Early Trout Season Lure Fishing Setup — Matt Sherriff

Setting up for early season lure fishing

Matt Sherriff is a fishing nuts and a good part of his business is developing and distributing tackle. Here is his guide to setting yourself up for success.

Well, Trout season is here again and looking as promising as ever! Winter rains have seen some much needed water return to many lakes and the Inland Fisheries Service have been busy stocking some of the popular waters around our state.

Early season lure fishing is a great way to actively target Trout as many fish will be trying to put condition back on after their spawning run. Recent rains have boosted lake levels and most rivers are flowing well which will be fantastic as feeding trout will be moving over the flooded margins which is especially good for anglers fishing from the shore. The right setup does not need to be expensive, but does need to be balanced

Ideal fishing setup

Rod: When fishing lighter lures such as bibbed minnows and soft plastics a 1-3kg or 2-4kg rod is ideal. The 1-3kg rods are great for those that enjoy fishing ultra light, but the 2-4kg models are a great allrounder that is able to handle heavier lures and is a better option if you’re wanting to troll or if kids may be using the rods. Ensure you check the lure rating on the rods as some of the high modulus, ultra-light carbon blanks are only designed to fish lures up to 4g. Therefore, if you are intending to use heavier lures such as Tassie Devils which can range from 7 - 26g you will need a composite or fiberglass rod which will accommodate for these heavier lures. Most manufacturers have rods available in lengths from 6’ through to 8’ with the most popular sizes being 6’6” and 7’. Note that the higher the modulus of the rod, the more feel it will have, however these rods which are more expensive need to be cared for as they will not handle carelessness as

well as the cheaper lower modulus models. Guides are also an important feature with many of the newer rods now running tangle-free “k” guides. These make a huge difference when fishing with lighter fused or braided lines, especially on windy days, helping to avoid the line getting tangled around the guides. Worst case scenario is when one of the top guides is wrapped and you get a fish on which has the potential to break the rod!

Reel: Ideally, your reel should match your rod. Most of the above-mentioned rod sizes will best suit reels in the 1000 – 2500 size range. What you are looking for is a balanced set-up. If you’ve spent good money on an ultra-light carbon rod make sure the reel you choose is light enough that it doesn’t unbalance your rod. As a rough guide, your rod should balance evenly on a single finger placed close to the front of the foregrip.

Reels for trout fishing do not require high capacity spools and anything that holds around 150 metres of line will be fine. The reel should operate smoothly, preferably have infinite anti-reverse and a good drag system. The main thing to look for with the drag is that it is finely adjustable and smooth running, some of the newer reels are fitted up with carbon drag washers which are much better than traditional felt ones. A smoothly operating drag will minimise your chances of losing a good fish! Smooth drag it especially important with braid as it has no stretch.

Line: Whilst monofilament lines are still used, these days most lure anglers are preferring to run straight through fluorocarbon or braid with a fluoro leader.

Fluorocarbon will give you an almost invisible link between your rod and lure, is very easy to manage for anglers and it is ok to use on lower priced reels. It is also less likely to form wind knots when compared to braid as well as there being no need to tie on separate leaders which can save time and frustration (especially if you’re like me and your eyes aren’t as good as they used to be).

However, on the downside, fluoro has a degree of stretch or elasticity which lessens the feedback through the line. This means you will not feel as much action from the lure which makes in turn makes it harder to feel hits from fish and also to know if you’ve got weed on your lure. This line is ok for those just fishing hard bodied lures, but you will really struggle to convert fish on soft plastics without feeling strikes. Fused or braided lines on the other hand have zero stretch which coupled with new aged carbon rods lets you feel everything that’s going on at the lure, most importantly changes to the action and any hits from a fish. When you feel a hit, you can pause your lure or change the retrieve which more often than not will turn into a hook-up especially with soft plastics!

The other benefit of these lines is their small diameter for the breaking strain which allows you to cast light lures much farther and therefore enabling you to cover more ground when searching for fish.

