Battle Of Kanangra

[taloyoak]

Meine lieben Freunde,

Finally got a chance to sit down and get this report together for ya-awl.

Spent the last 7 days up in the Blue Mtns fly fishing in Kanangra Creek.

So here goes transcribed from my slowly infarcting Medulla to text.

Left at 5am so as to get a good early start on the walk in which isn't very exciting after the first time, and arrived at Katoomba in very cold conditions for Sydney and about -5c. Heavy frost everywhere resembled a light dusting of snow, and along the Narrow Neck fire trail there were plenty of plates of thick ice covering the small pools of water on the sides of the trail. Made my way down the climbing spikes and on to Meadlow Gap. Then from there the trail meanders off towards Splendour Rock and Mobbs Soak, which is the usual stop over camping spot in the area, as it provides a place to collect water. The track there is winding, and has many junctions and can be easy to lose your way if you haven't been that way before or do not have a map and/or GPS. Anyway..... decided to invoke my usual quest for exploration and made a decision, albeit late to head down to Breakfast Creek and camp there and maybe get to see how the creek looks and the quality of the water down there as the Cox's meets Breakfast Ck and just a Km or so upriver is the junction of the Oberon River. I haven't been down there before but knew roughly where it was located ( in my head I was mentally scrolling through Google Earth to position me towards the junction). Maybe about 1 km before Mobbs Soak there is a feint junction and a very feint track leads off towards that way, so I followed it. Another hour of up and down long hills I got to the decent. Well rather than having a zigzagging trail down which is easier, there was a straight down double black diamond run to the Cox's. Well I didn't really need my knees and quivering quadriceps anyway so negotiated the trail and arrived at the junction of Breakfast Ck maybe 1 hour before dark. I don't recommend this way, as the accent back up would require you to carry bottled oxygen like on an 8000m peak!.

Breakfast Ck was just trickling, but refreshingly clear and drinkable water. The campsite however was a disgusting shanty town of burnt trash and litter everywhere, including items of various clothing that had been discarded and left around the area. Big fire pits with rusting metal poles and rusting burnt metal food tins abounded the spot and left a rather disgruntled taste in my mouth. But I guess this is the unfortunate result of hiking close to a big city, and the "normal" access to this place is along the easy trail from Carlon's Farm in the Megalong. So I set up my tent and chowed down and settled in to a quiet but cold night and watched a movie on my Plasma screen ( IPod).

The shrieking call of my watch alarm awakened me from my down sarcophagus at the ungodly hour on 6am. Who gets up early when camping?. The thermometer I left outside dipped to -3.8c and I reluctantly escaped my cocoon of warmth to make breakfast and a hot cup of Joe. I try to have my morning routine done in 45 mins which isn't bad, but nothing like the Olympic records I was expected to maintain whilst in the Gulag ( Army)...LOL!. I was just about to head off down the Cox's when I saw 2 people and one started fishing, so I was drawn to him like a moth to flame of course to get the scoop. He was with his ball and chain and they had walked in from Carlons and camped up around the Jenolan and just came down to have a mosey around. He had a fly rod, but was using a spinning rod and didn't have much joy to report. I asked him if he had a map or knew the exact distance to Kanangra, but he didn't have either, so I said good luck and headed down the Cox's along every changing riverside trails. It's a real shame the Cox's is polluted because it is actually a beautiful, majestic stretch of water and I always enjoy walking around the next bend to find a postcard scene of rapids and deep pools. Well the trail chopped and changed and after 2 hours I thought I should be close?. Ha – not to be. I kept looking up at the mountains around me, and seeing if I recognised any of them from memory, but no. 4 hours later and after seeing a total of about 100 enormous feral pigs along the trail (actually I think the majority of the trail is carved out by these big destructive bacon, and I really was shocked by the amount of damage they cause to the area with their constant "ploughing" of the ground to a unbelievable scale). The NPWS need to get in there with a bunch of contract shooters or traps and cull these pests. Some of the pigs were so big they could have stood in for a bull at a rodeo!. I couldn't get any photos because as soon as they saw me they ran like Usain Bolt and didn't stop. Arrived at Kanangra around 2ish. That stretch of hike was long and I needed to wear my waders for about the last third as there were numerous river crossings and I hate walking in cold wet feet. Got to my usual spot upstream, which is on a nice bend, and has a wide rocky shore to pitch the tent.

