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1103, 2024

From the clear waters of the Mersey River

March 11th, 2024|Categories: Fly fishing, Hints & Tips|

Below Lees Paddocks on the clear waters of the Mersey River, these fish lie in wait in shady pockets and near undercut banks for the occasional grasshopper as they gather condition for the rigors of spawning that are not far away. With light wind conditions out come the four weight fly rods. The fly is a hopper pattern. Image: Gary France, Trout Territory

603, 2024

Grasshoppers on the Leven River

March 6th, 2024|Categories: Fly fishing, Hints & Tips|

Grasshopper time on the Leven River, bright warm conditions, late season. Extremely good conditions for polaroiding when the sun is directly overhead. Find the fish, figure out an effective presentation, tread very carefully to minimise sound and vibration transfer. Felt soles work really well here. Find the fish? Face upstream with sun coming from behind, scan the water looking for fish movement or rises. You may see a tail or shadow. We know fish are territorial and will station there, so once you see them there's no need to cast all over the place. Image by Gary France

103, 2024

Shallow weedy bottoms

March 1st, 2024|Categories: Fly fishing, Hints & Tips|

Blue sky days, the best of the best of polaroiding with minimal glare over shallow sandy and weedy bottom lagoons. Ada, in the Nineteen Lagoons of Tasmania. With lots of weed here, we take the approach of being stationary, scanning, and waiting for fish to pass by, rather than the contrast of long sandy flats where we might move rather swiftly. Image by Gary France

2602, 2024

Lying in wait

February 26th, 2024|Categories: Fly fishing, Hints & Tips|

In a northern midlands river, a wild trout lies in wait on a narrow flowing channel. A single bow and arrow cast with a grasshopper landed with a splat resulted in a solid hookup. An 8lb tippet was used to get the fish in quickly and released without harm.   When water temperatures are above 20 deg Celsius it's really important to give these fish a good chance of survival, so minimal time out of the water. Image by Gary France

2102, 2024

Three lakes and an estuary

February 21st, 2024|Categories: Estuary, Estuary Fishing, Fly fishing, Uncategorised|

Across four days fly fishing with Gary in Tasmania, Christopher and Brian enjoyed a number of lakes and the Tamar estuary. On Arthurs Lake we found activity and success to surface pulled flies around the Hydro Bay islands, where we also found some decent froth lines, drawing up typical Arthurs browns to grasshopper patterns. Little Pine Lagoon in good overcast conditions with a light to moderate breeze from the north fished rather well, with numbers of fish landed and the best action in the middle of the afternoon to a few waves of duns hatching. Early overcast conditions on Penstock [...]

1502, 2024

Family experience

February 15th, 2024|Categories: Fishing Tales, Fly fishing|

As beginners to fly fishing, Vikki, Eric, and Zane were stars from the word go. The family are seasoned fishos and their aim in Tasmania was to tick fly fishing for trout off their bucket list. We headed to yingina/Great Lake in cool, yet bright conditions, with a few slicks in the light northerly winds, and just enough beetles to get a few fish showing. All did well on the water getting used to fly fishing methods.  Vikki secured this nice wild brown trout on a twitched grasshopper. “Hi Gary and Fiona, We wanted to say thank you so much [...]

1002, 2024

Spinner pattern on the South Esk

February 10th, 2024|Categories: Fly fishing|

South Esk, the river running a little high and discoloured, but with the winds coming off the eastern bank we found a number of fish sporadically feeding on mayfly spinner through the calmer spells. Mark, fishing with us in January, caught wild trout using a spinner pattern, and in the fast water glides there was interest to a small bead head nymph.

2312, 2023

Damselfly diet

December 23rd, 2023|Categories: Fishing Tales, Fly fishing|

By mid December mayfly hatches were thinning out but a few were still present along with damselfies. Rising trout sporadic from time to time and this one took a possum emerger. We kept this one for dinner and discovered the stomach was full of damselfly adults. On this particular day there was a great sky giving some good cloud cover and some bright spells, mixed with moderate winds, mid 20s temperature... doesn't get more pleasant for a day on the water. Gary is happy with this wild brown trout   The stomach contents of the brown trout [...]

1912, 2023

A rainbow and a brownie

December 19th, 2023|Categories: Fishing Tales|

Water temperatures early in December were surprisingly still under 20 degrees Celsius and the weed hadn't really become a major problem. We headed to some clear water anyway, and Charlie hooked up with this splendid rainbow. Using the net Joel helped his dad to get the first fish on board. Shortly after lunch Joel hooked into a nice brown trout which proceeded to run through the weeds and snags, but with some perseverance Joel still managed to bring the fish to the boat and land it. Joel with his wild brown trout   Charlie and Joel with [...]

1512, 2023

Lake Leake brown trout

December 15th, 2023|Categories: Fly fishing|

Numbers of young wild brown trout are coming to mayfly patterns on Lake Leake. Fairly gusty conditions, working closer into shore in the more protected areas over shallow weedy margins. Prolonged low water levels, virtually nobody on the lake, middles of the day. Image credit: Gary France  

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