Peter Morse interviews Gordon Dunlop - this interview was recorded in 1999, was published in Issue 17 of Flylife Magazine and is reprinted here with their permission.

 

 

 

Gordon Dunlop was born and raised in Argentina. He came to Australia as a young boy of 15, finished his schooling and studied at university. He has fished all his life and crewed on game boats in the 60s while he was still at school. Gordon has worked for Fairfax publishers in Sydney for 20 years, for half that time as a financial manager. Between family and work, Gordon has little time left for fishing these days but he has achieved some extraordinary feats with a fly rod. Gordon Dunlop was the first fly fisherman I met outside my family. At the time I was knee deep in a fly fishing obsession and, as it turned out, so was he—except that I was chasing trout and Gordon was chasing salt-water fish.

 

 

The first time I went fishing with Gordon was back in the 70s. He took me out in his little tinny ‘Double Haul’ chasing kingfish in Pittwater on New Years Day, and I hooked and landed one under Gordon’s tutelage. That was a highlight, but the most memorable part of the day for me was watching Gordon cast a fly over the horizon using a shooting head, something I had not seen before. He had a boron fly rod, the likes of which I had never even envisaged, and it had a big gold reel on it. I was gob smacked. I didn’t believe any one could throw a fly that far! Gordon is amongst the most naturally gifted fishermen I’ve ever come across. The challenge of the spring run of pelagic fish feeding on the baitfish hatchlings around Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay and Broken Bay, passed for Gordon many years ago. With his distance casting, and the perfecting of a minute baitfish pattern, he could catch the uncatchable spring salmon and tuna at will. Work and family have kept him in Sydney, and it was inevitable that he would turn his fishing skill to the greatest challenge on Sydney’s door-step—yellowfin tuna on fly.

 

 

It was the very early 70s, around ’71, and I was a member of the Sydney Sportfishing Club. The heart of sportfishing in Sydney in those days was the shop run by Jack Erskine and Bill Fitch near Central Station. They were packing up their shop and moving business to Cairns—there was a big sale on and Bill Fitch gave me a fly rod. It was a 2-piece fibreglass rod built on a Silaflex blank that even had a foregrip and was rated as a 10-weight. Prior to that I had been fascinated by articles in US magazines about fly fishing and there were several guys in the club who were also interested. The club promoted fly fishing, which was quite revolutionary at the time, and in the very early 70s the wife of Dr Web Robinson (the first man to catch a billfish on fly) came over from the US to give the club a talk on fly fishing. A month before that I had seen a Stu Apt film on fly fishing in the Florida Keys. All these things happened within the space of a few months and I very quickly fell in love with the sport. I bought a Shakespeare fly line, a Japanese copy of a Pflueger medalist reel, and Bill Fitch gave me a copy of a Scientific Anglers fly casting book, so I was off to the park. I collected every magazine article from around the world that had something about saltwater fly fishing in it and I have every early article written about saltwater fly fishing in Australia. Bill Fitch, Clyde Kelton in Sydney, and slightly later Rod Harrison who was based in Wollongong, were the pioneers who caught all sorts of fish on flies. In the north I followed the exploits of such fly fishing luminaries as Max Garth and Ron Pearson—they were catching some incredible fish. Some of the articles I have go back into the 60s.

 

 

It was a very frustrating time and I hate to admit this Peter but I actually trolled it up (laughs).

 

 

The first fish were definitely tailor, but I had caught only about half a dozen tailor before I caught my first really serious fish. That was a mackerel tuna caught way inland of Lion Island in the Hawkesbury River, almost up at Brooklyn Bridge. In those days the spring run of mackerel tuna was phenomenal and these were all big fish—some up to 10 kilos. I was using a fly called a Platinum Blonde tied on a 2/0 hook—I still have that fly somewhere. That was it . . . I was hooked. It really made the tackle shake and was a good fish of 6-8 kilos. Interestingly it was a clear Shakespeare fly line, an early monocore line, this was about 1972.

 

 

I was obsessed with it. I knew that to become a better fly fisherman I had to master fly casting. I imported a book from America. It was the first by Lefty Kreh on casting. It was full of black and white photos—I studied every single photo frame by frame. The book is now full of underlines and highlights under key phrases. I was obsessive—I wanted to be a good fly caster and I put in hours of practice. I joined Lakeside Casting Club and Bob Longley gave me a great deal of assistance. Rod Harrison used to turn up at the Sydney tackle shows and we would inevitably end up in the park somewhere trying to outcast each other. A highlight of my life came on a rainy day in Sydney when the master himself, Lefty Kreh came to town. In pouring rain Lefty gave us hours of his time and when the day was over I went to a park near home and in even heavier rain threw perfect triangular loops in driving rain for hours. Lefty has been a huge inspiration to me. I bought a copy of Field & Stream magazine in the 70s and in it was a thirty page extract from Lefty’s new book Fly Fishing in Saltwater. I was like a biblical scholar with the Dead Sea scrolls and the obsession became an all consuming passion.

