At midnight on Monday, the Victorian trout season closed.

For most anglers, the date arrives with a familiar sense of finality. Rods are put away, waders are hung up to dry, and the stretches of river that have occupied our thoughts for months are suddenly left behind until spring. Another season is added to the ledger. Another opening day and another closing day pass into memory. Yet after a lifetime spent guiding on rivers, I have come to view the occasion a little differently. The river itself is not shutting down. In many ways, it is only now entering one of the most important periods of its year.

Over the coming weeks, brown trout throughout Victoria will move upstream towards the gravel beds where they will spawn. Fish that have spent the season spread throughout the system will gather in tributaries and headwaters, driven by instincts far older than any angler. The boats disappear. The foot traffic fades from the banks. The pressure of a long fishing season gradually lifts. For a few months, the river belongs almost entirely to itself again.

Perhaps because so much of modern life encourages us to believe that everything exists for our use, our enjoyment or our convenience. We photograph everything, measure everything and analyse everything. We track river levels by the hour, study weather forecasts days in advance and compare catches before we have even reached the car park. There is a tendency to view the natural world through the lens of what it can provide us. Yet every year the trout season closes and nature quietly reminds us that these rivers were never really ours in the first place. The fish continue their journey upstream. The river settles into winter. Life carries on perfectly well without our participation.

When I was younger, I struggled with that idea. Like most anglers, I always wanted one more day. One more hatch. One more opportunity. There was a time when the closing of the season felt frustrating, almost unfair. Age has a way of changing your perspective. These days I find myself appreciating the pauses almost as much as the activity. The older I become, the more I recognise that every worthwhile thing exists within a rhythm. There is a season for effort and a season for recovery. A season for activity and a season for stillness.

For guides, the end of the season brings its own peculiar transition. For much of the year my life is measured not by months but by rivers. The first Saturday in September arrives and suddenly everything begins moving again. Boats come out of storage. River levels become important. Weather forecasts become daily reading. Clients arrive from around Australia and beyond. Days fill with travel, guiding, teaching and all the variables that make fly fishing endlessly fascinating and occasionally maddening.

Then, almost overnight, it stops.

I have experienced that transition dozens of times and it still feels strange. One morning there is a drift boat to launch, a lesson to teach or a trip to prepare for. A few days later the phone becomes quieter, the calendar opens up and there is nowhere in particular you need to be. The river moves on without you. Part of the feeling is relief. Part of it is exhaustion. Yet there is always a small sense of disorientation as well. When a rhythm has governed most of your life for eight or nine months, its sudden absence leaves a noticeable space behind.

The first weeks of winter are usually spent attending to all the jobs that have patiently waited in the background. Boats need maintenance. Gear needs sorting. Thousands of photographs need organising. Emails need answering. Projects that have been pushed aside during the busy months finally receive attention. This year, however, one project sits above all the others.

After several years of work, my book is finally nearing completion.

What began as a simple idea gradually evolved into something much larger than I ever expected. Most weeks involved twenty or thirty hours of writing squeezed around guiding, travel and family commitments. Chapters were written late at night after long days on the water, during quiet afternoons between trips and in motel rooms scattered across Australia, New Zealand and the United States. There was never a dramatic moment where it suddenly felt finished. Instead, it grew slowly, one page and one season at a time.

As I worked through the final manuscript this autumn, something else began to dawn on me. Some of the earliest pieces had been written so long ago that they almost felt as though they belonged to somebody else. One chapter contains an observation about surgeon clients being accustomed to commanding operating theatres full of nurses rather than taking instruction from somebody half their age wearing sandals. I smiled when I read it again. Not because the observation was wrong, but because it inadvertently revealed when it had been written. Next month I turn fifty-four. The person who wrote those words was still in his twenties or early thirties. Reading some of those passages felt a little like opening an old photograph album and discovering details you had forgotten were there.

Throughout the editing process I kept encountering moments like that. A phrase here. An opinion there. A reference to a river that no longer fishes quite the same way. The book gradually became more than a collection of stories. It became a conversation across time between different versions of myself. Life moved on while the pages remained where they had always been, waiting to be revisited.

When I finally sat down and attempted to tally the hours, the figure surprised even me. Since last July, I estimate I have devoted somewhere between twelve hundred and twelve hundred and fifty hours to the manuscript. Spread across the calendar, that works out to roughly twenty-five hours every week for almost a year, the equivalent of about thirty full-time working weeks.

