This article appeared in the 1998 - 1999 Edition of FlyLife Magazine.
Steve
Starling
The
green, wind-ruffled expanse of open water beyond the bow appeared
lifeless, but I knew that looks could be deceptive. They had been
here a few minutes ago, and chances were they had not travelled
far.
A
slash of white water on the periphery of vision demanded immediate
attention and I swung my body, shifting stance on the casting platform.
A spray of small baitfish scattered in a silvery arc, heading our
way. Suddenly all hell broke loose. A dozen or more long, chromed
bodies exploded from the water like missiles, writhing and twisting
in the air before smashing back into the chop in a welter of foam.
My
cast was slow and I didn't make enough allowance for the gusty sou'easter.
The Clouser curled uselessly away behind the melee, towing f silvery
crescent of leader. Cursing, I ripped in line and picked up quickly
for another shot as the steely projectiles detonated once more,
dead ahead and seemingly within range.
This
time the fly fell short by a good two metres and once again I began
stripping it back as fast as I could, grinding my teeth in frustration.
I was about to lift into a backcast when I saw the long, green bolt
of energy closing rapidly on my fly from directly behind - a metre
of fluorescent lime muscle with huge eyes and a bullet head, propelled
by an impossibly over-sized fork of a tail.
The
herring's mouth opened, big and black, and my fly vanished completely.
I was shouting excitedly, but the words made no sense and were torn
away by the wind. Three or four rod lengths in front of me the fish
veered sharply aside, flashing its stainless steel flanks in the
sun. Line was already skidding through my shaking hand. Instinctively,
I drove the rod hard to my right and set the hook.
The
fish came straight out of the water; low, fast and bent in a grotesque
S-shape. Almost before it had re-entered it was up again, then again
and again, each time further away than before. A staccato rattle
announced the departure of fly line from the guides and thin, yellow
backing began to hiss, then wail loudly in its wake. Reel a blur,
rod flat, feet spread and left hand held well clear of the flying
reel handle, I stood mouth agape and watched gel-spun melt from
the spool and pour into the water with no sign of the run slowing
or stopping.
Somewhere
out in front, far away and detached, a long, silvery fish was jumping
and jumping. Its position bore no relationship whatsoever to the
path of my backing into the water, but I knew it was on my line……..
and it was now an awfully long way away.
Greg
Bethune hooked up on a scorcher of a Giant Herring -
just look at the angle of that backing!
At
the stern, Greg Bethune pulled twice on the starter cord before
steering the punt up into the rising wind and slop, while I cranked
on the reel handle. The line became alternately tight and slack
as the fish constantly changed direction, then it was off and running
once again, raising the banshee howl of fast moving polyethylene
over ceramic guides to a completely new and rather terrifying pitch.
For
10 or 15 minutes we tracked the fish, sometimes gaining and often
losing line. The jumps and crazy tailwalks came less often now,
and the long, green-backed fish hung deeper in the water, circling
and slugging as fly line finally crawled back down the rod and onto
the reel.
The
end came surprisingly quickly. One last wrist-aching circle and
the fish rolled on the top, mouth working on the scuffed shock tippet,
body pulsing slowly. Grabbing its tail wrist, I hefted my first
giant herring from the water marvelled at its bizarre dimensions.
It looked like three bonefish welded together and en-to-end and
fitted with a head and tail several sixes too large for any of them.
The fish gasped and shuddered, dying in my hands as I watched. Returning
it to these predator-infested waters would have been a vain gesture.
With
a fork length of 8.6 cm and a weight of 4.65 kg (10lb 4oz), it was
a pretty good herring. Nonetheless, I could not help but wonder
how something as relatively small as the spindly creature in my
hands could fight so long and so hard on an 8/9 weight outfit and
10 kg tippet!
Alien Creatures
I knew
a little bit about giant herring. I'd even had a couple of small
ones on my line before, coming unbuttoned with lure casting gear
after a few seconds of hyperactive aerial gyrations. Now, having
finally come up against one (and a big one at that) on fly tackle,
I was totally shellshocked. These fish appeared to defy the laws
of both physics and nature; a strange, almost alien thing of great
power and raw, uncommon beauty…. I just had to catch another
one!
Over
the next few days I hooked several more giant herring and actually
managed to bring two of them to hand, including one just slightly
smaller than my first. Greg also had several electrifying encounters
and was able to release one good fish before it released itself.
All through that time, I tried to get a feel for the essence of
these exotic creatures-a solid handle on their piscatorial psyche-but
it eluded me.
Wild.