The offset for these advantages is that you have to use better line management to avoid loose wraps of line forming knots and also use braid friendly reels that lay the line tight on the spool. You will also need to tie a leader between the braid and the lure which creates the invisible link to the lure.

Your local tackle shop will be more than happy to let you know what reels are suitable for braid and the characteristics of the different lines. They’re also a great place to try reels on rods to feel their balance which is something that can’t be done over the internet!

Lures: There are many different styles of lures on the market and as anglers we are spoilt for choice. There are three variants of lures that I use which cover the majority of scenarios you will be faced with, these are shallow running minnows, deep minnows and soft plastics.

Shallow Minnows: these lures are generally between 50-80mm long and swim less than one metre below the surface. They are a great baitfish imitation which can be used around edges and shallow margins.

Deep Minnows: also representing baitfish, these lures generally run between 1.5 – 3 metres deep and are used to target fish in deeper water around drop offs and weed beds.

Soft Plastics: representing small baitfish, worms, insects etc, soft plastics can be weighted according to depth or current and give you the ability to work the

entire water column whether that’s a shallow edge or a weed bed eight metres down in great lake. The versatility of these lures makes them a valuable addition to the tackle box!

Whichever lure you choose, try to closely match what fish could be potentially feeding on and work that lure through the water in a natural way. It is important to mix up your retrieve as different actions tend to work better on different days!

When fishing minnows, I will generally incorporate a slow retrieve with intermittent rod twitches and a couple of pauses. Take note of what you are doing when you get hits as this is often the key to unlocking the bite.

If you do feel a tap and don’t hook up, I find momentarily pausing your retrieve followed by a couple of small twitches of the rod before resuming your retrieve will often result in a secondary strike! Experiment with this as you will definitely convert more fish when you mix it up.

If you’re looking at a new rod, make sure you check out the Crucis brand, with the Tempesta range coming in well under $100 and the Aegis models around $169. Ask your local tackle store to pair these with a reel for balance or take your own reel in to try.

Nearly all the trout I catch are on Hawk Sniper and Megabass lures along with Strike Tiger Plastics. Our business imports these rods and lures and are more than happy to help with any questions you may have. Michal Rybka is the distributor of Strike Tiger lures which is another local business. On behalf of myself and Michal we certainly appreciate everyones support, especially in recent times!

Keep an eye out on the Sherriff Fishing and Outdoor Facebook page as well; we are about to run a tagged trout competition in one of the lakes with $1,000 worth of prizes up for grabs for the 2020/21 season!

Tight lines, I hope you have a great start to the season! Matt Sherriff A soft plastic doing the job during high water on a river.

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The lowland lakes will fish well early. Early Season and Sinking Lines

Commonwealth fly fishing champion, Lubin Pfeiffer shares a few of his ideas.

Its early season here in Tasmania and the fish are hungry after the cold winter. Regardless of which of the lowland lakes you choose to fish, the trout will be eager to chase bigger offerings at this time of year. There are several techniques that work in these fisheries but fishing them with sinking lines can be the most effective. In this article I’ll run through the techniques I’ve found to become super effective while fishing Tasmania’s lakes - especially with sinking lines.

Early Season Options

sinking lines will get you to where the fish are holding. My favourite type of water would have to be lakes that have a good thick weedy bottom with about 1-2 metres of clear fishable water over the top of it. This water is just perfect for trout to cruise around in and has lots of food with plenty of cover. You can then make searching casts drifting over this and usually picking up lots of fish. Brushy, Blackmans, Big Waterhouse, Four Springs and Leake are perfect examples of this type of water. Early season will see great bags of fish come from fishing with sinking lines pulling flies such as woolly buggers or streamers. The amazing thing about Tasmania is there are countless lakes where this technique will work. If there is a piece of water that has trout in it, chances are they will be catchable using a sinking line setup.

