Fly fishing

Another fine example of Tasmania's wild brown trout in food-rich environments. Simon had fun with a few rainbows and this nice brown using dun emergers.

During the absence of any major dun hatch, with hardly a fish showing, we opted for the bead head nymph over the weed beds, which resulted in two nice brownies. Peter kept in touch with the nymph nicely as he twitched it along, and responded quickly to the take.

Stewart takes a great delight in the dry fly, and we worked on some bow and arrow casting to get into some tight places. On bright hot days a lot of fish will be moving freely in the shade. Here Steward caught and released two browns on the dry in quick succession by covering the water well, especially getting the fly close to structure like logs and the bankside vegetation.

Tim enjoyed sight fishing to wild river browns on the St Patrick's with small grasshopper imitations. Tim covered sippers in the shade and polaroided fish in the open sunny sections and was able to bring a few fish to hand.

Reliable even in the toughest of conditions, Arthur's Lake produces the first ever trout for David. This brownie took a well placed cast in amongst the sticks.

Enjoying several days fishing Tassie's rivers and lakes, Jon was particularly pleased with this lovely Western Lakes brown. In tough light with windy conditions, this beauty took a parachute hackle red spinner.

Stalking with a dry fly to big wild brown trout over sandy bottoms. It's December, summer in Tasmania. Visiting from the UK, Alec Tarrant is an experienced fly fisher, frequenting salty waters for species such as bone fish and tarpon. Alec is keen to find out if Tasmania's wild trout fishing offers the same heart thumping excitement. Alex is staying at Ross in the northern midlands. I meet him at his accommodation, Somercotes, and we head east to Lake Leake. Lake Leake's current water level is around 200nm below spilling. This time last year the lake was very low. Fortunately [...]

An accomplished wet fly fisherman, John wanted to develop his dry fly skills, which he did, landing a number of browns, including this fine trout, using one of our favourite flies, the Tups Indispensable.

In bright conditions, Fergus watched this Great Lake brownie leisurely come up to chomp down on a large foam beetle imitation, timed the hook-up beautifully and here is the happy result.

Once again, Brumbys saves the day! Starting the day in the highlands at Penstock, the wind started whipping sheets of water through the air, so we came down to check out some protected spots on the northern lowland rivers. This nice brownie was polaroided and after a tricky cast it came up to sip Gary's small orange beetle imitation.