Tasmanian Fishing and Boating News Issue 100 2012 October

Issue 100 October - November 2012

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0 0 1 E U ISS c i t s a t n a F 15 Feature Stories

Kayaking Lake Echo Sea Runners Western Lakes

NEW Fish Cleaning Techniques Three Weight Rods River Mayflies Sandy Rivers Weather Tips Print Post approved; PP 702512 00027

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6 9

18 22

Western Lakes Adventure — Peter Broomhall

4

Australian Salmon — Craig Rist

9

The Weather Factor — Joe Riley

12

Stop Drifting — Peter Hayes

14

South Esk Kayaking — Michal Rybka

18

Sandy River Secrets — Simon-peter Hedditch

22

Flies From Mick Hall’s Fly Box — Mick Hall

26

Lowland Mayflies — Daniel Hackett

27

Western Lakes — Six Tips — Daniel Hackett

31

Jan’s Flies — Jan Spencer

32

Cleaning Your Catch - New Techniques — Shane Flude

35

Three Weight Rods — Gavin Hicks

36

Lake Echo Revisited — Shane Flude

40

Sea Runner Excitement — Christopher Bassano

43

Bass Boat Rebuild — Craig Rist

47

Marine Fishery News

50

Inland Fishery News

51

Reviews 52

My Say Y

ou are reading Issue 100. That is a milestone for any magazine these days. Sales with many are declining rapidly, but many small niche markets are often going along nicely. We are, and one reason is because we have great writers who fish. That sounds simplistic, but writers who ‘just do it’ are not that common. It is one key to retaining our readership.

TFBN’s philosophical overview is to supply information that a reader can read and say ‘hey I’d like to try that’ then from the article be able to go and do it successfully.

Take a look in this issue at any article and they will give you the confidence to go and ‘give it a try’.

There is nowhere you will ever find the extensive fishing information Tasmanian Fishing and Boating News has published. TFBN has had many writers over nearly 17 years, and we thank every one for their efforts.

The benefits we see from digital photography has been astounding.

When we started it was slides and prints. None were really good for us and the bill for film and scanning was significant. I bought an early Nikon digital, which from memory was less

Fishing, boating and accommodation services directory than 2mb. Now every phone has a 5mb+ camera in it and even they are capable of great shots.

TFBN’s writers produce some exceptional digital photography and I would love to have a glossy magazine to show them off. However I doubt we will ever be glossy.

Jim Allen gave me some sage advice in the early days. ‘You seem to have this right’ he said, ‘great information, low cost to consumers and low cost to produce. Don’t ever change it’. We haven’t.

We have remained vigilant though in delivering what anglers want and we have had competition come and go.

Our website www.tasfish.com has kept us up with the trends these days and we publish all back issues on there plus weather etc. and a rolling fishing report blog updated daily.

There will also be some exciting developments on there soon as well.

So check out www.tasfish.com and subscribe to get the email updates.

My sincere thanks to writers, readers, advertisers, printers and all who have helped.

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Fishing News - Page 3

Western Lakes Peter Broomhall

F

or adventurous trout anglers springtime and early summer is the time to start thinking about heading out to the area officially known as the Central Plateau Conservation Area or simply to most of us as the Western Lakes.

This area boasts world class angling opportunities in rugged wilderness setting. For many fishermen their sole exposure to the western lakes region is the pocket of waters in the eastern edge of the CPCA known as the “19 Lagoons”. While these lakes and lagoons always provide reliable fishing opportunities, in this modern age it is hard to get a water or even a short section of shoreline to yourself particularly if you are restricted to weekend trips. For those of us seeking solitude and also adventure, venturing further out into the wilderness is a must.

Simon Tueon (Chewy) and I recently shared one such adventure in to this magnificent wilderness fishery. Here is our story….

The Journey The headlights of Simon’s vehicle burned strongly in my driveway at 4:00am on the Saturday morning.

After quickly loading up my gear that had been carefully packed the night before into the back of the wagon, we set off on the 2 hour drive up onto the plateau. The drive up was as always a chat fest full of memories and highlights of previous trips and of course prospects for this current adventure.

A momentary side track for us was the sight of the Meander River at Deloraine absolutely covered in rings caused by trout rising to undoubtedly a huge fall of caenid mayflies. There was a “will we or won’t we” discussion right there but the decision was made to push on up the mountains so that we could get a reasonably early start on the long walk required to get our first target water, one of the myriad of lagoons surrounding the Julian Lakes system lying north west of Lake Augusta.

After the usual dodging of the seemingly suicidal wallabies and other assorted Tassie wildlife for an hour or so on the climb up the mountain we found

ourselves parked on the banks of the James River at the crossing on the dry bed of Lake Augusta. This was a chance to stretch our legs and also check the river level to ensure it was safe to cross. After confirming that it was indeed safe Simon pushed the Toyota into the stream bed and then up and out the other side to begin the bone jarring 12km drive to what was to be a base camp for this trip on the lower Julian Lake.

This was my first trip out to this particular part of the Western Lakes and after hearing stories for years about the condition of this track I certainly now concur that this is not a journey for the faint hearted.

If it wasn’t for the “ton” of gear and supplies that was sitting in the back of Simon’s 4WD wagon that would have had to been carried I would say that it might be actually quicker to walk.

After being bumped and bounced from pillar to post for the better part of 2 1/2 hours we were finally able to park at an idyllic little campsite just off the main track right on the shore of the Lower Julian lake. Incredibly it also looked as if we had the place to ourselves, for the time being at least.

Simon and I quickly set up camp, knowing that it would be hours later, if not completely dark before we would get back to the camp. Once setup some decisions had to be made. The Julian Lakes sit smack bang central in an area absolutely smothered in potential trout holding water. Simon and I had to decide whether to chase average sized trout in some of the in stream lakes and lagoons or to forsake numbers for a chance at trophy fish in the myriad of surrounding headwater or seasonally isolated tarns. As the day was windy and overcast and we were getting a late start we opted to look for mayfly dun feeders on the in stream lagoons and leave the trophy waters for tomorrow in the hope that clearer skies would prevail.

Main Stream Explorations Rods were rigged up and flies chosen, initially deciding to go with large terrestrial patterns, namely Bruisers Bugs, as there was no initial mayfly activity evident. Only a very short distance from camp the first trout were spotted, no pun intended, cruising in shallow water a few metres from the edge. Carefully placed casts resulted in our first two trout of the trip, a pair of beautifully marked fat little browns around the kilogram or old fashioned 2lb mark in weight that had no hesitation in sucking down the foam, fur and feathered creations. What a start!!

No further action was experienced on the ‘home’ lake apart from a couple of fish that were spooked from the edge by my not so stealthy approach.

We decided at that point to walk over the bank

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Adventure to a lagoon that Simon had experienced some good fishing on a previous trip that he had out to this area. The hour long hike to this lake was relatively uneventful apart from a ‘slight’ diversion that occurred when we happened on an almost hidden creek system that had a small lagoon at its head. I initially wrote this off as a waste of time and headed off to the targeted lake that could be seen shimmering off in the distance. Simon was not so convinced and decided to check the tiny lagoon out.

I was more than a half way down the bank when a yell from Simon gained my attention. Broken words along the lines of ‘big fish’ were carried down to me on the breeze.

Chewy’s Lagoon Begrudgingly I backtracked the half kilometre or so up the bank but thankfully I did as I got to witness Simon putting the finishing touches to a battle with a sensational brown that would have been around the

4lb mark. This trout had sucked down the bug in no uncertain terms and fought a great battle as much in the air as in the water before tiring and succumbing to the landing net. Simon was understandingly chuffed with this capture, just as much by the hunch that paid off as with the size of the beautiful brown trout.

Thinking that this great trout was all that this tiny water had to give up we were preparing to head to the water beckoning in the distance when a loud “clop” was heard emanating from a small opening in an area of the lagoon covered in pin rushes. By gaining a higher vantage point yet another good sized brown was found cruising around in a small pool among the rushes. This time it was my turn and a quick cast that landed the fly near the fish was quickly set upon. Unfortunately my strike only resulted in a fly less leader sailing back over my head. After some good natured ribbing from Chewy we then set off to check out the remainder of the

lagoon on the off chance there were even more fish present. To cut a long story short by the time the ripples had settled on the lagoon two more magnificent browns had fallen for the large terrestrial flies presented to them, with Simon’s second fish probably even a little larger than his first. The lesson learned from this was not to pass even the smallest of ponds out here without a thorough examination.

It was now time to head down to the main body of water. As soon we reached this water feeding trout were visible in the shallow margins. These fish were showing tips of fins and sometimes subtle rises. The terrestrial patterns that had been successful so far were however scorned by the feeding browns. The fly was presented to trout after trout with cursory examinations as close as we were able to get a take. It never ceases to amaze me out here how the fly preferences change so markedly from water to water and even by the hour. Simon and I both now changed to mayfly emerger type fly patterns and began to have a little success.

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The remainder of the afternoon was spent circumnavigating the lake a couple of times. Whenever we found a stretch of shoreline that had the breeze and ripples running more or less parallel we were able to reliably find good numbers of feeding trout. The located trout were cruising quite quickly obviously feeding mainly on mayfly nymphs that were migrating to shore to begin their hatching phase. More often than not a well placed cast to these fish would result in a solid take on the dry fly. Simon and I would take in turns spotting and casting at these cruising browns. We were lucky enough to be able to wade polaroid the shallows with broken periods of full sun giving enough light to be able to utilise this method with some degree of success.

The size of the trout encountered in this water was typical of lakes and lagoons throughout the western lakes area that have access to reasonably reliable spawning areas. The fish would average around the kilogram with the occasional larger one half as big again to be seen and hopefully caught.

As is often the case out here, time got away from us and faced with a lengthy hike back

to base in the fading evening light we decided to leave the still actively feeding trout to their own devices.