The Gear To Get Set-Up

Commonly fishing with sinking lines in lakes is done by competition anglers and that means that the set-up is a little complicated. That said though, once you are set-up you will have a selection of lines that will enable you to fish any lake right across the globe. Thats the thing that I love about competition based techniques. Once you learn them you can take them anywhere in the world to catch fish, and usually lots of them. To get started you will need a suitable rod. Because of the weight of sinking lines you need something with a little

bit of grunt. My preferred selection is a 6wt. As most of my sinking line fishing is done from boats I like to opt for a rod length of 10ft. This not only gives me extra power on the cast, it also helps me control my flies at the end of my retrieve during the ‘hang’. A 10ft rod length will also make landing fish easier from a boat. Comparing a standard 9ft 6wt rod to a longer 10ft version side by side in a boat you will definitely notice the difference. Reel selection is another very important piece of the puzzle. For sinking line fishing in boats, it could not be more true in saying that the reel is simply a line storage device. Rarely will you be fighting a fish off of the reel in a boat. As a line storage device though, it plays a massive part in successful fishing. You need a reel that comes with a large selection of spare spools to interchange lines throughout the days fishing, sometimes even throughout a drift if necessary. So with that in mind, choose a reel that comes with the option of getting spare spools easily. You can get away with a few to start with but I feel a little lost if I’m not heading out on a lake with my set of eight different spools with me. These are all loaded with lines of different sink rates and characteristics.

Fly Lines, Leaders and Tippet

The sink rate of fly lines is measured in ‘Di’ which is the ‘Depth in inches’ it will sink per second it is in the water. For example a Di5 fly line will sink five inches each second it is in the water. A Di3 will sink three inches for every second and so on. For my lake reel and line selection I like to have a full set of lines to cover every water I may come across.

Rather than having a selection of flies in different weights like you would fishing in rivers, the depth your flies sink when fishing in lakes, for the most part, should be dictated by the weight of the line taking them down. Because of this, I will take everything from a Di7, Di5, Di3, Fast Intermediate, Intermediate and floating lines. That way, regardless of the flies I have selected, I can fish them where the fish are holding.

Moving across a lake for different drifts and coming across several depths of water I will simply change the line and not the flies I am using. If the flies you are using in one part of the lake are working there is little point in changing them. Same goes with the effect of wind. On calmer days you will find your flies will sink faster than on days of high winds. This is due to the speed the boat drifts and the waves in the water. So if you are successfully fishing one area with a Di3 but find in the fishing session the wind starts to blow, you can change to a Di5 and continue you to fish your flies at the same successful depth. This is the reason for needing a selection of spools to change you lines quickly and efficiently.

I use the WaterWorks Lamson Remix reels and find them very easy to change over. I’ll explain my tippet construction shortly, but for me to change over a three fly rig during a competition session it is a simple wind the line back on to the spool, cut the line, pop off the unwanted line and spool, then pop and tie on the new one ready for casting. With a correctly set-up reel selection and braided loops on your fly lines, this should only take around one minute, some times less.

A boat will allow you to cover more water.

Fly Selection

Fly selection for me using sinking lines is predominantly streamer type flies. You are using a

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A towing mishap in early January saw the bimini cover on our boat fly off the back like it had taken up parasailing. Luckily there were no cars behind us as it became airborne not far from the Epping Forest shop. What to do? Should we salvage what was left and seek a repair with the debris I collected on my 400 metre ‘walk of shame’ or should we just bite the bullet and get a new one built? Eventually it was decided to go the new option, along with the addition of some clears and sidewalls which was my wife Janet’s suggestion as apparently she likes staying dry when fishing - who knew? Anyway, did the due diligence thing and settled on a quote by a young fellow who runs a business called Mick’s Canvas, out at Mt Direction on the Tamar River. We were very pleased with the quality of the job, his professionalism and the price. Above are a couple of pictures of the new bimini. If you’re in the market for this kind of service, give Mick a call. Shop local, support local. Todd and Janet Lambert Mick’s Canvas 0447 590 797

technique that is searching for the fish, so it only seems natural to use searching type flies. My main choice are woolly buggers. It’s astounding how many variants there are of this fly and while it may seem confusing, don’t fret as there is a system to use which is easy to understand. I question just how much difference you need in each of your woolly buggers. For me, the most important part is size and colour.

