Trailing a mudeye
It was a tough day on the mayflies so trailing a mudeye just sub-surface behind an emerger, cast close to the moving reeds, enabled Cindy to bring this strong brown trout to the boat. Cindy and Mike came fishing in Tassie in November. Image Credit: Gary France
Mayfly chomping wild brown trout
Good weed beds and reliable food sources will harbour better than average specimens. This mayfly chomping Arthurs Lake wild brown trout is a good example. Fiona presented a twin dry fly rig and on the point was a no-hackle CDC emerger, which was promptly taken without hesitation. Image credit: Gary France
Northern shores of Arthurs Lake
The road less trodden along the northern shores of Arthurs Lake, with rich weed beds and extensive shallow margins, harbours some very good specimens like this 53cm brown trout, which came up from the bottom in a foot of water to take an emerging mayfly imitation. Image: Gary France
Chunky river brown
This chunky river brown trout took a number of presentations to notice the fly was even there. Once landed the fly in the right place with the right drift, my black spinner fly was noticed, and taken. The black spinner is a go to fly in Tasmania's mayfly season for any river or lake. Image by Gary France, Trout Territory
Wild wind and trout
Isn’t it summer? Despite some wild wind, James and dad Roger enjoyed a couple of days in the Central Highlands. Here’s James with one of his brown trout caught on the fly. Image credit: Nick May
Kelso Flathead
On a recent trip to the Kelso sandflats on the Tamar River, north of Launceston, this Flathead was caught in around a foot of water on a runout tide. Measuring 55cm, these fish go really well on light tackle. On this day we also managed to secure a number of Whiting on the same sand patch.
Two fly rig fools nice browns
Here's one of a couple of good browns caught through the middle of the day that took a stick caddis underneath or the spinner on the surface of a two fly rig. Image: Gary France
Uncooperative weather doesn’t stop us!
Trevor and Vorn planned their trip to coincide with usual stable river heights and focus on their river fishing skills and techniques. The weather gods didn't get the memo! With rivers once again in flood, and rising, the best we could do was to focus on wild browns moving up with the flood waters into side waters and lagoons. That was the first day, which also included some torrential rain. We did find a few swirlers and tails. The first two photos are from the second and third days where we reverted to loch style dry fly techniques on still [...]
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 [...]
Early September in Tassie’s northern lowlands
Water temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius, and no sign of any real surface activity or insects. A bright clear day, so we adopted wet flies and worked on different retrieves, which undid a few fish, mainly close to shore. This fish is showing a recovery from some cormorant damage, has maintained condition and pulled strongly.