Back at camp a well earned meal was cooked up and devoured and then we settled back to discuss the wonderful days fishing that had just been experienced and to also decide on a suitable direction to head tomorrow. A heavy frost on the ground at 11pm and a clear starry sky promised good conditions to be able to polaroid some headwater tarns in the search for a trophy sized fish tomorrow.

The Search Begins Unfortunately when the usual highland chorus of black jays woke me at dawn I rolled back the cover from my swag to find a once again heavily overcast sky. This would make targeting the bigger trout a difficult task as it is vital out here to be able to spot the trout first before making your cast. There is just too much water between the big guys to make blind searching a viable proposition.

A quick conference was had with Simon about whether we forge ahead with our plan or just go back to the water fished the day before to once again target the smaller mayfly feeders.

TROUT TACTICS

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Wildlife of all sorts really adds to a trip. However, you must pay close attention as many will simply miss it.

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Finally we decided to take a chance on the trophy loop. The bent rods from yesterday in a way made this decision easier as both of us did not now feel the need to catch lots of trout, just one large fish between us would make it a perfect trip.

tiger snakes hunting for their next meal. Another discovery was the rather comical looking Mountain Katydid’s. These unusual insects were abundant on the scrubby banks encircling the tarns that we fished on this trip.

Carefully studying 1:25 000 maps of the surrounding area we picked out a good sized loop to follow for the days exploration. This journey would take us a full day to traverse and also as an added bonus no backtracking would be required. New waters would be able to be covered for the entire day with rarely more than a few hundred metres between them.

It was quite late in the day and the planned loop almost completed without a real chance at an outsized fish when we happened upon a narrow lagoon. Simon and I decided to explore a bank each to make the most of the fading light. I had searched my way down most of my allotted shoreline when I noticed a dark shape sitting in deep water off some large rocks on the lagoons edge. As I crept my way closer the first abstract shape materialised into a magnificent brown trout probably in the vicinity of the 7 to 8lb mark. The fish was creeping along the silty bottom obviously in feeding mode. Quickly getting into position I put out a cast that landed the

A few averaged sized browns were encountered early on in the bodies of water closer to the main lakes cruising in close to the rocky shores so typical of this area. Once again the Bruisers Bugs were successful in enticing these fish to look up. These smaller trout were welcome diversions but the main objective for the day was to find a large fish or two.

As the morning wore on the polaroiding conditions became very difficult with only fleeting periods of sun opening the water up to a degree. Whenever these periods occurred we would cover as much water as possible in the hope of spotting a monster brown cruising his domain. Unfortunately as the hours passed this did not occur. Tarn after tarn was inspected without success. I did have one chance where I was standing on a large rock on the edge of a tiny lagoon, trying to get as much elevation as possible to open up the water when a trout in the 5 to 7 pound class slid out from under the rock I was standing on and spooked off out into the gloomy water. The ability to maintain concentration is paramount out here!!

Fortunately out in the western lakes wilderness there are many other sidelights to the days sport. On some days you can get so engrossed in the fishing that you can miss some of the other things that make this area so special. The wildlife that abounds in the harsh landscape is amazing, by taking the time to observe I began to notice mobs of wallabies feeding undisturbed on the grassy flats and pair of majestic wedgetails circling on the currents. The more immediate landscape had various species of reptiles in abundance, ranging from perfectly camouflaged Mountain Dragons basking on their favourite rocks and skinks darting around amongst the vegetation, on to the sinister looking

red bug a few metres ahead. The trout sensed the flys arrival on the water and immediately cruised to the surface and it engulfed it. Waiting a short period for him to turn back down I lifted and felt momentary weight on the rod before the despairing feeling of nothing. Incredibly for the third time on this trip alone I had left the fly in a fish on the strike. Certainly not something that you want to make a habit of out here where sometimes the chances are few and far between.

I had barely enough time to contemplate my “misfortune” when a shout from the other side of the lagoon brought me back to my senses. Simon had spotted a cruising brown of his own to target.

As I was unsighted from my location he gave me a running commentary of its whereabouts as he got into position to make a cast. I watched as a long

THE INCENTIVES TO GO TROUT FISHING IN TASMANIA ARE BIGGER THAN EVER. Big rains – lots of water The Tasmanian trout fishery is in peak condition after three seasons of good rainfall. Higher water levels and the persistent inundation of fresh ground have brought an abundance of aquatic life. Weed beds have regrown in previously dry areas, providing habitat for aquatic invertebrates and excellent foraging grounds for trout. This season is predicted to be one of the best in years.

Big opportunities all year round

SIGN UP FOR THE FISHING TRIP OF A LIFETIME

Huntsman Lake, a new fishery resulting from the construction of the Meander Dam in 2008, has a large population of wild brown trout. It’s already a popular fishery, being easily accessed from Devonport and Launceston, and it is now open all year round. Other all-year waters include Great Lake, Lake Barrington, Brushy Lagoon, Craigbourne Dam, Lake Burbury, Lake Pedder and Meadowbank Lake, along with the estuarine sections of the Leven, Tamar, Derwent and Huon rivers.

Big stretches of quality rivers Stretches of quality angling water found in several of Tassie’s renowned lowland rivers, which were previously difficult to access through private property, have now been opened up to anglers including the recently completed Tyenna River. These projects add to those already undertaken on the River Leven, Meander, Macquarie, Lake and North Esk rivers and Brumbys Creek, along with the Huon River in the south, since the River Access Program began in 2007.

Big numbers of wild fish Now in its fourth year of operation, the IFS modern hatchery is producing increased numbers of fry and fingerling stock from wild fish for stocking. These trout are being grown to larger sizes before their release, resulting in improved stocking effectiveness. This means better fishing in waters such as the Western Lakes,Penstock Lagoon, Lake Crescent and Four Springs Lake.

Big choice of fishing spots Another benefit of the increased rainfall has been a bigger range of attractive fishing options throughout Tasmania, particularly at places such as Lake King William, Lake Echo, Tooms Lake, Lake Leake and Lake Pedder. There will be plenty of un-crowded waters, banks and shores to choose from this season.

Big wild trout waters Premium wild trout fisheries in the Central Highlands such as Arthurs, Great and Woods lakes have benefited greatly from higher lake levels, and fishing there is only expected to improve. These are the most popular waters in the state, having large populations of wild trout and providing excellent fishing using all methods.

Big improvements to roads and ramps This year roads to Brushy Lagoon and Large Bay (Lake Echo) have been upgraded along with further work on the Woods Lake Road, incuding safety advisory signage. Boat ramp improvements have been completed at Great Lake, Four Springs Lake, Bronte Lagoon and Lake Mackintosh. Bronte Lagoon with its floating pontoon sets the standard for freshwater facilities.

A rock break wall has been constructed at Woods Lake to provide protection from south-westerly winds. Carparks at Camerons Lagoon and Little Pine Lagoon have been upgraded.

Big rejuventation Following three years of good rain, previously droughtstricken waters in the south-east – Craigbourne Dam, Lake Leake, Lake Dulverton and Tooms Lake – refilled with water. They’ve been stocked intensively since, reinvigorating these fisheries and reclaiming their previous popular angling status. They’re well worth a visit early in the season when the weather in the highlands may be less favourable.

Big for family fishing Easy to catch adult domestic fish are stocked in lowland waters, particularly those promoted as popular regional fisheries. These include Lake Barrington in the north-west, Brushy Lagoon and Curries River Dam in the north, and Lake Meadowbank and Craigbourne Dam in the south. These stockings, particularly the periodic stocking of trophy size Atlantic salmon in some of these waters, will continue throughout the season.

For more information or to buy a 2012-13 Tasmanian angling licence visit www.ifs.tas.gov.au or discovertasmania.com

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Fishing News - Page 7

Never head out here though expecting large bags of trout, on some days just having a once chance at a large wild brown is as close as you get, some days there are feeding trout around every corner.

Anglers venturing into the CPCA should always be well prepared. Detailed area maps are a must as is a good quality GPS and/or compass.

Lightweight clothing that takes in all weather conditions is also a necessity as conditions can change very, very quickly. Warm days can turn frigid within a short period of time leaving the unprepared in great danger.

Good quality camping gear is also a must for overnight stays. Highland gales, possible at any time in this area will very quickly find weak spots in fragile equipment. Also remember that the CPCA is a fuel stove only area so lightweight packable cookers are invaluable.

Fishing gear requirements will be 4 piece fly rods in the 4 to 7 weight range with WF flylines and 4 to 6 lb tapered leaders. cast was made out into the rippled lagoon. Shortly after the fly hit the water a large snout appeared over it. Simon timed his strike perfectly and a very good sized trout became airborne before beginning a dogged struggle.

Simon battled this fish with aplomb and was soon able to slide the net under a beautiful golden coloured 5lb brown in perfect condition, not quite a trophy fish in the truest sense but his biggest trout to date on the flyrod and a well earned reward after a tough days fishing.

The remainder of the hike was uneventful and we soon arrived back at base camp, reluctantly packed up the gear and readied ourselves for the 12km of pain to come.

Summary Trips like the one described above that Simon and I shared are easily attainable by any angler with average fitness levels and a keen sense of adventure. Heading out into the virtually trackless wilderness is a thrill shared by many every season.

Suitable flies for the western lakes are all the usual suspects with a good range mayfly patterns, large terrestrials and of course the humble Tasmanian favourite the Red Tag required in dry flys. Wet fly selections should include variants of Fur Flys, Montana Nymphs and Woolley Buggers, especially in springtime when the frogs are about.

As described in the text above the western lakes contain a myriad of choices in regard to trout waters. Lakes and lagoons that have access to good spawning facilities generally contain large numbers of smaller trout and lakes that are at the head of intermittent creek systems can potentially hold just one or two trophy sized fish or none of course. The fun is in the exploration and finding these waters for yourself.