Unpredictable. Erratic. Feral. Berserk. Demonic. All those words
seemed to fit, but none told the whole story. I could not shake
the uneasy feeling that I had encountered something just a little
bit other-worldly …….. a being inadequately described
by my vocabulary of catalogue of experiences. The only thing I could
be sure of was that these were the hottest things, kilo-for-kilo,
that I'' ever had on a fly line. And in the end, that was all I
really needed to know.
Western
Cape York
Letting
a Herring go
The
action I've described took place not far outside a river mouth on
the western side of Cape York Peninsula, between Seisia and Weipa,
where the 142nd line of longitude kisses a beautiful and largely
uninhabited coastline of white beaches, drooping casuarinas and
clean, green water. It's one of my favourite places on earth, and
each visit I make there provides new wonders.
Having
sampled the delights of this area before, the giant herring were
something new. Bushy and I had briefly tangled with a patch of small
specimens a few years earlier - just enough to whet the appetite
- but since then I'd searched for them in vain……. until
now.
For
a few short days in late April, a fortuitous alignment of tides
and baitfish concentrations provided a low water smorgasbord for
marauding packs of big herring just outside one particular river
mouth. By the third afternoon, we could set our watches by them.
As
is so often the case finding the fish and catching them were two
entirely different things. It was not until the closing stages of
our second session that the penny dropped concerning presentation.
After all, who would have suspected that fish which fed so fast
on the surface would prefer a fly kicking along sedately in mid-water?
Once
we twigged, hits became more numerous, particularly on white, grey
or pale blue patterns, sparsely dressed with a suggestion of flash.
But, getting the point in and keeping it there remained problematic.
Hitting them hard and banging the hook home with several exaggerated
pulls before they dropped the clutch and made the jump to light
speed certainly helped, but there wasn't long to think about it!
Once the blue touch paper had been lit, it was time to step back
and admire the pyrotechnics.
I'm
loathe to offer too many other "tips" on targeting these
amazing fish. I simply haven't caught enough of them to have any
more than a scant inkling of what might work on a consistent basis.
But I plan to rectify that situation as soon as possible. When I
do, I'll let you know the outcome. Meanwhile, the fact box sets
out most of what I have been able to unearth concerning these super-charged
sardines.
In
parting, I'll offer one last piece of important advice: if you overhear
someone discussing giant herring in whispered conversation at a
dinner party or in some smoky pub bar, dismiss your images of massive
kippers or gargantuan rollmops and listen like a thief, because
they're probably speaking of Elops machnata; the hottest thing on
fins. And if you listen hard enough, you just might pick up sufficient
clues to crack the puzzle and hook up with one of these mysterious
fish. When you do, don't blame me if it scares you half to death!
Giant
Herring Fact Box
A
Giant Herring
Part
of the same family that contains the oxeye herring or tarpon - and
closely related to both the bonefish and milkfish - the Australian
giant herring Elops machnata is an Indo Pacific version of the ladyfish
of "ten pounder" (E. saurus), which is found in
Atlantic and Caribbean waters along the east coast of the Americas.
In fact, the International Game Fish Association's favoured common
name for our local Elops species is "springer ladyfish",
which seems rather fitting in light of the fish's high-tensile performance
when hooked!
A third
member of the same clan (E. senegalensis or the Senegalese
ladyfish) is apparently found along the Atlantic coast of equatorial
West Africa. Interestingly, our homegrown version, which ranges
as far afield as Mozambique and East Africa, is the largest of the
trio, having been reliably recorded to weights in excess of 10 kg.
On the other hand the American Elops is a relatively small fish,
rarely exceeding 2 kg. This possibly helps to explain why the Yanks
make so little fuss about the ladyfish in their books and magazines.
In
Australian waters, the giant herring occurs sporadically right around
the northern half of the country, occasionally straying well south
of its 'normal' range to turn up in such unlikely places as the
coastal lagoons of Sydney's northern beaches, the south west arm
of Port Hacking, the gulfs of South Australia and Perth's Swan River.
Some observers have theorised, only partly in jest, that these fish
swim so fast they might occasionally over-shoot their regular geographic
boundaries and end up a couple of states away, thus explaining their
sudden appearance in these unusual locales!
The
best known tropical strongholds of the giant herring in Australia
are around Mornington Island, in the lower Gulf of Carpentaria,
and along the north western coast of Cape York Peninsula, although
specimens turn up from time to time in many other northern locations.
In
a letter I received from Vic McCristal, the acknowledged doyen of
Australian sport fish. Vic spoke of seeing huge herring on the beaches
near Weipa in the '70s. He wrote of fish "five feet lone, with
tails like small marlin," and explained that the local Aborigines
sometimes speared them when the herring came inshore during August
and September to hunt schooling mullet. The thought of hooking such
fish on fly is more than a little scary…..