 

 

That goes back some way. I was fishing with a guy called Dave Lock-wood at Broken Bay wide (a reef system about 12 miles out). We had planned to fish for yellowfin but Dave was recovering after a big night out and he fell asleep in the bottom of the boat with instructions that said ‘do not disturb.’ It was a beautiful glassy calm day with clear water and I was berleying for what seemed like hours . . . There, suddenly, in that clear deep blue sea was a yellowfin tuna of 30 to 40 pounds. It looked incredible—I still remember it so clearly, an olive and brown football of muscle with vivid yellow fins. It was so clear it was like looking at a goldfish in a bowl. I threw it pieces of pilchard and it ate them—I threw in a few more and it ate them. My fly rod was rigged, and without waking Dave I prepared to have a shot at the fish. The fly was a three-inch White Deceiver tied on a 2/0 hook. I threw another handful of chopped pilchards to this fish and then cast the fly amongst the pieces. It ate them all, ignored the fly, then disappeared. Being mindful to not spook the fish, I threw another handful away from the boat and cast my fly in amongst them. The tuna immediately reappeared and started picking up all the pilchard pieces. My fly had disappeared at this stage, it had sunk and there was glare on the water, but it was going deep. I began to retrieve with long gliding strips and with the leader almost in the rod the fish took. At that moment I woke David. I was captivated by the visual aura of it all—the fish gliding through the water eating cubes—the take, then that incredible first run. I’d caught plenty of yellowfin on conventional tackle before, even back in my school days, but this had been my first opportunity to catch one on fly. I lost that fish, the hook pulled, but I was hooked on the challenge of catching these big fish on fly.

 

 

Ideas for tackle really came about after the trip you and I did to South West Rocks in ’86 when we finally caught yellowfin tuna on flies according to a strategy we'd mapped out. Even though we landed fish, the tackle we used really hurt us. Those fish were only 17-18 kilos but they took a long time to land compared to what we do today. The early rods we used were very stiff—they didn’t bend, and the first yellowfin nearly killed me. I’m not built like you Peter, I’m 57 kilos wringing wet and don’t have the beef to put into it. Big game fly rods need a soft top half that folds out of the way when you need to lift a big fish. My favourite rod is a Kennedy Fisher—I’ve used it on plenty of big fish. You have to know what the ‘red line’ point of your rod is on 8 and 10 kilo tippets and fish to that point, otherwise you will be on a fish for many hours. I use fast sinking shooting heads—the fly has to get down deep. You also need a reel with plenty of backing capacity. I currently use an Abel #5, which carries 700 metres of 30 lb dacron and then a top shot of 600 metres of 50 lb braid. Its huge outer diameter gives me plenty of retrieve speed. I also have a Billy Pate marlin reel which holds 800 metres of braid. A reel needs to be tough because fights can last a long time and there is tremendous pressure.

 

 

Firstly let me say that there are some days when a yellowfin tuna will eat anything, although those days are very rare now because these fish are so scarce. Out of that watershed trip to South West Rocks in ’86, I looked very closely at flies for yellowfin tuna. The fish we gutted seemed to be full of pilchard heads, as though that was all they were picking out of the berley. We used Deceivers and caught fish, but there were many more fish under the boat that would not eat them—there had to be a better fly. I worked on a fast-sinking imitation of a pilchard head and experimented with all sorts of materials. Although silicone makes great looking flies, it traps air and floats—just about the least desirable characteristic in a fly for yellowfin tuna. Silicone also has that dreadful acetic smell to it and this can’t possibly help. The pilchard head fly we developed is made from spun wool and clipped to shape, it’s a bit like using deer hair. I use the biggest turned aluminium dumbbell eyes and colour the white wool with marker pens, especially those with pearlescent sparkle in them. This fly is still my favourite when there are big yellow-fin at the back of the boat. I use the Mustad Tarpon hook in a 6/0 or a 7/0 size because this is a heavy hook, it sharpens up beautifully and gives the fly a great sink rate—that’s very important. Over the last couple of years Chris Wright and I have developed a different pattern based on a Popovics fly. It’s a variation of the Mackwool. It has a tail like a Deceiver, then I build up the head with wool and colour it with permanent markers. It’s a realistic imitation of a pilchard except that they like it with chartreuse colouring. I think these flies are successful because they are three-dimensional—whichever way you look at them they look natural. These days, with the flies and fly lines I use, if there are yellowfin at the back of the boat I can almost guarantee a hook-up.