One final hint for anglers venturing out here, do some casting practice in the wind. The ability to cast in these conditions can quite often make or break your day in the western lakes.

Peter Broomhall

Simon Tueon lands another beautiful western lakes fish.

A favoured food.

Fishing News - Page 8

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Australian Salmon Craig Rist

I

n Tasmania, larger Australian Salmon over two pounds are often called Black Back Salmon while the smaller models are known as Cocky Salmon. These fish are a valuable and much loved light tackle sports fish that are enjoyed by both land based and boating anglers all around Tasmania. They are a common catch in our estuaries, along our beaches and rocky headlands, and around the many small islands. They are a schooling fish that are constantly on the move along our coastlines, feeding predominantly on krill and small baitfish. They can be found in an estuary or along a particular part of the coast one week and then gone the next, as they move with the changing tides that influence the food they eat.

Their presence rarely goes unnoticed when they turn up, as reports of anglers success quickly filters through the local angling community who gather in large numbers to make the most of these fantastic fish.

Salmon Hot Spots

Some of the most reliable places to target salmon are where the major rivers and estuaries meet the open sea. Here salmon will target schools of baitfish such as the run of white bait entering the rivers to spawn in Spring. Salmon will also use island, reefs, sand bars, raised weed beds and smaller creek mouths within estuaries and along the cost lines to intercept and hunt down baitfish. These locations are good places to start your initial search, especially if they are adjacent to main tidal channels.

Prime times to be fishing are two to three hours before and after high tide, particularly when they coincide with the early morning or late afternoon high tide.

Overcast days also offer the same low light conditions that salmon favor.

When krill are abundant, salmon can be found feeding off shore right at the surface, sipping down large quantities

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Fishing News - Page 9

of these tiny shrimp like creatures. This feeding phenomenon is visually exciting to see, although at times, it can be very frustrating to try and catch these fish using traditional methods. When they’re feeding on krill like this, they are often very spooky if the sea is calm. The best approached in this situation is to set the boat up to drift down onto them from up wind, with the motor turned off. Then when you get within casting range you can deliver flies or lightly weighted soft plastics ahead of the approaching school. Green is a good colour to use when they’re feeding on krill. Trolling past these schools, in this situation, usually only results in putting them down, which is never a crowd pleaser when other anglers are trying this drifting approach.

Salmon locations Macquarie Harbour (West Coast) Arthur River (West Coast) Emu Bay (North West Coast) Leven River (North west Coast) Forth River (North West Coast) Mersey River (North West Coast) Rubicon River (North West Coast) Tamar River (North) Tomahawk (North East Coast) Musselroe Bay (North East Coast) Ansons Bay East Coast) Georges Bay (East Coast) Great Oyster Bay (East Coast) Derwent River (South East Coast)

Reading the signs Locating salmon isn’t always as easy as finding a flock of birds diving into a bait ball that has been pushed up to the surface by a school of salmon.

Other more subtle visual signs are often used to locate a school, like a single salmon slashing or leaping out of the water which is a sure sign, that there will be more salmon in the depths below.

You can also see which way a school of salmon is moving by taking note of the direction diving birds are flying or the way pelicans are looking down into the water as they follow after the bait ball below them.

When salmon are down in deep water with no bird life above to give away there location, a good fish finder is invaluable to locate the bait ball and salmon. Salmon will also hunt their prey in relatively shallow water, which is often only 1 or 2 metres deep. Again, their presence in this shallow water is not always obvious. Your fish finder is of little use in this situation as the salmon will usually spook away from a boat before they intercept the beam of the fish finder. When the water is clear enough, you can see these fish fleeing the shallows as they spook off your own boat and others in the area.

Even though these fish are fleeing off the shallows, they will still take the opportunity to attack a passing lure that is being trolled well back behind the boat.

Sometimes a strike on a lure is often the only way to find these fish when the water is discolored. These shallows will often have some form of shelter like weed beds and rocks to offer baitfish that have been forced to take refuge from the relentless onslaught

of these voracious fish. You can sometimes identify where the raised weed beds and rocky reefs are by looking for the surging current and upwellings as the tide pushes over and around these under water obstructions.

When the tide turns and starts to flow out of the estuaries, salmon will quickly move off these shallows and back into the safety of the deeper channels to intercept any baitfish leaving the shallows before they all head back out to sea. The exception here is if there is an abundance of baitfish living in the estuary they will keep the schools of salmon inside the estuary. Georges Bay, at St Helens, is renowned for this at times.

Soft plastics and jig heads There’s not a pelagic fish alive that won’t take soft plastics. These things are just dynamite on salmon.

A basic white or pearl 4 inch plastic, matched to a jig head that suits your rod, line and the depth of water you’re fishing, is all you really need for these fish.

The rise and fall action you get on the retrieve from using the heavier jig heads, just screams wounded baitfish and is just too much for them to resist. A constant fast retrieve is also very effective on these aggressive fish. Plastics can be fished anywhere, from the sea floor up to the surface, making them the ultimate searching tool to find salmon or to confirm that signal on the fish finder. They’re also very effective when trolled, but you do need to make sure the plastic is sitting straight on the jig hook, otherwise it will spin and twist your line. It’s worth giving them a swim along side the boat when you have reached your chosen trolling speed, just to make sure this action is okay before letting it out to get smashed.

Salmon can chew through quite a lot of these soft plastics, so a viable alternative is to substitute the soft plastics for a more robust feather or synthetic jig head. As the name suggests, this is just a soft plastic jig head with some feathers or synthetic material tied to it. These are cheap to construct and each one will catch loads of salmon. You don’t have to be a master fly tier to construct a basic salmon jig head. This is how simple it can be - buy a jig head that is going to be heavy enough for you to cast with your spin gear, probably ¼ oz or heavier.

Take a couple of white marabou feathers and bind them to the hook just behind the jig head with some fly tying thread or some sewing thread. Tie off with a whip finishing tool or a couple of half hitches and apply some glue to the thread and that’s it. If you want make an even more bulletproof version, just substitute the marabou feathers for rooster feathers or some synthetic fly tying material would make it almost indestructible.

Lures Silver metal slice lures such as the Halco range and Raider lures are your standard ‘go to’ lure when trolling or casting lures for salmon. However, these lures tend to twist your line if they are not used with an anti-kink keel and swivel to stop the main line spinning with the lure. The swivel of the anti-kink is also a good point to add a 15 cm fly dropper, just in case they are in the mood for that white fly.

Hard bodied bibbed lures such as the Rapala Xrap, are also good trolling and casting lures that exhibit that irresistible vibrating swimming action that sends out a distress signal that will trigger an attack from so many different species of fish, including salmon.

Another proven salmon trolling lure is a piece of 1 cm clear or green plastic tube that has been cut into 5 or 7 cm lengths. This old favorite has the ability to send out a trail of bubbles behind the tube when it is trolled just beneath the surface. This is a very basic, but affective lure, that is attached by threading the line through the tube and then tying on a single silver or red hook that has a hook gape larger than the diameter of the tube, so that it doesn’t slide off the line and still allows the hook point to be exposed.

Australian salmon are a hard fighting predatory fish that love flies, lures and plastics.

Fishing News - Page 10

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When trolling, I like to have the lures at least 30 metres behind the boat and even further if I need to keep the boat away from a spooky school of salmon feeding at the surface without putting them down.

Driving a boat straight through a school of salmon that is feeding at the surface is really bad edict when you’re sharing the water with other anglers. Not only that, it is usually very unproductive when it will almost certainly put the school down. When there are a lot of boats trying to fish the one school of salmon it is often far more productive to stop trolling past the school and start casting lures, plastics or flies from a drifting boat.

Fly Fishing If you have ever thought of trying your hand at salt water fly fishing in Tasmania, these are a great fish to cut your teeth on. In this case, the transition from fresh to salt water could never be easier, because you can use the same fly gear you would use on our trout.

A five or six weight rod is about right in my eyes, just remember to fight the fish with the lower half of the rod and not the tip. Pound for pound these fish would pull a trout backwards and they are renown for their sudden burst of speed straight back down into the depths. As a general guide, I try and keep the bend of the rod no higher than my head, until I think I have won the battle. Even then I am always ready to lower the rod down below my head if they put on another last minute burst of speed. Using side strain will also drastically shorten the fight so that you can land the fish quickly and get your fly back into the water to hook another fish, while the school is still within range.

In terms of fly reels, your basic none drag clicker style trout fly reel is probably going to be okay on fish up to two pounds but beyond that, you really want a reel that has an adjustable drag. I’m not saying it can’t be done; it’s simply easier than trying to use your hands to palm the spool or your fingers to apply some pressure on the line to slow such a strong fish. With fly lines, you could use a floating line to catch salmon, but I find a full sinking or sinking tip line to be a much more versatile option. Leaders can be as simple as a couple of metres of 12 pound line or a basic tapered leader constructed with a heavier butt section like a metre of 20 or 16 pound line, followed by a 12 or 8 pound tippet, to help turn over larger flies. Factory tapered leaders are also a great option to help roll out these flies.

As with soft plastics, you can’t go wrong with a white fly to represent a salt water baitfish. Flies such as the Clouser, Deceiver, Surf Candy and jig heads will all work if they have white and a little bit a flash.

Retrieving a fly using an erratic fast strip or by gripping the rod handle under your arm and ripping line in using both hands, are two reliable techniques to get a strike. I also like to keep an eye on the fly

A good sized Australian salmon about to go back.

line after the cast when the fly is sinking, just in case a fish takes it on the sink. When this happens, instead of lifting the rod to set the hook I just start stripping in line. That way if the fish has already dropped the fly I don’t pull the fly out of the water and it can stay in the strike zone to get eaten.

There are no real hard and fast rules when fly fishing for Aussie Salmon, just treat them as you would any other fish. If you want to fish light, using light tippet and ultra light trout rods, you can. It might be like hooking a Marlin on much heavier fly gear, but it will be a lot of fun in the process.