What the figure does not capture is the opportunity cost. During the first half of the fishing season, I deliberately turned down a number of guiding weeks so I could stay home and write. For the first time in thirty years, I found myself saying no to days on the river so I could spend time at a keyboard writing about them. That was not always an easy decision. Guiding is what I do. It is how the business operates and, in many respects, how I have organised much of my adult life. Yet there came a point where the book would either remain a project I talked about on drifts, or it would finally become a project I finished. Somewhere along the way, it ceased to be simply a business project and became a personal obligation.

Most of those twelve hundred hours will never be visible to a reader. They exist in deleted paragraphs, rewritten chapters, abandoned introductions and countless small decisions that nobody else will ever notice. They are hidden in late nights after long guiding days, quiet winter mornings, motel rooms, airport lounges and stolen hours between family commitments.

The illustrations are now underway, and the layout process will begin shortly. If all goes according to plan, the finished book should appear around Father’s Day. For the first time, the finish line is beginning to come into view. Reaching that point has prompted me to consider the path that led here and the surprisingly central role rivers have played in shaping it.

In a few days we will leave Australia and head for the American West. For the first time in many years, this trip is not primarily about fishing or hosting clients. It is first and foremost a family adventure. We will begin in California before travelling through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. There will be deserts and canyons, mountain ranges and national parks, small towns and long stretches of open road. My wife and children will experience much of it for the first time, and I suspect seeing familiar places through their eyes will be every bit as rewarding as visiting the places themselves.

It occurred to me that almost every major chapter of my life has been shaped in some way by rivers. Businesses were built beside them. Friendships emerged from them. Journeys began because of them. Some of our most memorable family holidays eventually found their way back to water. Even many of the people who now occupy important places in our lives first entered through a shared interest in rivers. Sometimes that feels deliberate. More often, it simply feels inevitable.

That thought has caused me to consider how much of my life has been spent following water. Not consciously at first, and certainly not according to any grand plan. Yet when I think about the major turning points in my life, waterways seem to appear with surprising regularity. The Goulburn. The Rubicon. The Delatite. The Jamieson. The Mataura. The Oreti. The Missouri. The Madison. The Yellowstone. Different countries, different landscapes and different cultures, yet somehow connected.

Most people divide their lives into decades, jobs, houses or cities. Increasingly, I find myself remembering periods of life through rivers. A flood. A drought. My first drift boat. The first season in New Zealand. The first Montana trip. Particular clients who became lifelong friends.

When I think about those periods, I rarely begin with the year itself. Instead, I begin with the water. I remember the drought years on the Goulburn. The seasons when willow grubs seemed to fall in their thousands from every tree. The first years rowing a drift boat when every day felt like an experiment. The early New Zealand seasons when we were still learning which valleys held fish and which simply held hope. Even family milestones seem attached to rivers. Places, journeys and memories gradually blur together until it becomes difficult to separate one from the other.

Years later, I still find those memories anchored to surprisingly small details. A bend where an evening hatch suddenly appeared. A gravel bar where an important conversation took place. A valley where a river turned unexpectedly from calm to whitewater. A quiet backwater where somebody finally landed a trout they had dreamed about for years. The details themselves may seem insignificant, but they become markers in time.

The longer I spend around rivers, the more similarities I notice between them. Current behaves the same way whether it is flowing beneath a willow tree in Victoria or a cottonwood in Montana. Trout still seek comfort, security and food. A seam remains a seam. An eddy remains an eddy. Good water still looks like good water. The details change, but the underlying language remains remarkably familiar.

Perhaps that familiarity explains why anglers travel. We often speak about chasing something different, but I suspect we are equally drawn by what feels recognisable. There is comfort in standing beside a river on the other side of the world and understanding what you are looking at. The same currents. The same possibilities. The same small mysteries. Geography changes. The fundamentals do not.

As I get older, I find that reassuring. The destinations change. The people change. The seasons change. Yet rivers continue flowing quietly through the background of our lives, connecting one chapter to the next. A river fished twenty years ago can suddenly return to memory because of a smell, a photograph or a familiar piece of water somewhere else. The thread is never entirely broken.

