Short Stories & Fishing Tales

Just prior to Christmas John enjoyed the mayfly activity on Penstock, with a number of modest to reasonable rainbows and this typical fine brown trout.

Stuart pleased as punch with a Penstock brown trout around 4lbs that sipped down a small dry fly right in against the shoreline in 4 inches depth of water. The fish tore off to the middle of the lake and took some work to eventually land.

Mickey refined her casting skills along the main flow of Brumbys Creek and landed her first wild brown trout. Bob fished up to a backwater to find a good fish showing occasionally and very subtle. We waited for an opportune moment and lay the fly out in ambush. Suddenly it was gone and a few minutes later Bob landed and released a fine Brumbys Creek brown trout. Here's Mickey with her fish.

Never having fly fished before, Greg spent two days with us. We sampled both rivers and lakes while we worked on the basic skills. We found fish feeding on grasshoppers on the Meander River, caught and released several brown trout using a size 14 Royal Wolf. Some of these were in tricky spots, others out in the open water.

David had the gear and some casting lessons and was keen to master the art of catching a trout on the dry fly. A little time spent on stream craft and approach had David placing some well controlled casts at rising fish. Not too long and David landed his first wild river brown trout on the St Patrick's River. And then another and another....

Tom's guided fishing tour was a surprise birthday gift. He and friend John came to learn more about loch style and dry fly techniques. This is Tom with a fine brown trout from Woods Lake.

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.