After the admin of setting up was done, and I had consumed a coffee and some soup, I thought I might cast a few loops in the pool adjacent to my tent as it is one of the better "text book" pools. Tied on a beadhead Prince and a homemade strike indicator (which was crap!) and had to resort to watching the end of the fly line on the drift. I cast maybe 4 times with drifts and voila! I had a good take and couldn't have asked for a better start to the fishing. After a 5 minute squirmish I landed a solid Rainbow.

I virtually never keep any trout caught in the Bluies and always catch and release, but I decided to "treat" myself and quickly located a "priest" and ordained this nice Kanangra Rainbow to the promised land- (insert whatever your idea of that is). It was beginning to get dark so I filleted the trout with my Leatherman on a plastic tarp (so no commenting on the crap filleting job!) and yielded two nice slabs and unfortunately 2 large roe sacs.

This all ended up becoming Kanangra Laksa with shitake mushrooms.

A good end to the long day. The cold started to seep into my pores so I beat a hasty retreat into my prison cell tent (it is really small!) and watched a few episodes of Band of Brothers.

Thursday dawned for me at the "factory worker" hour of 0530 as I wanted to get a good full day of fishing, so I got outside to -4.8c and for some reason it felt like -48c to me?!. Now I know -48c, but the problem for me on these jaunts that I do is that I do not have any of my warm gear with me here at the moment as all of it is back home in Alaska, and when I came out for what was initially just a few weeks has turned into a few months (my dad is very ill), and so I didn't think I would need any warm gear. So I suffer with what I have and to be honest it sucks being cold. No polar bear pants and caribou parka for me here. So I just wear thermals, a soft-shell jacket and my Gore-Tex jacket and that usually keeps my equilibrium at a reasonable state.

So I shovelled down some oats/Milo/sugar and 3 bags of those ridiculously expensive coffee bags (I would buy real coffee and use my little field percolator but it weighs too much!). Then I started my recon of the upper waters. Slowly and methodically I made my way upstream. The photos I took really don't do entire justice to how difficult some of the prime areas are to cast into.. Now rely on the fact I am no Joan Wulff or Lefty Kreh, but can cast both sides, roll/steeple/double haul and some really good little riffles are tough to target due to pesky branches and Casuarinas. 10 mins upstream from camp I landed my first Rainbow. I know the pools that generally hold fish, so avoided the "placebo" pools and leapfrogged up to the Promised Land. A log jam and nice pool yielded this nice specimen, . Took a few pics, then gave it a Liverpool Kiss and sent it on its way back to the liquid.

I think I covered maybe 3km's of stream over an 8 hour period. I pretty much just fished nonstop, but spent maybe an hour watching some Rainbows spawning- which I have never witnessed. I felt like some kind of weird voyeur but enjoyed this ritual as it was very interesting to see a big female sit mid current and stream to wait for 4 other suitors to come by and show off their stuff.

I never saw any eggs et al, but they were rubbing in unison and very oblivious to my presence. I was pretty much chortling with glee as I watched this, but my ulterior motif was to nail those fish. I cast 3 different sized hot glue eggs in orange and red, then dumbbell weighted eggs, and others but nada. In between that I managed to back cast into frikkin' plants near me, as the section was closed in and tight. Bloody roll casts, and steeples were the order, and my timing was off due to my anxiety to trying to entice some very large 6+ pound trout. Back home in the Arctic I wouldn't care less about 6 pounders as the average good Lake trout or Arctic Char weighs in at over 20 pounds, but back here in the over-crowded city this is a blessing (no religious attachment included).

The day finished with a good haul of 8 fish, including this nice Brown- my first Kanangra Brown.

I actually spooked it with my Sasquatch wading technique and I saw him take cover in the lee side of a log. So I stood my ground rather than moving on, and made maybe 4 casts/drifts with a Woolly worm style pattern, and Allah Akbar! – He nailed it with no hesitation. I was really enthused to have caught a Brown here. He was a slender number, but good markings and healthy so I was feeling "complete". The light was leaving the valley so I beat a hasty retreat back to my Patrol Base and finished off the Michelin 3 star Laksa I made the night before. I could have won Masterbitch with that dish!.