Over the coming weeks our attention will gradually shift from Australian rivers to American ones. There will be photographs, stories and, hopefully, a few observations worth sharing along the way. Beyond that, another New Zealand season waits on the horizon, followed by the familiar cycle beginning once again.

For now, though, the Goulburn is quiet. The boats are out of the water. The trout are moving upstream. Winter has arrived.

And somewhere beyond the horizon, another river is already beginning to call.

It always does.

Anthony Boliancu
Drift Boat Guide

Reflections on the final week of trout season

There is something different about the final week of a trout season.

The river itself has not changed dramatically. The water still slips through the valley much as it did in September. Trout still rise when conditions align. Cormorants still patrol the shallows. The river gums still lean over the current as though they have been doing it forever. And yet everything feels different.

Perhaps it is because we know what is coming.

In a few days the season will close. Boats will be pulled from the water. Waders will be hung up to dry. Rods will be returned to racks in sheds and garages. The familiar rhythm that has carried many of us through another spring, summer and autumn will pause once again.

The river will remain.

We simply won’t be fishing it.

I’ve always found this final week carries a mood all its own. The urgency of opening day is long gone. The excitement of summer hatches has faded. What remains is something quieter and, in many ways, more meaningful. Reflection.

The boat ramps tell the story first. Back in September there is often an energy about them. Vehicles arrive before daylight. Anglers compare river levels and weather forecasts. New fly lines are stretched across lawns. Optimism hangs in the air. By late autumn most of that has disappeared. The mornings are colder now. Frost settles across paddocks. Breath hangs in front of faces. The valley takes longer to wake. Boat ramps that were busy a few months ago now sit empty until the wattles bloom again.

For those willing to brave the cold there is a certain beauty in that. The river feels larger somehow. Not physically larger, but quieter. More spacious. Less hurried.

Looking back over the season, one of the things that stands out most is how differently reality unfolded compared to expectations. Back in November I experienced one of the busiest mornings I can remember on the Goulburn. In the space of a couple of hours, four commercial rafts jumped ahead of me. At the time it felt as though every guide operation in Victoria had decided to launch on the same stretch of river. Yet after returning from New Zealand in March, I did not see another commercial boat for the remainder of the season.

Not one.

The same river. The same season. Completely different experiences.

That is one of the lessons rivers continue teaching. Conditions change. Pressure changes. Expectations rarely survive contact with reality.

The season surprised me in other ways too. After more than 150 days spent on the water, I saw remarkably few snakes. Three all season, and all of them swimming from one side of the river to the other. None at boat ramps. None while stepping out of the boat for a quick bathroom break. None in the places where I would normally expect to encounter them. Most years there are several memorable snake stories by the time autumn arrives. This year there were almost none.

It’s a small observation, perhaps, but after thirty years on rivers I have learned that the smallest details are often the ones that stay with you. Every season develops its own personality. This one certainly did.

Many of the most memorable moments had very little to do with trout.

One day we guided a father and his daughter who had recently finished high school. On the surface it was simply another family fishing trip. Yet as the day unfolded, it dawned on me that I had first met her father twenty-nine years earlier when he was travelling through Australia on his gap year. Nearly three decades had passed. Somewhere along the way he had built a career, raised a family and returned to the same river with his daughter sitting where he once sat himself.

Guiding occasionally provides moments like that. Little reminders that time moves faster than we realise.

This season also brought the return of several familiar faces we had not seen for years. Some had travelled extensively with us through New Zealand, Montana and Patagonia before gradually disappearing after 2018. In business it is easy to assume that silence means someone has moved on forever. Yet life is rarely that simple. Careers change. Families grow. Priorities shift. Then one day the phone rings, an email arrives, or a familiar name appears on a booking form.

And suddenly they are back.

Their return reminded me that relationships built over years often remain intact even when there are long periods of silence between conversations. Sometimes people are not leaving at all. They are simply off exploring different chapters of their own lives before eventually finding their way back.

Perhaps that theme of returning sits at the heart of fly fishing itself. People return to rivers. They return to places. They return to friendships. And sometimes they return to earlier versions of themselves. The older I get, the more I notice that many of the things we value most seem to operate this way. We wander away for a while, distracted by work, family, travel or simply the demands of ordinary life. Then one day we find ourselves standing in familiar water again, surprised by how much we remember and how much the river remembers of us.