Laying Anchor

Salmon are usually not very fussy. Anything from a silver wobbler to a fly or plastic will work.

When salmon are holding over structure or continually passing a certain area, it is often better to anchor the boat within a comfortable casting distance of these

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fish. Finding a place to anchor can be as simple as trolling a lure to first find the fish and then go back and anchor the boat close to that area. Anchoring a boat in the tidal flow of an estuary allows you to cast across the flow of the tide allow a lure, plastic or fly to swing around and back up to the boat during the retrieve, which is a technique they find hard to resist. Combined this with some frozen minced up fish berley that is hung out the back of the boat and you can hold a school salmon for quite some time. This method can be so effective at times that you really need to restrain yourself from catching too many. Only keep what you want for a feed and look after the rest by handling them with care, so they will survive the release and provide reliable sport in the future.

Craig Rist

Fishing News - Page 11

The Weather Factor Joe Riley

W

eather: It’s the determining factor for most anglers in working out where to fish on a given day. “Too bright for here” ,”They won’t be tailing in this wind”, “It’s Easterly today so it’s going to be tough” these saying are all too familiar and they do have implications if we want success at catching a trout.

Picking the right weather can make or break an outing, a good decision can produce a red letter day while a bad decision can make chasing a trout hard work. So often I’ve spoken to visiting anglers who have struggled to catch fish without the all important local knowledge, they made decisions to visit waters which don’t fire in the wrong weather.

Even when you choose a venue based on weather it can do a complete about turn. At these times a change of tactics or even venue may be in order. Knowing when to make changes either in technique, location on a venue or even completely changing venues can be a big factor in a day of fishing.

Having said all of this; what’s they key to success, how do we make things happen when the weather seems to be against us? There was a time when I used to study the weather chart for a couple of days before an outing, knowing the prevailing pattern, whether the barometer was rising or falling and judging the all important cloud cover. These days we have more access to weather and more reliable weather forecasts than ever. The bureau of meteorology at www.bom.gov.au has 30 minute updates for weather stations throughout Tasmania, information includes rainfall, humidity, average wind

Fishing News - Page 12

speed, gusting strength. This site also has radar coverage for current rainfall as it crosses Tasmania.

Radar images will also let you know the amount of cloud cover and rain as it occurs over anywhere in Australia.

My favourite weather site is www.yr.no this is a Norwegian website which produces a weather forecast in an easy to read format, showing the predicted weather in 6 hourly increments for the days to come. It shows, cloud cover, wind direction and strength, temperature and predicted rainfall for the given periods in an easy to understand format, what’s more it’s often very accurate - as much as a weather forecast get anyway.

any given direction. High pressure systems rotate anti clock wise and therefore commence with a Southerly wind and end with a Northerly.

In late summer the best time for grass hopper conditions is the latter part of the high when strong Northerly winds carry high temperatures from the North off the mainland , this makes grass hoppers most active and the wind helps to carry them onto the water when jumping and flying around the bank side. If fishing a river on a windy day it also pays to head to forested streams or rivers where terrestrial insects will be blown off trees onto water, these conditions are all great indicators for dry fly fishing.

It’s often a hard call, whether to head up Poatina to a highland lake, or whether to fish a river or one of the lower lakes. With the exception of grasshopper time, the Northern rivers are best fished in calm weather, bright or overcast conditions do not matter too much. Unfortunately, all too often a wind will pick up late morning to early afternoon in the North of the State, and this can put down freely rising fish.

On our highland lakes, the best fly fishing is linked to what the food will be doing at certain times and in the prevailing weather conditions. The fertile, shallow lakes with abundant weed beds tend to produce the best overall aquatic hatches, the majority of these in overcast conditions. Likewise terrestrial insect falls attract more attention from trout in waters where there is not so much food available under the surface, deeper sections of lakes, or waters where there isn’t an abundance of aquatic weed growth.

The time for calm weather to fish the rivers tends to be when a high pressure system is sitting right over the state. The high pressure system arrives with a wind which has a Southerly aspect, then settles as the system passes over the State before turning Northerly and picking up strength as the system continues to travel East towards New Zealand. Generally speaking the closer the isobars on the weather chart the stronger the wind will be in

When choosing a lake venue to fish on a given day, weather, for me is probably the greatest single consideration. As a rule of thumb these fertile shallow lakes such as Arthurs Lake, Penstock and Little Pine Lagoon, Woods Lake, the mayfly lakes, fish best under overcast conditions. Less fertile lakes such as Great Lake, Augusta Dam are more suited to bright weather. Of course this is only a rule of thumb and all of these lakes have some amazing

Where to fish and when.

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fishing in differing conditions, however this fishing tends to be more localised and has to be found in the prevailing weather. Waters like Bronte Lagoon and Pine Tier Dam offer a bit of both worlds, having abundant weed beds, but also areas of timbered shore allowing plenty of terrestrial insects to come to the water in warmer, brighter weather.

Choosing a venue according to the weather is a good move However Tasmania with its often changeable weather means that you can start in ideal conditions and within a few hours be stuck with the exact opposite. How many times does it happen where you get to Little Pine Lagoon, it’s overcast and a gentle north westerly breeze is blowing, perfect for a dun hatch, then by lunch time you are sitting in a flat calm without a cloud in sight.

Deciding to change tactics is important in changing weather conditions. When the expected fall or hatch does not eventuate what next? Look for where the food will be available for the trout to take advantage of. On a mayfly lake when the wind drops out the lee shore will be where spinners start becoming active, where they will drift out onto the water so that trout will still rise picking the off as they touch down. Likewise on Great Lake and other lakes with timbered shores insects will first hit the water where the wind does, however as they day progresses and the wind continues the food will concentrate towards the bottom of the wind. Even if the fall hasn’t eventuated, trout will be in those areas looking for what should be.

The author’s favourite weather site is www.yr.no this is a Norwegian website which produces a weather forecast in an easy to read format.

Think about where the fish should be and why, if you are fishing wet flies and the weather turns change accordingly. If it suddenly gets bright, seek out coloured water, or reduce the size of your west flies and fish deeper water also, these things can tilt the balance back in your favour when trout become warier in the calm or bright conditions.

It’s hard to give specific tactics as fly fishing is so subjective in day to day, or hour to hour conditions. Plan your trip according to the best venue for the best conditions according to the latest weather forecast. When you are on the water think about what’s going on around you, and when the weather changes look to take advantage of what opportunities that weather will bring. Trout survive by knowing where the food will be and when they will be best able to eat it. As anglers we need to judge what the trout will be doing by reading the conditions, and making the right decisions about what the trout will be doing. It all takes practice and time and no one gets it right all of the time, however it is possible to make the right judgments consistently and increase your fishing results.

Joe Riley

The bureau of meteorology at www.bom.gov.au has radar coverage for current rainfall as it crosses Tasmania. Radar images will also show the amount of cloud cover and rain as it occurs.

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Stop - Don’t Drift You might even catch more.....

How it was

How it is

Shore based angling

O

ver 20 years ago I was lucky enough to be taught to fish lakes like Arthurs by the great angler Shayne Murphy. One of the great lessons that I learnt from Murf was that in many cases you should simply use your boat to get to the best shore fishing locations quickly and efficiently. In those days we would pick the eyes out of the best locations then quickly move on to fresh and similar waters.

A few years later I started my guiding career and I bought a beautiful tri hull boat. For many years, just like Murf had taught me, I used this boat for transporting my clients to the best shore fishing locations for the weather and wind conditions. I well remember many times when my wading clients were ‘catching the clappers out of them’ as other anglers and guides drifted by flogging the water for little obvious results.

We thought they had it all wrong.

You see, brown trout (that we were predominately targeting) love edges, drop offs and structure. The generally shallow productive edges are often perfect for finding feeding fish and where there is one there can be many. The current and past wind direction and strength can lead you straight to the best fishing if you know what you are doing and are familiar with your water.

On that note, in the first year of guiding I prided myself on being able to catch clients a fish on their very first cast of the day. It wasn’t all that hard in lakes like Arthurs – it just required good knowledge of past wind conditions and shore angles and contours. I think I had 18 first cast fish for the season.

In those days most of the fly fishing community waded. Some had boats but they were all small dinghies and not particularly seaworthy. As an example I very rarely saw another fly angler on the Sand Lake side of Arthurs because their boats were not safe enough to navigate the Morass in heavy water.

Generally the trollers were the only guys that had boats over four metres. Some of the more notable fly fishers in the highlands had 10 foot Purdons and even the great visionary Jim Allen only had a 3.7 m Savage Jabaru that was little more than a duck punt.

Now I think about it Murphy and I with 5 metre plus sport-fishing boats with electric motors were truly ahead of our time and leading the way – or where we ?

Fishing News - Page 14

I am not sure but I think it was a combination of getting lazy – no, not lazy but making life easier and more efficient that led me to include more and more, drift fishing into the guiding day.

Clients, or any angler that does not fish regularly, will stumble on uneven bottom and hook every obstacle within sight if shore based wade fishing. We lost many multi fly leader rigs in dead trees around the lake. Cameras were drowned with stumbles, fish were lost to submerged trees and rods broken.

Furthermore there was only one of me to go round and I could not be by the side of both my clients when wade fishing. One angler thought he was being guided and the other rightly did not. Many opportunities were missed because I was not by the side of the second angler.

Drift Fishing With time came frustration and it became obvious why the other good guides had their clients permanently in drifting boats. I was the only guide in the highlands needing constant therapy and the penny finally dropped.

Hayes Superdrogue Invention In 1995 with the help of a couple of regular clients, Peter and John Austin, I developed and refined a seriously effective drogue. Until then drogues were conical wind sock type arrangements that did little to slow the drift of a fly fishing boat.

