Keeping in touch with the line
Have you heard the words "keep in touch with the line"? What does this mean? To keep in touch with your line is to keep your rod tip low to the water. This removes much of the slack from the line. When you remove the slack from your line, you are more likely to feel the take when a fish eats your fly. And when the fish eats your fly, there's no slack line for it to run away with. And there's less line for you to pull in, giving the fish less chance of diving into the weeds or [...]
The weed line…
In bright, calm conditions, with occasional cloud, a fish or two are showing just outside the weed line, moving around in the light current, and their exact location can be hard to predict. When they do show, committing to an immediate fly placement in the zone, preferably just upstream from the rise, will be the best opportunity to illicit a response.
Trout Fly stock box
This is Gary's stock box where he will take a few flies to suit the location and the time of season, and place them in a much smaller box he carries with him. The aim is to narrow down to a few functional and productive generic flies, and a few imitative flies specific to the available foods. Check out some of our flies and how to tie them here. Image: #NECIAUS & Ideasbanq
Grasshopper
Here's a grasshopper fly. Into the warmest months of Tasmania's summer, grasshoppers are a feature on rivers and lakes. This is a foam bodied hopper that will float all day, and imparted with the right sort of movement, twitch twitch, bringing it to life, is a highly effective dry fly technique.
Blue sky and bubble lines
In Tasmania, we don't have to travel too far to find beautiful rivers, streams, and lakes. Here on a blue sky day we can see the fish with polaroid sunglasses. Also take note of the shade created by the overhanging tea trees where there are beetles falling and trout feeding. Look closely to see the slow main current seam passing the tip of the shady area. This is known as a bubble line and that's where trout food is concentrated. In these very calm conditions, find the trout feeding first and only then make a presentation with your fly. A [...]
Feisty lowland river brown trout
In Tasmania, feisty lowland river brown trout, when showing interest in hovering damsel flies - a moving target - are hard to tempt. With this beautiful trout, a well presented black spinner, size 12, did the trick. A drag free drift is paramount in any dry fly presentation. Image: Gary France, Trout Territory #traumreel
Life Cycle of the Tasmanian Mayfly
In Tasmania, developing a sense around what trout foods are available, where and when, increases the chances for success. Mayfly are in full swing from September/October on the lakes and rivers of the lowlands. The highlands follows a little later due to its altitude and climate. These mayfly hatches continue through to around March, peaking again on the lowlands through to the end of April and the season's close. Altitude plays a major role along with water and air temperature; changing light conditions, i.e. cloud cover; and wind and climate. Nymph The Nymph Nymphs live in the water [...]
Brothers in arms
Gary and his brother Colin spent some time on Four Springs one day during October. Bright blue sky and very calm, flat conditions with very few duns hatching, but spinner scattered over the water laying their eggs. Very exciting fishing, tracking these quality fish that move around and are hard to predict. Good mayfly spinner imitations and accurate fly placement will undo these fish. The black spinner fly pictured emphasises the long tails, sparse quill body, and minimal hackle. The hook is a size 12, and strong enough wire to handle these wild browns around the 2kg mark. The wing [...]
Leven River, Tasmania
The upper reaches of the River Leven, not far from Cradle Mountain, rise through sink holes just like the Vale River and they are both on opposite sides of the range. The water of the Leven is very light tannin, and the Leven is one of the only rivers in Tasmania with no dams on it. It also has the highest values for macro invertebrate counts. There are good numbers of Mayfly and this is used as a scientific indicator to show the quality of a river system. There is Anglers Access at Loongana, a section which is open from [...]
Windlanes on Arthurs Lake
In sultry conditions with a thunderstorm on the forecast, these windlanes can carry decent volumes of trout foods, and in this case, flying ants are swarming and ending up on the surface. As the clouds approach and the light level drops the wild browns in Arthurs love ants and some of these dry fly fishing sessions can go for hours. I find that when the fish are really up, using a mayfly emerger around size 14, which is a little bigger than the high volume of small ants, often results in a take.