With the Blue Mountains coming off an incredible amount of rain last year, the fishing up there has been all time. So naturally we've spent a lot of time in the central west but it was finally time to make the journey to the Australian Snowies for our first drift boat session of the season.

After chatting with local guides Gus and Joel from Haul Fly Fishing about how good the hoppers have been of late, we got excited and jumped in Andy's cruiser on Friday night and hit the road, turning up in Tumut just in time for a quick beer and a half decent nights rest.

Sun up and already hitting 17 degrees, hot for the snowy's at the time of morning, we dropped the boat in the water early, rigged up several rods and got floating. The river was flowing at about 8000 (that's the high end) according to the live water app, great if you want to get a read on the flow coming out of Blowering dam. When the rivers high like that, at first can be a little daunting, but once you realise that the fish just move into different pockets, the bigger backwaters and undercuts it's really not that different.

Hitting the first few bends, while trying to balance a coffee, we began firing some Chernobyl hoppers of assorted colours at the banks. It really wasn't long before the first brown came out from an overhanging grassy bank and smacked Andy's hopper. Ripping him away from the structure we soon had our first fish in the net, a pretty good way to start the day.

As we drift down we're constantly sending hoppers into all the pools and pockets along the edges, searching every bit of water. A few more bends, which can be hundreds of casts, and it was Nick's turn to bag another hopper eating brown, taking him down river for the ride we got him to the boat for a smooth landing, couple of happy snaps and back in the water.