They were hard work to pull in and there was no capacity to steer the drift.

The Hayes Superdrogue was a huge rectangular shape that worked just like an underwater sail. They have the capacity to slow your boat drift speed enormously as well as give the opportunity to steer the boat 10 or 15 degrees either side of the wind.

This steering advantage is very helpful if you wish to parallel a shore or weed bed that is not exactly aligned with the wind direction.

Additionally, if you wish to motor to a new position the drogue can remain set and it does not resist the forward movement of the boat. Bringing the drogue inboard is simply a matter of reaching over and lifting it in. A far cry from heaving on the rope of the old style conical windsock full of water.

So, with my 5 metre boat my clients could not get further than 2.5 metres away from me. I made sure the boat never drifted closer than a cast length from any dead timber and life was grand. We still caught plenty of fish and everyone including my shrink was happy.

Electric motors – bring them on In 1995 my sportfishing guiding boat had one of the first electric bow mounted motors fitted to it. This not only made fine tuning the drogue drift easier but it also meant that I could really chase sighted fish hard. We zoomed around the shallows of the highland lakes standing up high on the bow while we polaroided unaware cruisers. We charged after gently sipping wind lane feeders and ran down wave swimming sharks in the great lake. Nothing with fins was safe now and I feel that I had it all on my own for maybe five years or so.

The herd mentality – pastel Columbia shirts, easy finance, the Hornet and Minn Kota hatch I am not quite sure how it happened but it did. I guess it was natural evolution in addition to a few coincidences.

Finance became easier to obtain, Quintrex designed the enormously popular, and not necessarily so suitable, Hornet series of boats, my drogues were commercially available and guides became a dime a dozen. Articles appeared on all manner of boat fishing techniques and competition fishing hit full swing in Australia.

Friend John Philbrick noted somewhat cynically that every morning in the highlands there was a pastel coloured Columbia shirt hatch outside the store in Miena. This would be shortly followed by a Quintrex Hornet hatch on Little Pine Lagoon. Sadly, John is partly right.

I am not for one moment saying there is a problem with any of the above - as anglers we can do whatever we like. What I do see a problem with is if we all do the same thing, on the same waters, day after day, and it is not appropriate.

I almost wish I did not design the large rectangular style of drogue. Putting these drogues in the hands of anglers that do not think for themselves is a bad thing. As an example many anglers automatically throw out the drogue the second the boat stops. Boat anglers really should give consideration to the wind strength, drift speed and fishing technique before automatically setting the drogue.

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How it should probably be

bank. People are starting to get grumpy as boats are supposed to be 100 metres from shore anglers, unless they are secrely moored.

My Crystal Ball These are some of the fishing issues that concern me and I believe as time goes on will become more of a problem.

On a busy day there could be more than 20 boats doing this.

Wading

I am not much of a mathematician but how about this.

Wading in fragile environments is a worry to me. I am thinking of some of the western lakes in particular. As an example whenever I wade in First Lagoon I feel guilty as my foot pushes that beautiful weed six inches beneath the silt with each step.

If I had my way it would be mandatory to wear some sort of wading snow shoe in those waters. I have done this and you do not sink a millimetre and the polaroiding visibility is sensational due to the increased height.

For what it is worth I feel that small rowed pontoon boats would be better for these environments than wading.

Boat speed.

Let’s discuss boat speed and the effect on fish behaviour. If there was just one boat on Penstock Lagoon then there would not be any great issue with it tearing around at high speed to the next drift fishing location. If there are 20 boats doing the same thing then I think I can get you to agree that this is not a good practice. I believe constant and fast boat movement does effect fish behaviour. This is why some 10 years ago I mooted a 5 knot speed limit on the Cowpaddock, Penstock and Little Pine Lagoon.

Maths

In 15 knots it takes 1 minutes to drift 5 metres.

That’s 300m/hr. Over a 6 hour day that is 1800 metres. Your drogue is 4 metres wide so you have dragged 7200 sq metres of water.

There are 20 boats doing this so combined you have dragged 144 000 sq metres of water. If the bottom of your drogue is close to the bottom or dragging weed then you are stirring up silt and the aquatic life. You are certainly scaring the clappers out of any trout within that area.

Furthermore you have probably motored back upwind to start a new drift at least 10 times making a total of 200 boat movements across the lagoon for the fleet. Chances are you have given the shits to shore anglers half of those times which is 100 times in total.

Oh…. And one more gripe. If the two anglers want to stand up high on casting platforms fore and aft

and have plenty of false casts between deliveries then I can assure you that you are scaring a lot of fish away because you are ugly, non thinking anglers. Haven’t you ever wondered why all the world’s loch style anglers sit down?

Do you get it ? Even if I am half wrong – I still have a valid point.

As already mentioned I almost wish I did not design the large rectangular style of drogue. They should probably be used a lot less. Especially on small waters.

Anchoring Think about the environment, other anglers and the mental health of fish before you begin to fish.

Consider using your anchor - or do what I have done and buy a pole. The one I have is fibreglass and can be pushed into the soft bottom and make a perfect tie-up point. They bend rather than pull out and do no damage at all. They don’t pull up weed or mud.

Even a dogwood or ti-tree pole works well.

A lesson from the past I consider myself to be lucky to be the owner of Malcolm Gillies home made ply dinghy. Malcolm made this in the 1950s for use on the Penstock

arm wrist remote control

There was great grief at the time but these days everyone agrees that this has been a good and needed change to the regulations.

To my mind it goes without saying that if some of these waterways were to become electric motor only (quieter and slower movements) then we would have a better fishing experience with improved catch rates.

I believe that one of the greatest obstacles to the support of electric motor only is that most of the Columbia wearing pastel shirt boys have invested heavily in the larger sport-fishing boats that are too wind effected to be practical fishing vessels in these waters.

If only we all lived in the bygone days of the Purdon everyone would be more than happy to fish with an electric motor and a good anchor.

Drogue effect Let’s now look at the effect of the use of the rectangular drogue on a small water like Penstock Lagoon. I read a study on Shannon lagoon some years ago and recall that the average wind strength on the lagoon was 15 knots. Unlike Little Pine and Shannon the Penstock is well protected on all sides with trees. The fishing is good and in a big wind it is one of the few highland fly fishing waters that you can fish with safety and a little comfort. As a consequence it gets a hammering on windy days in the mayfly season.

Penstock more or less runs north south and our prevailing winds are westerly. Guess how it gets fished on these days? Anglers motor out of the canal at the North end and motor down the west side to a spot they want to start drifting in the lee of that shore. They then throw out their drogue and fish the drift across the lake. When they run out of water or they feel they are not in a good spot they motor upwind to a new location against the west bank and repeat the process.

Guess where the wading shore anglers are fishing? You got it - the sheltered west

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Fishing News - Page 15

and Little Pine Lagoon. Malcolm was a great and visionary angler. You might do yourself a favour and research a little about him. Sadly, or maybe gladly, he has moved on to fish better waters without the effects siltation, insecticides, fertilisers, willow infestation and overfishing. If I could ask him I bet you my house that Malcolm caught heaps of fish from that simple little wooden boat.

I know for a fact that he lovingly rowed it (electrics were not dreamt of) and that he never drifted and fished but instead anchored and fished quietly around the boat. Malcolm also had the benefit of a quiet wooden boat rather than the drum effect of a modern tin dish.

These days I prefer to use my 14 foot fibreglass row boat for guiding. Just like Malcolm did all those years ago I am content to fish closer to the

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put in point. I am not worried about missing out on something as I watch pastel Columbia shirt wearing anglers tear past with big motors, big boats, high decks, rectangular superdrogues and powerful electrics. I have great confidence in knowing that the grass is not always greener further afield.

We travel quietly and gently. We learn much on the slow and careful journey. We chat easily to one another as the oars dip rhythmically into the clear waters. We notice rises and sipping sounds and it is funny how the fish swim so close to us if we stay seated. In fact on two occasions last season cruising, sipping, dun feeders bumped into my oars in just a foot of water and I felt the bump in my hands at the other end of the oar.

We impact little on wading shore based anglers and we easily anchor and wade fish if we feel it is better.

There is nothing to foul the water, scare the fish or stir the bottom. When we are anchored we stay perfectly in touch with our flies and unlike the fast drifting loch style guys we seldom miss a take.

With minimal impact we work every inch of the surrounding water with great care and diligence before moving on. Then it might be just ten or twenty metres before we stop again. And should you find a nice pod of fish you won’t drift over or past them disturbing them as you go. There is a chance you will catch a few from one spot.

Fishing within close proximity of the shore is often much more comfortable than working the wind blown bays and we develop a much more intimate relationship with the environment.

Finally, the very wonderful John Brookes once taught me something that perhaps I already knew but was not aware of.

“Peter, many fish are caught from a drifting boat and when you think back it is hard to remember any stand out catches. Ah.. but remember those you catch while wading. You got to know many

of them intimately before you cast to them. You remember their beat, you remember the take and you remember the great fights”.

I think the same can be said for fishing from a stationary boat.

Peter Hayes Peter Hayes is a fly fishing guide and casting instructor in Tasmania. Visit www. peterhayesflyfishing.com to learn more.

Peter Hayes

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Fishing News - Page 17

South Esk River Kayaking from Perth Bridge Michal Rybka

H

ave you ever driven over the South Esk River bridge at Perth? I am sure that most of us have.

On every trip to Hobart, the idea of fishing this section of river has been in the back of my mind.

As a child, I often fished the adjoining ‘Charles Berryman Picnic Reserve’ with my father. It was close to Launceston and had very good access to a small side-water that branched off the main river.

Being European, we targeted species that would normally be considered as pests, such as redfin perch and tench. Sounds crazy I know, but prepared the correct way, tench were actually pretty good eating.

Most of the time we fished the old fashioned way, using worms suspended under a float. I also used small redfin-patterned Celtas on the odd occasion.