Friday- I explored further upstream with a few nice fish. Came across these beat up and abused females that had spawned and showing many scars from bites made by fairy floss ha ha ha ha infused males. These big girls were so exhausted they never moved and allowed me to come within 3 ft of them to take photos (Sorry- I left my polarizing filter at home). Using my Nikon D700 SLR was a bad move because it was a pain in the butt to lug it around and use one handed to snap my catches. I could be bothered setting up a tripod and making "fake" setup photos. I'm taking my point and shoot number next time!.

Saturday- It rained for half the day, but I kept at it, and just spent most of the day being a sloth. ( I stayed up until 4am watching some movies) so arose at 9am, had a leisurely feed,, and then actually explored further upstream, plus took photos and went down and looked around the Kanangaroo Clearing – which is the old private horse riding land/farm that is at the start of the Cox and Kanangra. It is actually pretty primitive, but boy would I love to own this little gem of land here. I actually went down to the Cox's as when I walked/waded in from Breakfast Ck, as I had to do a river crossing, and as I waded across I walked through a big weed bed amongst a huge sandy area, and to my amazement there were about 20 small Perch like fish that darted out and held ground on the sand, right next to me. They didn't mind me being within 2 ft of them. They looked like a Perch- hmmm maybe Macquarie Perch- I have no idea. So I went back there to cast a few nymphs at the edge of the weeds, but didn't get any interest, and then walked over and amongst the big weed beds, but no fish were to be seen?. Weird!.

Sunday- I decided to explore more of the areas around the stream, targeting likely small pools etc, and yielded a good number of small but feisty Rainbows. I worked on my casting as I find it more enjoyable doing this on-stream that in the park. And besides back home I don't get much of a chance except on the ice and snow.

Monday- well it was time to beat a retreat home, and although you can walk out in one day- it is a long day, and mostly uphill. It was actually a nice weather day, yeah coldish but not raining. So I fuelled up and a big breaky of porridge and coffee, filled the camelback with my saved treasure of a bottle of grape Gatorade, and packed up camp and loaded up the iPod with my favourite playlist and started the long pilgrimage out to Katoomba. 9 hours later I arrived at the locked gate on Narrow Neck ( Glenraphael Rd) and it had been dark for 2 hours. The weather had turned somewhat spiteful and the wind cut through my shirt trying to sap my energy away. To my amazement, at the locked gate were some people "camping" there with a fire going. I thought " hmmm...why would you camp there in the car park, but whatever???". So I started to make my way the last 7km's to Katoomba station, and as I walked past them one of them said "G'day"...to which I replied the same. Then they called me over and we started chatting. LOL...turned out to be 3 nice people- 2 guys and a girl from Newcastle area, keen hikers, and they were in their late 40's and early 50's. Great people.....and they offered me a glass of Red which of course after my mission for 9 hours of course I obliged them!. I even got 2 glasses ( in a metal mug....but who's complaining right?!). Then they offered me a ride to the station, and I wanted to hold my pride and say no, but of course my calorie depleted body asked for repentance and I said to myself when trying to decline the offer "That's Chutzpah!".

Of course CityRail had trackwerk so the trip home took 4 hours- bastards!.

Enjoy the photos and sorry for the long ranted report.... I'm heading back on Tuesday for round 2, then back to Alaska on the 20^th.

Big Love,

Nan.

Edited July 6, 2010 by Nanook

[taloyoak]

a few more pics to add

[cut_loose]

Awesome report and photos.

Those trout are huge. Well done

Cheers

[ganymede]

Great read. Sounds like a great little expedition you had there.

Now I'm going to have to backtrack and check your previous posts!

I'd love to do a spot of trout-flogging in the BMs - big question is whether my antique knees would cope with the hiking

[musty]

Good work for braving the cold! Looks like a very fun trip.

great pics, i look forward to getting into that sort of thing at some stage.

Im not much of a freshwater fisher but i thought it is closed season for trout in the rivers and streams?

Musty

[Michael Hatte]

Ripper of a report mate!!!!

Sounds and looks like an incredible week up in the mountains

That area up there looks magical!!!!

