▲TopFly Tyer - Mick Hall retires

For just on seven years we have sent out weekly fishing reports on Flyflickers. Well last August I reached the magic 65th birthday and with that I am retiring from a lot of the commitments that have governed my life for the last fifteen years. I am no longer doing those fly tying demonstration sessions each Thursday and Friday at Hook Up Bait and Tackle, I am winding back Blackridge Flyfishing School and will be closing down that operation at the end of the financial year.

On the other hand I will still be at the helm of the Australian Trout Foundation and I will be concentrating a lot more on my writing and club promotions with the assistance of Mustad, Partridge and Whiting Farms.

Bugwatch is still very much developing and each season we are building on our photographic library, which, hopefully, will lead to an efficient and reliable hatch chart and pattern reference. With the program so far I have developed a range of dubbing formulas to match most of our Baetids and Leptophlebiids found along the rivers in this region. As you can imagine this program is ongoing and it is going to be at least another two years before the first phase of the Hatch Chart is complete.

With each season we are finding new bugs and setting in place a photographic record of the male and female Duns and Spinners of each species that is of interest to us. In doing so I am also trying to capture with the camera those features we call trigger points. As an example of what we are finding, last week I was down on the Goulburn with Warryn Germon and we found a new species of Coloburiscoides, or the Kossie Dun. The insect had just emerged from its dun shuck and the spinner was an olive/green in colour. It is the same size as C.haleuticus, which is found along the Goulburn but it is a little skinnier. At this stage we simply call it the Olive Kossie. I got some good pictures of her but it is now important to try and get good pics of the Dun and hopefully find out a little more about this fascinating little critter.

These Bugwatch promotions are still ongoing and developing and if you are in a fly club and would like to see more of the program, let me know and we will see what we can organise. These club days are fully sponsored and there is no charge to the club at all.

Apart from that I want to do a lot more fishing. There are a lot more rivers I want to visit again and a lot more fish I want to meet. Alaine and I will still be living at Sedgemere and simply loving life and our environment.

So I thank you all for you time, friendship and assistance from those who regularly sent in their fishing reports. And, as that old saying goes, I will see you on a stream somewhere, hopefully trying to catch a trout.

As of 1st November 06 - the Flyflickers website ceased to exist in its present format will be no more so from the team at flyflickers, Tim Smith, Stephen Welsh, Alaine and I, we thank you and bid you all farewell. It should also be noted that our email address will stay the same for the time being.

Mick And Alaine