Just thinking the other day about my first fly outfit if you could call it that which I acquired at about 14 years old. A home built split cane rod more suitable to bait fishing and a very well used second hand KIngfisher silk line with more bits out of the coating which made a helluva rattle going through the rod guides. This wound onto an old Cussons Fly Reel that had had a very hard life . Had a bad spot between the drum and the frame that almost jammed on every turn of the reel. Could never straighten the B----y thing .

Used to go down to Gardiners Creek (Near my home in South Camberwell) which is not much better than a drain these days . More concrete than anything. Anyway used to go down there and practice casting and drifting flies . Used buckets of Ceroline line floatant to keep on the go. This was my outfit for a couple of years till I won A proper fly rod in Club competitions. Was a member at Ormond Angling Club in those days. Actually took my first fly caught trout with this lot in the Tyers River near Tyers Junction here in Victoria. A 12" fish on a dry March Brown . More fluke than anything with a line that didn`t want to float and kept dragging the fly under at the wrong moments. this would have been about 1952. 10/1/2010

I`ve been thinking the last few days about part time work and why one does it. And, as it happens I was discussing the same thing with a mate today as for the last two or three years I`ve been working Saturday mornings in a local Tackle shop to help finance my tying and fishing. This prompted me to recall that as a 12 year old kid I used catch yabbies (crawfish) in Gardiners Creek Monday Tuesday and Wednesday after school and into Melbourne with them Thursday after school where I sold them to Alcock and Pierce Tackle shop for sale as bait. From memory I was paid a shilling ( 10cents )a dozen. While there I would spend a lot of time drooling over the fly counter which was a terrible mistake as it turned out as I was afflicted with the disease badly and still suffer to this day. More about this later. As time went on this wasn`t enough to feed my affliction so the next step was to help our local baker with deliveries as well on Friday mornings before school. This paid a princely 2 shillings for a couple of hours with a 6am start. Next up was grocery deliveries on my bike Thursday and Friday after school. Bewdy 6 shillings for the two nights . I reckoned I was well off. Then during my working life it was tying flies professionally of an evening for several years and then a big break for quite a while. Anyway it seems that after a lot of years nothing much has changed except that I`m a little older and my tying is a lot more expensive and I`m back to doing part time work LOL AND LOVING IT !!!!!

31/1/2010