One of the most memorable fish of the season illustrated that beautifully. We were fishing willow grubs to a feeding trout when it all went awry. The fish ate, we hooked it, and almost immediately everything unravelled. Normally that would have been the end of the story. Instead, the trout immediately resumed feeding as though nothing had happened. We presented another fly, hooked the fish again, landed it, and recovered both flies in the process.

It was absurd.

It was improbable.

And it was exactly the sort of thing rivers occasionally do when they feel like reminding you that they still have a sense of humour.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that the fishing itself is only part of the attraction. People arrive carrying all sorts of things onto a river. Some are escaping pressure at work. Some are navigating retirement. Some are celebrating milestones. Some are quietly carrying burdens they rarely discuss anywhere else. Over the course of a day on the water, something often changes. Not dramatically. Rivers rarely operate that way. Instead, they slow people down just enough to notice things again.

A current seam.

An eagle overhead.

The smell of grass after rain.

The sound of oars moving through still water.

Modern life asks for constant attention. Rivers ask for something different. They ask us to observe. That may be one of their greatest gifts.

Looking beyond the Goulburn, my own most memorable day with a fly rod in hand this year did not occur in Australia at all. It happened on Montana’s Upper Madison, in the rough water below Quake Lake where the river tumbles through boulders left behind by the earthquake that changed the valley forever. I spent an entire day alone in the Slide section. Not another angler. Not another voice. Just the constant white roar of fast water and trout appearing beneath big dry flies wherever the current eased for even a fraction of a second.

The fish were wonderful.

The solitude was better.

That same trip also reinforced another lesson. After a difficult series of late withdrawals left me carrying more financial risk than I had anticipated, one particular group of clients quietly stepped forward and looked after me in ways they didn’t have to. Their generosity wasn’t loud or performative. They simply understood the situation and acted with kindness.

After thirty years in business, moments like that still humble me.

We often talk about rivers and trout as though they are the attraction. Increasingly, I think they are simply the mechanism through which good people find one another.

Looking back over the season, that may be what I feel most grateful for.

Not the fish.

Not the numbers.

Not even the rivers themselves.

The people.

The continuity of old friendships. The return of familiar faces. The conversations shared over lunches, campfires, boat ramps and long drives home.

Rivers change.

People change.

The friendships endure.

Of course, the close of one season also marks the beginning of another. Before long attention will shift elsewhere. New Zealand is already beginning to appear on the horizon. Maps will be studied. Flights confirmed. Gear checked and repacked. Montana preparations are quietly underway. At home, a family road trip we have talked about for years is finally approaching, while a manuscript that has occupied countless late evenings for almost a decade edges closer to becoming an actual book.

Life, like rivers, continues moving forward.

Yet for the moment, none of that feels especially urgent.

There are still a few days left. A few more cold mornings. A few more drifts. A few more opportunities to stand beside moving water and appreciate a fishery that has given so much to so many people over the years.

The anticipation of opening day has always been one of fly fishing’s great pleasures.

Strangely enough, so is the close.

The final week reminds us not to take any of it for granted. Not the trout. Not the river. Not the friendships. Not the seasons themselves.

Before long the boats will be parked away and winter will settle properly across the valley. Frost will return to the paddocks. The river gums will stand bare against grey skies. The Goulburn will continue its journey through the valley, carrying no awareness that another trout season has come and gone.

The river will rest.

And perhaps we should too.

Until spring.
Ant

Late May on the Goulburn, and Why the Quiet Weeks Still Matter

By the third week of May, the Goulburn begins to feel as though it is speaking more quietly.

The river is still open. The trout are still there. In many cases they are feeding beautifully. But the tone changes. The bright urgency of spring and summer fades into something more measured. The mornings arrive colder. The shadows stretch further across the water. The anglers who remain are usually the ones who genuinely want to be there.

For many people, the season feels all but over by now. Football has returned. Frost settles across the paddocks at daylight. The forecast no longer carries the promise of warm evenings and careless rises. Yet late autumn often produces some of the most satisfying fishing of the entire season.

Not because it is easy.

Because it asks something different of you.

The river itself changes first. Aquatic weed that grew thick through summer begins to thin. Long slicks of clean walking-speed water reappear. The current takes on definition again. Seams sharpen. Bubble lines become easier to read. Fish that spent much of summer spread through fast oxygenated water begin holding in slower, softer lies.

