Several road-trips back and forth to Townsville, Queensland, were required for home improvements and renovation in early 2015.  It was the middle of the wet season however, so an inevitable rain-delay day saw me tramping the banks of the adjacent Ross River with the 9-weight in hand.

An hour or so mid-morning was spent fly-casting from the concrete spillway below Black Weir, where the first flows of the season were just beginning to overtop the wall.  A handsome 75 cm fish quickly nailed my fly in the wash below the wall and gave a spirited account of itself in the open water.  A few longer casts out over the weedbeds resulted in a savage take and a much better fish was soon slicing off the lily-pads and ploughing through the dense hydrilla.  Luckily everything held and after a couple of half-hearted jumps in the open water closer to the weir, a 96cm specimen was slid into the shallows and then briefly hoisted aloft for the self-timed camera.

A heavy midday downpour had me back indoors for lunch and a snooze, however the deluge had swollen all the creeks and urban drains in the Douglas area so motivated by high expectation I wandered back down to the river in the late afternoon.  Sure enough, several big fish were crunching bait in the mouth of a flooded side-creek: I could feel the sub-surface 'boofs' through the soles of my feet!

The difficulty of laying out casts amongst the dense riverbank structure and overhanging paperbarks is best left unsaid, and after a couple of missed strikes the line tightened on a very powerful adversary indeed!  I was in a bind: it was crucial to keep the fish within about 15 metres or lose it to the partially-submerged tree-trunks.  As expected, the barra went nuts in the confined space and it was a very exciting few minutes with sheets of water in the air and my heart in my mouth!  Absolutely brutal, white-knuckle flyfishing!  Although the 4/0 Gamakatsu was almost straightened in the melee, everything held once again and it was an incredible relief to finally lift that 105cm fish for the obligatory trophy photo before release.