Mick

[robeebee]

a beautiful report and pics

awesome trip

some big rainbows

well done

[Norto]

Mate that is a great report and some really nice fish. The only thing that worries me is knowing that area and the very large catchment (or should I say steep catchment) were you not at all worried about a flash flood should there be a lot of rain up stream and camping as close to the river like you have? I have worked in that area in all types of weather and I have seen creeks become raging torrents in a couple of hours. Would not be a problem providing you heard it coming, I suppose depends on how well you sleep. One particular Job wew were called out to (working for the Electricity distributor) we had to cross a creek to get to the wires that were down and by the time we had fixed them could not get back across and had to detour by about 50k's to get back to town. Mate I'm not telling you where or how to camp but it is just something to be mindful of thats all.

Regards,

Norto.

[eagle ray]

crazy. you are the coxs river trout guru.

[Hodgey]

These reports from our resident 'journo-in-the-field' are always an interesting, informative and entertaining read. The places you have visited, the sights you have seen and the experiences you have enjoyed both here and abroad have provided some of the most amazing reports I have read. Thanks for all your effort, mate, it is greatly appreciated. I look forward to the next installment!

Cheers

Hodgey

[GregL]

Bloody awesome pictures and back drop!

Only if I was built for camping.....LOL

Greg

[taloyoak]

Good work for braving the cold! Looks like a very fun trip.

great pics, i look forward to getting into that sort of thing at some stage.

Im not much of a freshwater fisher but i thought it is closed season for trout in the rivers and streams?

Musty

Musty,

Yes closed for most areas, but kanangra and surrounding area are outside the general trout stream areas, so all year round is fine

[taloyoak]

Mate that is a great report and some really nice fish. The only thing that worries me is knowing that area and the very large catchment (or should I say steep catchment) were you not at all worried about a flash flood should there be a lot of rain up stream and camping as close to the river like you have? I have worked in that area in all types of weather and I have seen creeks become raging torrents in a couple of hours. Would not be a problem providing you heard it coming, I suppose depends on how well you sleep. One particular Job wew were called out to (working for the Electricity distributor) we had to cross a creek to get to the wires that were down and by the time we had fixed them could not get back across and had to detour by about 50k's to get back to town. Mate I'm not telling you where or how to camp but it is just something to be mindful of thats all.

Regards,

Norto.

Hey Norto,

Nope not worried because i closely watch the waether forecast/synoptic chart etc, and besides go back on the historical data for that region and there hasn't been massive dumps for a long time. if it were to cascade down I would move further from the sream. That actual area of Kanangra isn't a canyon per se and the water, should it come down has plenty of lateral space to move.

[luderick -angler]

Nice Nanook nice! Looking forward to opening day only 12 weeks away and it is off to the back country!

[musty]

Musty,

Yes closed for most areas, but kanangra and surrounding area are outside the general trout stream areas, so all year round is fine

see thats how little i know about freshwater fishing! Its great to know that as i have a mate who does alot of trout fishing and cant wait to get into it with him.

Great report once again!

Musty

[taloyoak]

see thats how little i know about freshwater fishing! Its great to know that as i have a mate who does alot of trout fishing and cant wait to get into it with him.

Great report once again!

Musty

Musty...your profile pic looks like a kid from Mongolia ( a compliment).

If you want to go fly fishing - PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE call me anytime, whilst I am still here in Sydney.

I would be happy to take you out etc.

If you want to camp, I have enuff gear to equip you, all you need is some adventurous ability.

my number is 0416-224-928

Matt

[taloyoak]

Nice Nanook nice! Looking forward to opening day only 12 weeks away and it is off to the back country!

Darth,

Cassandra and I are SERIOUSLY thinking of moving to NZ for a while if we can get good work there. I am thinking around Wanaka, and have plenty of friends around that way.

Would love to come visit you and fish NZ as all I have ever done on my 4 trip there is go Mountaineering in the Cook Region and Aspiring Region.

Matt

[luderick -angler]

Mate,

wages are okay but you make up for it with the fishing trust me Wainuiomata River is 45 mins from home and has on average 4lb browns wit ha few going over 6 or 7lbs all wild stock, then there the Whakatikei 40 mins from home next to a capital city and it is total wilderness! then there the Tararua ranges and it's rivers amazing fishing so close to home and you don't need to spend 7 days to get to it!

if you get a chance come visit even around October planning a trip up to the Wairarapa/Horowhenua region into the Makuri stream you'd love it small limestone job chock full of trophy bow's and browns, speaking of check out th Sporting life website for Tongariro updates! dude just do it!