The insects change too.

The big summer terrestrials are mostly gone now. Just a few crickets and beetles remain. Late autumn on the Goulburn becomes a smaller, quieter game. Tiny Baetis mayflies appear through the middle of the day. Midges gather in the softer edges during calm conditions. Some afternoons still produce surprisingly steady dry fly fishing, but rarely with the recklessness of early season. These fish feed with far more caution now.

You find yourself fishing longer leaders, finer tippets and smaller flies.

And strangely, many experienced anglers enjoy this more.

There is less noise around the river in May. Less racing from run to run searching for obvious surface activity. The fishing slows down in the best possible sense. Anglers begin watching more carefully again.

A trout rising steadily in late May often feels more significant than twenty careless summer fish.

There is also something deeply Australian about these final weeks before the close. The willows begin shedding heavier leaves into the current. Mist hangs low over the flats early in the morning before lifting into pale blue skies. Black cattle stand motionless in frosted paddocks beside the river. Wedge-tailed eagles drift overhead in the middle of the day.

The landscape starts preparing itself for winter.

So do the trout.

By now many fish are beginning to colour slightly ahead of spawning. Larger browns in particular can become increasingly territorial. It is important during this period that anglers fish responsibly and understand what the close season is intended to protect.

The annual winter closure exists for a reason. Wild trout need the opportunity to spawn with minimal pressure and disturbance. Healthy fisheries depend on restraint as much as opportunity. One of the privileges of living beside a river like the Goulburn is understanding that we are only temporary participants in something much older and more important than ourselves.

Good anglers eventually learn that not every season is supposed to be endless.

There is value in things stopping for a while.

In truth, many guides quietly welcome the close season too, even if we rarely admit it publicly. After months spent rowing boats, studying weather forecasts, preparing lunches, untangling knots and living by the rhythms of clients and river conditions, winter offers something increasingly rare in modern life.

Stillness.

Not complete stillness, of course. There are always fly lines to clean, boats to repair, bookings to organise and next season to prepare for. Winter workshops begin shortly after the rivers close and for many anglers this becomes one of the most productive learning periods of the year. Without the distraction of actively chasing fish, people often improve far more quickly.

The quieter months are also when future adventures begin taking shape.

New Zealand season planning is already underway for next summer. Montana preparations continue in the background as another American season slowly approaches. Maps are studied. Flights watched. Gear sorted. Conversations begin again around campfires, airport lounges and kitchen tables.

For many anglers, anticipation is half the enjoyment.

And perhaps that is part of why the final weeks of the local season carry a certain feeling to them. Not sadness exactly. More an awareness that another chapter is closing and another is already quietly forming somewhere beyond it.

A good guide notices these transitions after enough years.

The angle of the light changes. The birdlife changes. The pace of conversations in the boat changes. Even clients fish differently by late May. There is often less urgency and more appreciation. People linger longer at the take-out ramps. They stand quietly beside the river before driving home.

Some seasons pass almost unnoticed. Others leave an imprint behind.

This one certainly felt like the latter.

The Goulburn has again produced some remarkable fishing at times this year. Vignettes rather than sustained glory.

There have been difficult periods too, as there always are. Yet the river continues to remind us why tailwater fisheries remain so compelling. No two drifts are ever truly identical. Conditions evolve daily. One afternoon can humble you completely while the next restores every ounce of confidence you thought you had lost.

That uncertainty is part of the attraction.

It always will be.

As we move toward winter, we will continue sharing a mixture of technical pieces, seasonal observations and stories from further afield here on the blog. There is also another long-term project slowly nearing completion in the background, one that has occupied many quiet evenings over recent years.

More on that in due course.

For now though, there are still a few weeks left.

A few final drifts.
A few cold mornings.
A few trout still rising carefully in soft autumn light.

And for anglers willing to slow down enough to notice, late May may still hold some of the finest fishing of the season.

Late May on the Goulburn, and Why the Quiet Weeks Still Matter

By the third week of May, the Goulburn begins to feel as though it is speaking more quietly.

The river is still open. The trout are still there. In many cases they are feeding beautifully. But the tone changes. The bright urgency of spring and summer fades into something more measured. The mornings arrive colder. The shadows stretch further across the water. The anglers who remain are usually the ones who genuinely want to be there.