The traditional red-coloured ones seemed to give the best results, with many trout caught on these metal spinners in the picnic reserve side-water. However, access to good fishing spots in the river itself was difficult, as the banks were overgrown with willows.

Back then, we didn’t have a boat and my father’s preferred method of set-rod fishing meant that we never really discovered the area’s full potential.

These days, many of the willows are gone. This provides many more shore-based areas to fish from. But how does one access the fantastic looking river upstream? It is certainly not going to be with a powerboat! There are no boat ramps on this stretch of river and many of the bordering properties are privately owned. For me, the answer is simple and it involves the use of my Hobie kayak.

Where to launch While the William Street Reserve offers good access to the Western side of the South Esk River, I decided to re-visit my childhood fishing ground and launch at the Berryman Reserve. Access to the reserve is via Old Bridge Road (off the Main Road in Perth). There are the remains of an old concrete boat ramp there, but this is not accessible to vehicles. It’s a short 20-metre walk from the car park under the bridge. The ramp is the perfect platform to set up and launch a fishing kayak from, while still giving you easy access to your vehicle.

Be mindful that the boom gate to the reserve closes at 6:00 pm, so although you can still access the reserve on foot, vehicles need to be out of the car park by lock-up time. My advice is to park your vehicle outside the entrance to the reserve on Old Bridge Road. Access to the water can also be improved with a purpose-built kayak trolley or wheels. My Hobie Outback Kayak has plug-in wheels as a standard factory accessory.

Best areas to target (see map) During the first part of my trip, I followed the Eastern riverbank upstream, looking for trout. The bank is heavily overgrown with willows, but some likely looking spots, such as rock ledges and dropoffs, do exist. While targeting these areas, I was the target of some intense harassment by the local redfin population. While I would normally keep these for dinner, they were very small and not worth the hassle.

I then reached the first bend in the river, upstream and adjacent to Mill Road. The river there becomes shallow and flows clear, and any sort of crossing by boat or kayak is nearly impossible. There is some fast water here, in the form of rapids and riffles.

There are also some very nice looking pools over the next 200 to 300 metres. Perfect trout territory, as I happened to find out, with of course, the odd small redfin thrown in. Looking around, the banks in this section of the river would not be easily accessed by foot.

The other area that fished equally well, if not better, was the weir just upstream from the bridge.

You can see this weir as you pass over the bridge on your way to Hobart. It is right opposite the Berryman Reserve and very close to where I launched the kayak. I had initially overlooked this area, with my focus on exploring the river upstream. The weir is constructed entirely of rock and, when the water level is low enough, is accessible by foot.

Water spills over the weir to form several fastflowing, shallow riffles below. These are only ankle to knee deep in most places. I found that the water was very clear and the bottom was gravel. There are also plenty of intermittent weed patches and protruding boulders. These features give cover and provide plenty of resting places out of the current for trout.

Launching at the Berryman Reserve is easy and safe.

Fishing News - Page 18

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Kayak tactics and lure selection Due to the shallowness of the water I was targeting, the kayak technique I used also involved some footwork. For this, it was handy to have at least some knee-high kayak boots. There are several brands available, but I have found that the best are made from a neoprene type material. This makes them both waterproof and flexible. You could also wear thigh waders, but I doubt they would be as comfortable in a Hobie kayak, where pedalling is required.

It is possible to fish the approach to the deeper sections of the area near Mill Road as per normal from a kayak. But once it has become shallow, it’s a good idea to pick a spot to beach and secure your kayak. This should be out of the way of the current and, if possible, somewhere where you can tie off to a log or branch.

The next part is the fun bit, although it can be dangerous, with submerged rocks tending to be quite slippery. Being careful to step on solid ground, get out of your kayak and do some prospecting in the pools and shallow fast water sections of the river. Try to walk and cast upstream, as river trout can be very easily spooked.

Look for areas that trout may use for cover.

Things such as boulders or fallen logs/trees will all break the current and provide cover. As most of you no doubt know, trout will sit out of the current to conserve energy. Patches of weed will also give this sort of cover to some extent. Trout often take advantage of the cover, not only to rest, but to also find any food that may flow past in the current.

Shallow diving hard-body lures and soft plastics work very well in this type of river environment. My favourite hard-body lure for trout is the Japanese made Jackall COLT minnow in the classic ‘black n gold’ colour. Tie one of these on to at least a rodlength of good quality 4lb fluorocarbon leader. I have found that a light leader is all that is needed in most river applications. Being such a fine diameter, it certainly goes a long way in providing the best presentation of your offering.

I found that a ‘rip’…’rip’…’pause’ retrieve worked very well. Simply cast and work the hard-body lure fast in quick succession a few times, then pause for a second or two and repeat. The initial ‘rips’ can be done with some fast, but short lifts of the rod-tip or by a couple of very fast turns of your spinning reel. You can cover a good area of water by letting your lure float with the current on the pause using this method. Once you get a bit of practice, you can even navigate your lure between any obstacles that may be in the way. The only problem you may have is when a trout ambushes the lure from between the obstacles. Then the fun really begins!

When using a hard body lure in very shallow water, you will find that it will often (if not always) hit the gravel bottom with its bib as you retrieve.

Don’t be afraid to fish like this – I found that ankle deep water in these areas contained trout. A word of warning however, this style of fishing does take a heavy toll on your lures. Paintwork and even the eyes can be ripped off even the best quality lures thanks to the constant hammering against the rocky/ gravel bottom.

There are plenty of reddies in the system.

The author with an average sized trout from this section of the South Esk.

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Fishing News - Page 19

So if you are not willing to give your $30 Japanese lures this type of punishment, use something less expensive. Try a small Rapala minnow in the ‘Brown Trout’ pattern. They are a great little river lure and generally cost a lot less. There is also no reason why you shouldn’t try a Celta spinner in the traditional ‘redfin’ pattern.

Personally, after seeing the devastation to my expensive hard-body, I turned to soft-plastics as a much less expensive option. Thinking what would imitate a natural food source, I used 1-inch Strike Tiger nymphs in ‘olive pepper’ and ‘black n gold’. They are very ‘insect–like’ and come in some great trout catching colours.

I rigged one of these on a very light 1/24th size 4 jig head and increased the 4 lb leader length to around 2 rod lengths.

I then proceeded to cast into some of the deeper pools I found. The increased leader length really helped me cast better due to less resistance offered by such a thin diameter of line. I would then just let the nymph sink all the way to the bottom and slowly twitch it back up to the surface. I use a similar technique when I go lake fishing for trout.

I had the most success using the soft plastic nymphs at the weir (on my return to the reserve). Again, due to the shallow water, I utilised the same kayak tactic of securing the kayak and then prospecting on foot. With the water flowing faster in this section of river, I used a different method to the one outlined above.

I tried casting into the deeper water just above the weir. By deep, I mean only around a metre. I picked up a small brownie fishing in front of the weir but this success was soon interrupted by an influx of pesky small redfin.

Water below the weir is worth a thorough inspection.

Trying something different, I walked below the weir and proceeded to cast the nymphs directly into the pools and riffles. The current would eventually take the nymph downstream of the weir. It was very important at this point to remember to be in-touch with the line. Too much slack will result in lost takes.

It also helps if you watch your line in the water for any sudden movement. The faster water in some sections of the river can make this difficult.

Letting the nymph ‘drift’ like this in the current was the key to my success. The only rod input I used was to skip the nymph over any obstacles or obstructions.

It turned out to be a very simple method of fishing a soft plastic, yet a very productive one.

warmer temperatures ahead of us, increased redfin activity is something that you will have to put up with.

Redfin aside, I have a feeling that this section of the river really does have a lot more to offer than just average-sized river trout. With this location being so close to Launceston, it’s time to grab your kayak and start your fishing adventure!

Michal Rybka

Conclusion While there are probably many better sections of the South Esk River to fish, the one that I have explored is very close to Launceston and offers some pretty good trout fishing. The best fishing was found in the faster water sections that I have described.

They were accessed very easily using a kayak and then ‘prospecting’ the area on foot.

The trout caught on this particular trip were of typical river size, averaging between 500 and 700 grams. They were all in very good condition and, as a result, full of energy. Although the river was infested with small redfin perch, the cooler spring weather did put a reasonable dent in their appetite. With Fishing News - Page 20

The Strike Tiger nymph is very successful.

Angling regulations The brown trout season is open from the first Saturday in August to the Sunday nearest the 30th April.

Fly-fishing, artificial lures and bait fishing are permitted.

Brown trout – bag limit of 12 fish applies (min size 220 mm).

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Fishing News - Page 21

Sandy Secrets Simon Hedditch

Gems of the north east

H

aving moved to the North East of Tasmania several years ago I set out to explore my local rivers and found them to be vastly different from the Mersey where I grew up. The rivers up this way tend to be much smaller, shallow sandy-bottomed streams. One of the first rivers I fished was a tributary of the George River, the Groom. It was early October and a nice sunny day as I headed north out of St Helens. As I went I stopped on each of the river bridges to have a look. I found the George River to be a little higher than what looked to be normal and discoloured so I continued on.

A few kilometres up the road I came to the Groom River and once again parked the car and had a look downriver from the bridge. This stream was also a little higher than normal but most sections flowed over a broad flat sandy bottom ranging between 30 and 50 cm deep. Much to my surprise looking downriver from the bridge I could quite clearly see five or six small fish feeding over the sand.

After a quick drive around the neighbourhood on a fruitless search to find the landowner I decided to take a chance I wouldn’t get shot. I jumped the fence and started fishing the last hundred metres of river up to the bridge. Even though it was early season and the fish weren’t rising they were not far under the surface and feeding hard. I attached a number 14 Royal Wulff and covered the closest fish which elicited no reaction. After four of five more casts over the same fish I changed to a small brown nymph. Feeling a little more confident the nymph

was presented to the fish only to be refused on multiple drifts.

