling down Shady Camp road about an hour before dark I could not get over the number of trailers coming out! Too many for unsociable me so turned off to the Rockhole ramp. I launched as soon as I got there and picked a couple of Toga immediately from under the Pandanus opposite the ramp. With darkness time for a couple of beers and a sleep, but no BBQ!

On the water before 5 am next morning and prospecting the lilies with a few Togas taking the fly with aggression. Have not been able to pick up any Toga of a decent size, 60+, at all this year.

As we get older we all tend to reminisce of things past and I recalled fishing with Dave Gardner years ago and he saying that after the wet the Barra would hold up in large mobs where food was flowing. That day with Dave was my first experience of getting more than a 100 Barra at the mouth of the Rockhole cut through. Similar thing happened with Dave Bowering and Wayne Hinton further down the billabong where water was draining off the plains through the Pandanus, big mob of fish.

With this in mind started looking for likely spots. As boats started to arrive I pushed harder up stream and pushed through the lilies where it blocked the way with the aim of getting to the junction with all the dead timber. Effort but got through, watch your engine telltail, and proceeded to prospect the likely areas, drains, snags, everywhere.

To cut a long story short, “seek and ye shall find”. When I pulled out at 3 pm I had had one of those fishing days. Smallest Barra was no more than 15cms largest 84cms. Any hooked Barra was fair game to a bigger one with the retrieve being boofed and a barra being scaled in an instant. Absolute insane!

Another!

Typical fish caught.

Hungry!

Yes the fish were mainly rats but if you could get past them larger ones were there. Why there? As Dave, Dave and Wayne had shown before, water coming of the plain. It does not have to be a water fall just an exit for the bait as it is forced out by the dropping level.

First legal of the day. They got bigger!!!

I love my Weekends!

Remember; “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish!”

Tight lines,

Jim Churchley

    

THE DRY - TIME FOR TUNA, QUEENIES AND A GOOD 'DRY' WINE

The First of May is the official start of the 'Dry' for the North.  Basically the forecasters suggest that the 'Wet' or Monsoon season is over.  This is the time that the waters cools a bit and in the harbours the chance of good longtails and big queenies is usually a lot better.

The reason I'm going to concentrate on those two is because they are great eating, either raw with sauces or cured in lime, vinegar or similar mixes.  Click for a ceviche recipe from my mate Jamie Oliver   or, I'm sure everyone has their very own 'numas' recipe.

ceviche (photo courtesy Jamie Oliver)

They go particularly well with a mix of wasabe and soy, and because that is such a cheap meal, you can afford a great bottle or two of something like Çloudy Bay or Catalina Sounds to wash it down.   Better still try both and see which one you like the best!

.....here are some 'May' queenies...then tuna

Andy with another great queenie in May

.....and of course with the queenies, especially in Darwin Harbour, the longies run with the queenies a lot.  You can pick up the odd mac if you have a short wire trace on too...

This 102cm was running with the big queenies off the sand bar near Cullen Bay

92 cm Bynoe longie

Toc's with a longie off Weed Reef

Roggie makes me a long nosed fly which seems to work really well on both of these species...bucktail or synthetic works the same ...colours usually white with 'sea foam'/ blue DNA centre..these two are basically the same fly, with simply the bead chain eyes in alternative positions on the hook.

These almost opaque ones work just as well too...these are tied on a stiff, crinkly material from At the Riverbend 

We find that we seem to get the bigger fish on bigger flies, but that is not always a certainty either, so have some smaller versions just in case.

We have had the smaller queenies 'smoked' as well and they are great.  In fact the smaller fish are really what are best for a meal because there is a lot in a bigger fish....like this one of Lord Jim's that fed fourteen of us!!!!