For many people, the season feels all but over by now. Football has returned. Frost settles across the paddocks at daylight. The forecast no longer carries the promise of warm evenings and careless rises. Yet late autumn often produces some of the most satisfying fishing of the entire season.

Not because it is easy.

Because it asks something different of you.

The river itself changes first. Aquatic weed that grew thick through summer begins to thin. Long slicks of clean walking-speed water reappear. The current takes on definition again. Seams sharpen. Bubble lines become easier to read. Fish that spent much of summer spread through fast oxygenated water begin holding in slower, softer lies.

The insects change too.

The big summer terrestrials are mostly gone now. Just a few crickets and beetles remain. Late autumn on the Goulburn becomes a smaller, quieter game. Tiny Baetis mayflies appear through the middle of the day. Midges gather in the softer edges during calm conditions. Some afternoons still produce surprisingly steady dry fly fishing, but rarely with the recklessness of early season. These fish feed with far more caution now.

You find yourself fishing longer leaders, finer tippets and smaller flies.

And strangely, many experienced anglers enjoy this more.

There is less noise around the river in May. Less racing from run to run searching for obvious surface activity. The fishing slows down in the best possible sense. Anglers begin watching more carefully again.

A trout rising steadily in late May often feels more significant than twenty careless summer fish.

There is also something deeply Australian about these final weeks before the close. The willows begin shedding heavier leaves into the current. Mist hangs low over the flats early in the morning before lifting into pale blue skies. Black cattle stand motionless in frosted paddocks beside the river. Wedge-tailed eagles drift overhead in the middle of the day.

The landscape starts preparing itself for winter.

So do the trout.

By now many fish are beginning to colour slightly ahead of spawning. Larger browns in particular can become increasingly territorial. It is important during this period that anglers fish responsibly and understand what the close season is intended to protect.

The annual winter closure exists for a reason. Wild trout need the opportunity to spawn with minimal pressure and disturbance. Healthy fisheries depend on restraint as much as opportunity. One of the privileges of living beside a river like the Goulburn is understanding that we are only temporary participants in something much older and more important than ourselves.

Good anglers eventually learn that not every season is supposed to be endless.

There is value in things stopping for a while.

In truth, many guides quietly welcome the close season too, even if we rarely admit it publicly. After months spent rowing boats, studying weather forecasts, preparing lunches, untangling knots and living by the rhythms of clients and river conditions, winter offers something increasingly rare in modern life.

Stillness.

Not complete stillness, of course. There are always fly lines to clean, boats to repair, bookings to organise and next season to prepare for. Winter workshops begin shortly after the rivers close and for many anglers this becomes one of the most productive learning periods of the year. Without the distraction of actively chasing fish, people often improve far more quickly.

The quieter months are also when future adventures begin taking shape.

New Zealand season planning is already underway for next summer. Montana preparations continue in the background as another American season slowly approaches. Maps are studied. Flights watched. Gear sorted. Conversations begin again around campfires, airport lounges and kitchen tables.

For many anglers, anticipation is half the enjoyment.

And perhaps that is part of why the final weeks of the local season carry a certain feeling to them. Not sadness exactly. More an awareness that another chapter is closing and another is already quietly forming somewhere beyond it.

A good guide notices these transitions after enough years.

The angle of the light changes. The birdlife changes. The pace of conversations in the boat changes. Even clients fish differently by late May. There is often less urgency and more appreciation. People linger longer at the take-out ramps. They stand quietly beside the river before driving home.

Some seasons pass almost unnoticed. Others leave an imprint behind.

This one certainly felt like the latter.

The Goulburn has again produced some remarkable fishing at times this year. Vignettes rather than sustained glory.

There have been difficult periods too, as there always are. Yet the river continues to remind us why tailwater fisheries remain so compelling. No two drifts are ever truly identical. Conditions evolve daily. One afternoon can humble you completely while the next restores every ounce of confidence you thought you had lost.

That uncertainty is part of the attraction.

It always will be.

As we move toward winter, we will continue sharing a mixture of technical pieces, seasonal observations and stories from further afield here on the blog. There is also another long-term project slowly nearing completion in the background, one that has occupied many quiet evenings over recent years.

More on that in due course.

For now though, there are still a few weeks left.

