Another day in April
Another day in early April, on the Mersey River. In the absence of any surface activity Mark worked a tungsten bead nymph under a dry fly to secure a chunky rainbow and a couple of small browns. This is a wide open riffle section of the river, not too difficult to wade, and with plenty of room for casting, even for up to two people.
Smelt Feeder
On this particular day earlier in April, it was hard to find enough mayfly on the surface or find any fish even looking for them. The tactic here was to find bust ups of small smelt spraying on the surface and the signs of charging trout. We hang in on the zone until they show again, then cast. Mark is pretty happy with this wild brown trout.
Early spring on Four Springs
In September Joe, Kayla, and MJ rugged up warm for a fun day learning to fly fish on Four Springs. The first mayflies had not started to appear yet, as the water temperature was not warm enough. So we used wet flies, imitating fish and subaquatic organisms, learning how they move. This fish responded to a rather slow retrieve, and MJ got to feel the weight, and practice controlling a good fish with the fly rod from the boat, close to the bank and other aquatic structure. MJ steering the fish to the boat, Kayla netting it. MJ with [...]
Floodwaters brownie
Late October with the Macquarie in prolonged flood through a back to back annual La Nina weather pattern, the Macquarie browns are putting on great condition with the amount of available foods, and given the right conditions, this beautiful brown trout was feeding on adult mayflies and damselflies. Talking about the right conditions... what are they? In this case, it was light winds, overcast skies, the temperature around 20 deg Celsius. Limited window, this was through the middle hours of the day. Talking about available foods... why is that? With prolonged raised water levels, grubs, spiders, worms, beetles, etc. forced [...]
Early season on Four Springs
Four Springs. After a couple of short drifts and no action, we moved further across the lake and spotted a wind lane. Kylie kept in touch with a slow retrieve to get a solid hookup on her first Tasmanian brown trout.
Hard fighting wild trout
Between Christmas and new year, warm breezy conditions put a number of beetles on Great Lake, and coupled with a nice cloud cover, lead to good surface activity. Harry and Jim twitched large hopper style dry flies to land a number of fine, hard fighting brown and rainbow trout.
Hunting wild browns on Great Lake
Carey was on the hunt for wild browns in bright conditions on Great Lake. Big bushy flies are drawing the Great Lake fish up in the absence of any significant beetle hatches. Most essential is allowing them to take the offering and begin descending. Carey locked up on this wild brown in a wind protected bay, not far from shore.
Penstock Lagoon, early summer
We were on Penstock Lagoon, in Tasmania's central highlands, working from the shore during a very modest dun hatch. Jonathan's controlled, accurate casting with an emerger mayfly pattern, on a relatively short line, to risers that came within reach, produced tow outstanding brown trout for the session.
Polaroiding in the Nineteen Lagoons
Fly fishers love blue sky days Blue sky days are one of the most appreciated events in the Tasmanian fly fishers experience. Hard to predict, but when you do get one, the combination of high summer sunlight coupled with favourable wind direction, open up the waters of the highlands lakes in the shallow, weedy, sandy and rocky lagoons. At times you can spot fish further away than you can cast. And on these days the numbers of fish seen are usually greater. Ideally, the sunlight is coming from behind, or over your shoulder, and you are looking into the back [...]
Short session on Brumbys Creek
A mild to warm day and light winds, yet the water temperature was very cool as the water had spent the previous few days rising. We used small dry flies and small, unweighted nymph in this short session. This pic shows Fred creeping up on just a few fish sipping gently in calm conditions.