Scratching my head a little I went back to the fly box and found tucked in the corner a number 14 black beetle. It was tied on a short shank hook, a

Yes, they are often this visible on the sand. fairly simple affair of black wool with a crow feather wing case and a small cotton head. As I took out the small, black beetle I had a fleeting memory of

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Fishing News - Page 22

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a conversation as this fly was handed to me by a good friend “this works really well early-season”.

After quickly wetting the fly in the river to help it sink I put the first cast over the fish which turned out to be a little wayward with the fly drifting about 30 cm to the fish’s left. Much to my surprise the fish that was so reluctant to move off station earlier turned and chased the small black beetle downstream taking the fly as he went. With a flash of the fish’s white mouth I paused and struck and came up tight to my first brown of the day. Thankfully the fish continued to charge downstream and after a little bit of quick stepping I brought the fish to hand which gave me a chance to admire the colouration with bright red spots over a very light brown background. The fish’s colour blended perfectly with the slight tannin-stained water. On closer inspection I found the sand on the bottom of the river to be a creamy white colour and it was only the staining in the water that gave it a golden look. After releasing the fish I moved back to the point where I’d first hooked it and continued to study the water nearby and was quite surprised to see two more fish holding station just above where I caught the first one. The closest was sitting on a pressure wave in front of a small log mid stream with the other holding on a slightly deeper edge against the right-hand bank. With the fish in the middle of the river being closer of the two I presented the black beetle well above and just to the left of the fish. I quickly lost sight of the fly as it sank but was pleased when the fish turned to

its left and I once again clearly saw a white mouth, a quick strike and I came up tight to my second fish. I kept the pressure on and lifted the fish over the log and down past me to be played out. After releasing this fish I had a couple of wayward casts to the fish near the right hand bank before I got the drift right and was rewarded by a third take. This little black beetle was proving to be deadly. It’s not often you can catch three fish in a river fishing from the one spot.

As I slowly worked my way up the river I found an abundance of feeding fish. The bright sunny day and sandy bottom made them extremely easy to

see with most of the fish feeding midstream usually holding station either on a piece of structure such as a very rare rock or log or more commonly in the slightly deeper depressions out of the current flow.

I was quite surprised to see the amount of debris that was being washed across the sand, with most of the strata being very unstable the stream bed is continually moving and the slightly higher than normal water flow was working well to stimulate the fish. In the hundred metre section up to the bridge I managed nine fish with several more spooked. By the time I finished that day, counting the number of fish caught seemed a little pointless as it became

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Fishing News - Page 23 2/10/12 3:35 PM

more about the grin on my face and less about numbers.

It’s funny how these things go, I find your first impression of a fishing location will stay with you forever. I consider the Groom River to be a magnificent small stream even though on my next visit I found the fishing more challenging. As I stood on that same bridge and looked downstream I couldn’t polaroid a fish anywhere and it took me a while to figure out what had changed. The water levels had dropped slightly since my last visit and the fish had moved from the open sandy sections and were now taking cover along the undercut banks. The drop in water level had changed things quite a bit. Fish were much harder to spot and reluctant to take my fly.

Over the subsequent year or so I found that it is a fine line between too much and too little water. You don’t need a flood but you do need enough rain to stimulate the fish into abandoning their safe lies and feeding out in the open. If the catchment is soaked, as little as 10mm of rain is perfect. If the catchment has been dry for some time it may take 20 to 25 mm to raise the river enough to have the fish on the move.

After this minor revelation in the Groom River I looked further afield at some of the other areas of

They aren’t all small. A fine fish taken on a plastic by the author. the George River with a similar granite sand substrate. These included the Lower George River, the North and South George Rivers, Mount Albert Rivulet, Margaret Creek and Ransom River. All of these waters have a vast array of different substrates over their lengths from shingle ripples, large granite boulders, boulder strewn pocket water and of course the stretches of white granite sand. The sections that are purely granite sands that have very little or no cover generally will not hold fish during times of low water, usually summer and early autumn. Fish will only move into these areas and feed once the water levels rise and the sandy substrate starts to move more freely and offer up a richer food source. It’s at these times that I like to target the sandy sections of these waterways.

The way I like to approach it is to keep a very close eye on the weather.

Once we have had what I consider to be enough rain I’ll start by looking lower down in the river system and work my way up into the small streams. I’ll let the water level and the clarity of the water dictate where to fish on any given day.

If the rain has only been light I generally fish the lower sections as the tannin staining or silt load and the water level won’t be too high. But conversely after heavy rains it will be necessary to push right up into the headwaters above the influence of forestry and agriculture to find good water clarity.

The lower George River fishes extremely well in the early part of the season with the best sport occurring with the whitebait run during October and November which regularly produce some good size sea runners. The river just above the estuaries is quite wide with a flat sandy bottom. Fish in this area tend to hold on willow tree snags close to the edge waiting in ambush for the schools of whitebait. Casting to these fish can be a little difficult at times but is well worth the effort. Several kilometres up river from the Binalong Bay Bridge there are large sections of rock bars that produce some good pocket water fishing during summer. These rock bars also provide a fantastic ambush point for some of the larger river-resident fish during the whitebait run. Hard bodies and soft plastics work extremely well at this time of year and also produce a lot of good sized fish.

Our spring weather comes predominantly from the west which

The George River at Pyengana forks into the North and South George River

Taken on the deadly nymph.

Going, going, going, gone.

Fishing News - Page 24

leaves the George River in the rain shadow of the north-east highlands. Apart from the benefit of reducing the westerly winds associated with each front, our rain events at this time of year are generally only 5 to 15mm reducing the likelihood of a blown out river. Given the regularity of westerly fronts during spring this has the effect of continually topping up our streams and rivers just enough to keep the fish out on the sand and feeding hard.

For this reason October and November regularly produces some of the best sight fishing of the year.

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and provide some fantastic springtime nymph and dry fly fishing. Both rivers have a combination of granite sands and shingle stones with plenty of bank side structure in the form of willow trees. The combination of good cover and changing substrate means there are good feeding locations during low water but also plenty of clear open sections of sand to take advantage of when the water levels rise. By walking the banks and utilising the available cover it is easy to polaroid good numbers of fish, some up to 2 pounds. It is also possible to wade most of the river and fishing with a hardbody through the deeper pools and selter in the shallow ripples will produce good bags of fish most of the year.

prospecting at times of high water. I have found that some of the larger fish from the South George push up these smaller drains at these times and can provide quite good sport on light gear.

Above St Columba Falls the South George River forks into numerous small streams all holding good numbers of small brown trout. Typically these streams are a combination of shingle stones and granite boulders with small sections of granite sands. These areas fish well all year round with most forms of tackle. Selter’s work extremely well when the water is a bit lower. Hard bodies and wet flies work well in times of flood. Some of the smaller creeks and drains that flow into the South Georges River above the falls are well worth

Alas winter this year in Scamander proved to be the driest on record, but thankfully as I write this the rain has started to fall and our spring break has arrived. My once-dry water tank is now overflowing and my weekend is mercifully devoid of non-piscatorial activities. I know what I’ll be doing, I’ll start by standing on a bridge and looking down river to see what I can see.

For me the standout feature of these north east rivers has to be the white sand. It gives you the opportunity to be able to sight fish to large numbers of fish for the entire season.

Even on days that are quite dull or early in the season when the sun’s angle is low, fish can be polaroided in the shadow of the high banks or the bank side vegetation and targeted at short range. So far I’ve barely scratched the surface and can’t wait for the next opportunity to get out the door and go and explore somewhere new.

Simon Hedditch

Maybe he will be bigger next time.

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Fishing News - Page 25

Flies from Mick Hall’s Fly Box Mick Hall has been around the fly fishing and fly tying scene seemingly forever. He lives at Eildon - arguably the trout fishing capital of Victoria.

He has featured in and written hundreds of magazine articles, taught many anglers to fly fish and tie flies and developed hundreds of unique patterns for Australian conditions.

Over a few issues we are going to share a few of his flies with you. They are available in tackle stores.

I don’t know if you have ever noticed that where there is mud there is scud. Let me explain. At Arthurs Lake in the Cow Paddock to the right of where the power lines cross, is a bay and under normal circumstances it is one of my favourite areas.

To the far right of this bay is a wooded rocky point, there is a lot of strap weed and a number of gutters, which all adds up to being very fishy water. As you wade through this water there is also a lot of small depressions in the lake bed and these are full of floating particles of all sorts of rotting stuff, just like a thick vegie soup and amongst it are scud and believe me, old speckles knows they are there.

There are similar shorelines to that on the Cow Paddock that attract cruising or tailing fish and a few of the well known ones are Bronte, Little Pine, King William and the Great Lake. On such waters

where you see tailing trout, the pregnant scud is worth trying but why use a pregnant pattern over a standard Scud representation? Well that little bit of pink is simply an added attractor, and we all know how difficult those tailers can be so anything that can help is worthwhile.

The Pregnant Scud as designed by Mick Hall Hook: Mustad C49S Sizes: 16 and 12 Body: Natural Seal’s fur marked in the centre with Hot Orange marking pen to create egg sac Ribbing: Optional fine Silver wire, four turns only Carapace: UV Clear Loon Fly Finish over back.

Mick Hall

Mick Hall Series - Pisces Flies Pregnant Scud Designed and tied by Mick Hall Right from our earliest times, scud have been recognised as a major food source, not only in the Highlands of Tasmania but in the low-land waters as well. A read of the Record of Fish Killed at the Great Lake Tasmania 1893 to 1917 will tell you that the vast populations of scud were suggested as being responsible for the great size those trout achieved.

This isopod was caught at or near Bronte Lagoon by Barry Hickman.

These guys can vary in colour from white, yellow, black, brown and pink, depending on habitat.