A few final drifts.
A few cold mornings.
A few trout still rising carefully in soft autumn light.

And for anglers willing to slow down enough to notice, late May may still hold some of the finest fishing of the season.

30 Years on the Goulburn…  and What the River Still Teaches

I’m writing this from the porch of a cabin in Montana.

The sun has long since dropped behind the hills. A few swallows are still working the evening air. Somewhere downstream, somebody is probably tying on one last fly before dark. The river keeps moving through the valley the same way it did yesterday and the same way it will tomorrow.

It’s a scene I’ve been fortunate enough to witness many times.

For nearly a month we’ve been travelling across Montana’s trout country, fishing the Missouri, the Madison, the Yellowstone and a handful of smaller waters in between. The days develop their own rhythm. Coffee before daylight. Long drifts. Late lunches. Stories over dinner. Then the familiar conversation each evening about where to fish tomorrow.

I’ve been making this journey for years. Not as a guide. The local guides here do an outstanding job of that, and besides, I’d rather avoid testing American immigration law. I simply organise the logistics and share the experience with a small group of anglers who return year after year. Over time many have become friends.

What began as a fishing trip has evolved into something else entirely; a seasonal pilgrimage of sorts. An Australian winter exchanged for an American summer. A chance to spend time on remarkable rivers with good people. And, strangely enough, a chance to think more clearly about home.

I’ve noticed this before. The further I travel from Australia, the more I seem to think about it. Perhaps distance sharpens perspective. Perhaps it simply slows life down enough to notice things that are easy to miss when you’re busy paying bills, answering emails and rushing from one commitment to the next. Whatever the reason, Montana often leaves me reflecting on Australia.

Not in the loud political sense that dominates television panels and social media arguments. Something quieter than that. Something closer to affection.

I grew up in an Australia that felt different from today’s version. Not perfect — no sensible person would claim that — but there was a certain confidence to it. A sense that most people were broadly pulling in the same direction. Communities felt more connected. Institutions seemed more trusted. The future felt less uncertain.

Maybe every generation eventually says something similar. Maybe that’s simply what ageing looks like. But over the past few years I’ve found myself having the same conversation repeatedly with people from very different backgrounds. Doctors. Tradesmen. Farmers. Teachers. Business owners. Retirees.

The details vary. The underlying feeling rarely does.

Something feels different.

Not necessarily worse in every respect. Just different. And perhaps that uncertainty is what so many people struggle to articulate.

Rivers teach an interesting lesson about change. Most rivers don’t transform overnight. A bank collapses here. A gravel bar forms there. One flood moves a little more timber downstream. Year by year the alterations appear minor. Yet return after a decade and the river may be almost unrecognisable.

Countries can feel the same.

The changes arrive gradually enough that we barely notice them while they’re occurring. Then one day, often from a distance, we find ourselves looking back and wondering exactly when things began to feel different.

The older I get, the less interested I become in pretending to have answers. Guiding has cured me of that. Spend enough time on rivers and you develop a healthy respect for complexity. Conditions change. Fish behave unexpectedly. Predictions fail. Certainty becomes harder to maintain.

What remains useful is observation.

Paying attention.

Listening carefully.

Trying to understand what you’re seeing before rushing to conclusions.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I started this blog. Not to tell people what to think. Not to win arguments. Certainly not to lecture anyone. Simply to create a small space for reflection.

Some posts will be about fishing. Some will be about travel. Some will be about rivers, history, books, people and places. And occasionally they may wander into larger questions about the country we live in and the society we’re creating together.

After thirty years spent guiding, I’ve come to believe that thoughtful conversations still matter. So does curiosity. So does the willingness to listen to people whose experiences differ from our own.

The river has taught me that as well.

For now, the light has almost disappeared from the valley. Tomorrow we’ll launch the boats again before sunrise. The trout won’t care about politics, economics or the direction of modern society. They never do.

The river will simply continue flowing downstream as it always has.

And somewhere between here and home, I’ll probably keep thinking about Australia.

Ant

Author Bio

Anthony Boliancu is the owner of Goulburn Valley Fly Fishing Centre and one of Australia’s most experienced Drift Boat Guides. He has spent more than three decades guiding anglers across Victoria, New Zealand and North America. Through Between Casts, he explores fly fishing, travel, history, philosophy and the larger currents shaping the world around us.