 

Without question, the fly line is even more important than the fly. I would use any fly, even one of yours Peter . . . (much abuse and bad language). The wrong fly line gives the fly the wrong presentation and you can’t overcome that. The best line for this job has not been made yet. I’ve searched the world for the right one and have come close but there has always been some problem. These days I trim a Deepwater Express shooting head and use mostly the belly section. I cut it in half and use the thick end as the end for the leader. The thin end is attached to the running line. The tapers at either end are the slowest sinking sections. Another old favourite was a Cortland Kerboom lead core shooting head. It was plastic coated and had a small taper—it sank relatively evenly. I also use a Tarpon line, a clear line that sinks slowly but evenly—I’ve given it all sorts of trims to get it right. To try to keep everything sinking evenly, I add lead twist-ons to the fly according to the conditions. You will never achieve a perfectly even sink rate, but what you do not want is the fly line dragging the fly down. A tumbling fly on the way down the cube trail won’t get eaten—it may get eaten at the end of the drift or on the way back up, but 70% of my fish, especially the bigger ones, take on the way down.

 

 

This is a hard one because it does vary from year to year, but over the last 3-4 years it’s been very poor. There is usually an autumn and early winter run, and then there’s a spring run. May and June are good, and then I’ve had some of my best days in late August through September, but October and November are the most consistent months. The fishery is current driven and a water temperature of 19-21°C is crucial. I always look to fish some sort of structure. Some reefs about 12 miles off Sydney are favourite places, as is Browns Mountain—it’s about 25 miles out and the long-liners are often on it. Then there’s the trench between Browns and the continental shelf. The edge of the shelf itself is great structure and of course migrating fish use it like a highway. I like to look for sea-bird activity, there is an arctic gull that always seems to indicate some sort of yellowfin activity. I like relatively calm days, mostly because I fish out of a small boat—it’s only a 19 footer and sometimes we go 25 miles out. The East Coast can be very rough, especially out on the shelf. The other reason I like a calm day is that you have a slower drift. A fast drift disperses the berley and the yellowfin seem to feed too far back. On calm days the fish seem to find the berley a lot easier and will follow it right to the boat. What sort of berleying system do you use? Pilchards are essential, but some guys seem to have the attitude that you just throw in a handful of cut pilchards every few minutes, or you berley for an hour and then you move. You have to choose your drift and stick to it. You cannot stop the cube trail, if you need a break for a cup of coffee or a cigarette, someone must take over—the trail must be continuous and unbroken. Imagine that you’re building a ladder for the yellowfin to climb all the way to the back of the boat—there can’t be any rungs missing from that ladder. You toss the next cube in when the last one has sunk from view. I also work a berley pot. This might have old yellowfin frames in it, but it will also have pilchards in the mix. These fine particles lay a scent trail. I take an awful lot of pilchards out with me. Some of the best fishing has been right at the end of the day, and when the tuna finally do turn up you want some pillies left to keep them going. That late afternoon bite is very consistent.

 

 

I’ve experimented with all sorts of materials, fluorocarbon shock tippets and other fine materials, but I like the knotting strength and softness of ordinary Jinkai. I fish 80 lb Jinkai as a shock tippet and use Stren High Impact as my class tippet material. I believe that one other key to success with yellowfin is that I use very long leaders to separate the fly from the fly line, but I add the length through the butt section. I loop to loop connect up to 2 metres of 80 lb Jinkai in as a butt—this helps enormously. I use a loop in the end of the fly line—this fishing is too heavy for any nail knot.

 

 

I’ve landed over 100 yellowfin on fly tackle and perhaps more than 20 of them have been over 25 kilos. I stopped counting a few years ago. The biggest I landed was just last year and that was a fish of 29 kilos on an 8 kilo tippet. I didn’t submit it as a record claim as I was just too busy at the time. There’s a very steep curve in the fighting time on yellowfin—a 20 kilo fish you should be able to knock off in 20 minutes, but once they reach 25 kilos the fight time goes up dramatically—they become much more difficult, and this is when tackle failure becomes a big factor.