Weight plays a small part but only occasionally as this should be dictated by the sink rate of your fly line. Sometimes I like to have a point fly as anchor which I will tie with a tungsten bead. For the most part though, all of my woolly buggers are tied with brass beads. These are also way easier to cast. My woolly bugger selections consist of the main successful fly colours which are brown, black and olive. I will then have variants of these which may have an orange bead, gold body, flash in the tail or a hot spot of some sort. I like to tie them in various sizes.

For Tassie, I find I am mostly using flies from size 8 through to size 14. This selection covers a lot of different types of water for me. While I could go through individual names of certain woolly buggers, I see very little point as you only get caught up in the hype and miss the fact that they are all very similar. The more I trout fish, the less I think a trout is going to care if one has two strands of red flash or three as it gets ripped past them on a sinking line at pace. Forming your own opinion often leads to better fish catches anyway, trout get smart and fishing the same flies as everyone else is not the best tactic to use especially in heavy fished areas such as Tasmania.

The reason the best anglers are always catching more is that they don’t follow the crowds which gives them a much better understanding as to why a fish is eating a particular fly. The Europeans are a perfect example of this, where most of their woolly buggers are very simple to tie and catch more fish than most of us put together.

Tippet selection

Tippet selection is pretty simple. I don’t use a tapered leader when using this technique and this means all that is needed when I hit the water is a couple of spools of tippet to cover the days fishing. Your tippet breaking strength should be selected depending on the size of fish you expect to encounter. Large fish in the 2-4kg bracket require a tippet of around 0.22mm/4.5kg, this size tippet is also great for when you are fishing in high winds as you will get less tangles. For smaller fish and less wind you may go with a tippet of 0.18mm/3.0kg. If the water you are fishing has a bit of colour in it, you can get away with thicker tippet than what you can when it is very clear.

It’s always best practise to be on the heavy side to start with and then go lighter as your confidence grows with the technique. Because you are pulling the flies quite hard at times it can be easy to bust a fish off on the take. To construct a tippet, simply tie three - 1.5m

Try to have a range of flies in different colours and sizes. pieces of tippet together using a surgeons knot. The top of your first piece will connect to your braided loop, you then need to leave a 150mm ‘dropper’ on the next two tags for your middle flies, and then the point fly can be tied on at the bottom. It is most common to use this technique with three flies but you can use only two if it is easier for you to start with. I like to construct spare leaders before heading out on to the water and wrap these are a foam board and keep them in my bag. That way when I’m drifting around in the boat in the wind and get a tangle, I can quickly unwrap a brand new leader and tie one knot to get fishing again.

Retrieves

The retrieve is what brings your fly in to life. With this in mind, you need to be-able to picture how your woolly buggers are moving through the water. I suggest this to most people new to fishing and it’s such a great thing to do. Put your flies in the water in front of you where you can see them and move them in the way you plan to retrieve them. There’s no point doing a long cast and never really understanding how the flies are moving. After you’ve seen them up close, you can then do small twitches, or speed up or slow down your flies to really entice a bite from a fish. The worst thing you can do when pulling sinking lines is gets caught up doing the same retrieve over and over if it isn’t working. Try stripping them fast, try slow, try constant retrieves and everything in between until you find out what is working on that day. Another good tactic that works over a range of different Tassie lakes, is to hang your flies at the end of the retrieve. This is usually done a couple of rod lengths from the boat and it is best to do just before you get sight of your flies. You can hang them for only a few seconds or up to 20 seconds or more, it just depends on what the fish want at the time. Rarely if ever, will I lift my flies out of the water and recast straight away. Lubin Pfeiffer