Scud, or as some like to call them by their correct names, Amphipoda or Isopods, are found in all waters be they marine of fresh. Scuds generally have an aquatic life of around one year and can vary in size from little to around a size 10 and in some waters they can grow even larger.

They mostly feed on rotten vegetation and at times some waters are alive with them; I have seen them in the waves along the shoreline in Swan Bay on the Great Lake. As it is in the bug world you can have have peaks and falls in populations; it’s just a natural cycle.

Amphipods like this are common in most water and come in a variety of colours including those with Pink/orange tinges or egg sacks; they often hold onto their young until their next moult.

Fishing News - Page 26

MH1 Aussie Adams

MH2 Mick’s Scruffy

MH3 Ruby Bug

MH4 Rubber-legged Royal Wulff

MH5 rubber legged

MH6 Chaser

MH7 Laser Minnow

MH8 Woolly Frog

MH9 Rubber legged Black Chaser

MH10 Rubber legged Woolly Worm

MH11 Chartreuse Woolly Bugger

MH12 Cockchafer Beetle

MH13 Little Green Wattle Beetle

MH14 Gum Beetle

MH15 Tadpole

MH16 Chopper Hopper

MH17 Para Caddis - Green

MH18 Para Caddis - Cream

MH19 Para Caddis - Tan

MH20 Para Caddis - Black

MH21 Compressed Devonshire Dun

MH22 Comp Macca Brown Dun Rev

MH23 All - round Brown

MH24 Penstock Brown Comp Reverse

MH25 Penstock Brown Comp Dun

MH26 Para Penstock Brown

MH27 Dark Highland Dun

MH28 Light Highland Dun

MH29 Peeping Stick Caddis Small

MH30 Peeping Stick Caddis Large

MH31 Hanging Midge

MH32 Emerging Midge

MH33 Full Stop (Black Midge Ball)

MH34 All Round Brown Nymph

MH35 Damsel Fly

MH36 Green Water Beetle

MH37 Brown Water Beetle

MH38 Black Water Beetle

MH39 Highland Nymph

MH40 Black Spinner

MH41 Spent Black Spinner

MH42 Macca Red Spinner

MH43 Orange Spent Spinner

MH44 Ruby Black Spent Spinner

MH45 Compress Para Kossie Dun

MH46 Kossie Para Dun

MH47 Pregnant Scud

MH48 Water Boatman

Flies designed by Mick Hall and tied under licence for Pisces Flies - Clarkson Imports.

MH49 Rusty Dun Reversed

MH50 Blue Dun Reversed

MH51 EP Spider Mudeye Brown

MH53 Clear Water Shrimp

www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

Available from all good tackle stores.

Lowland Mayflies Chasing the water temperatures

S

itting at the fly tying bench, or on the water during September, I often wonder what fishing to target next. After all, the season is just about to hit its straps: frog hunters in the highlands, whitebait feeders around the coast, and lowland mayflies on the rivers. They are all great choices, and after a long winter, the nervous anticipation is half the fun.

If the season goes well, I’ll get the chance to fish a bit of each event: a few frog feeders in the Western Lakes, and a day or two on the sea-runners, but ultimately it’s the mayflies that grab my attention, and keep it till the season’s end.

With nervous excitement I chase the first mayfly hatch of the season. It’s all about finding the bit of water that warms first, so the Upper Macquarie with its dry-land surrounds is Tasmania’s best location.

The river is slow flowing and lacking in cover, so it

The magic mayfly spinner.

Watching and waiting for some action to appear.

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Fishing News - Page 27

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Fishing News - Page 29

heats-up from the sun during its travels, reaching the magical 10 or 12 degrees that instigate the mayfly hatches well before the other rivers. The earliest red spinner hatch I’ve fished was September 20 during the drought years, and it was every bit as good as hatches I’ve fished some four weeks later in the same runs of the river. The triggers revolve around the annual climate cycle, the river levels and water temperatures, and the barometric pressure. The perfect weather is calm and with dappled light, stable or rising atmospheric pressure, and all I’ll need on the perfect day is a fly box full of my favourite Pheasant Tail Spinners, Ostrich Herl Nymphs and Shaving Brush dries.

Brumbies Creek has some superb fishing, but don’t think that makes them easy.

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As quick as the first hatches arrive on the upper Macquarie, they end, signalling the time to chase the hatches further downstream, and across the catchments.

By mid-October the black spinner appear in thick clouds along the South Esk, typically during the early afternoon as the air temperature peaks. A protected high bank, or grassy undercut-edge are great areas to find spinners on the wing, and if you can find the spinners, you can find the trout.

If mornings are more your thing, then the little caenid mayfly and their massive hatches will also be appearing by midOctober. Long and slow runs with silty river beds are the key, and the lower Meander is hard to beat, as long as the murky floods of spring have subsided.

If not, then the broadwaters of the midSouth Esk and upper Macquarie are well and truly worth the effort. Little F Flies are all you’ll need, along with quick and accurate casts. Each sipping fish will work in a steady rhythm, to be targeted with a booby-trap presentation.

Mayfly hatches are widespread by November, and the last-to-start hatches along the cool-water tailraces are starting – in particular, the Lower Macquarie and Brumbys Creek. These are colder river systems, flowing with Great Lake water in their veins, and the colder waters delay the onset of the hatches into late spring, and into high-summer. Caenids along with red and black spinners all make their delayed appearance on Brumbys Creek, creating daily hatch-driven fishing from just after sunset, till late afternoon, on the best days. Clear and high flows are best, with little wind, and the famed Top Weir at Brumbys Creek is as classic a venue as can be found. The hatches aren’t quite so prolific further downstream and into the lower Macquarie, but clouds of insects can be found hugging the undercut banks, and the wise anglers focus on these areas, rather than sending long casts out to the distant centre of the river flow.

Mayflies are the great driver of our fly fishing in Tasmania, both in terms of providing the catalyst for the great sight fishing events, but also by providing the food that puts the post-spring condition on the trout. They are a hatch worth following, and a hatch worth learning.

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Western Lakes Daniel Hackett

Six tips for hard conditions

C

alm and bright weather in the Western Lakes are the conditions that everyone is after. Bright sun and little wind are the perfect ingredients for a day of successful polaroiding, which is possibly the most exciting form of fly fishing available. Unfortunately though, wind and cloud are more common than bright blue sky days out West, along with drizzly rain and the odd bit of snow.

So with this in mind, here are six tips for fishing the Western Lakes during less than ideal conditions.

Cloudy Days are great days Cloudy days in the Western Lakes can be every bit as productive as a blue sky day. In fact, our average catch rates on days with heavy cloud cover are actually better than blue sky days. This is because of mayfly hatches, which tend to occur in large numbers during these cloudier conditions, from November till early February. Mayfly-feeding trout feed more obviously and consistently than blue-sky day cruisers, and highly productive features such as slicks, foamlines and weed-bed edges can be targeted with blind fishing in the absence of obvious targets.

Double hookup with an audience on a good ‘dun day’.

Tailers – always consistent

Avoid the frontal weather system

Drizzly days are sight fishing days

The most consistent sight-fishing targets in the Western Lakes are tailing trout. In all but the worst south-westerly weather, tailers and calm weather will make an appearance for most sun-ups, and sundown. And by consistent, I would estimate that 75% of mornings and evenings will provide this fishing.

Target shallow and silty lagoons for the best action.

The only weather system you won’t beat is a front. The closer the front gets, the slower the fishing will get. My plan of attack in this situation, if possible, is to do your non-fishing activities during this period (such as getting to camp, or setting up camp). That way you’re ready to fish once the front passes. Postfront can be a good time to look for dun hatches in the deeper, weedier lakes.

Drizzly days offer excellent sight-fishing opportunities. Polaroiding can still be surprisingly effective under a solid-grey sky, but fishing the weedy mayfly waters is the real winner. Swirls, fins, snouts, sips and rises can all be subtle, but are plentiful in these conditions, and some of the best sight-fishing can be had.

Bright and howling gales Hot and bright weather in the highlands often goes hand-in-hand with big northerly winds arriving from inland Australia. These hot and windy days can challenge poor casters, but provide for excellent close-up fly fishing. Wade-polaroiding is the best tactic, and by looking through the face of the waves, trout can be easily spotted. Large terrestrial patterns such as WMD’s and crickets are the best flies to use.

If the wind gets too strong, ripping the water surface in gusts, then dry flies become ineffective. Very large galaxia imitations fished roly-poly through the waves is the tactic I switch to, or stick caddis nymphs fished in the stirred-up edges of the wave-beaten shores.

Pick your water to match the weather This tip is simple. If the weather is ideal for polaroiding, then target lakes and lagoons with the best polaroiding water. Large expanses of silty flats are perfect, giving you the most opportunity to wadepolaroid to cruising trout. Conversely, if conditions are cloudy and overcast, and more suited to mayfly, target a deeper and weedier lake, and look for the hatches.

Daniel Hackett FlyShop 1864 & RiverFly Tasmania www.flyshop1864.com.au www.riverfly.com.au

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Fishing News - Page 31

Jan’s Jan Spencer

O

ctober is always an exciting time as spring brings warmth - and with this comes the rapid growth of nymphs. The water warms, the trout become more active and so do anglers.

My favourtite insect at this time is the mayfly especially in the lowland rivers.

From mid-September weighted nymphs start to be very effective and as time moves on and the temperatures rise emerging nymphs progress into duns.

The trout will often start to target the emerger as they cannot swim, nor fly and are easy trout food.

Flies I have in my box this time of the year include nymphs of different weights such as: Pot Scrubber Nymph, Hares Ear, Hare Nymph and bead head nymphs in multiple colours. All of these coul have weighted bodies.

Emergers include: CDC Emergers, Possum Emerger, Klinkhammer Special, Parachute Hackles, Shaving Brush, Duns.

The CDC patternsare always good, as is the Possum Emerger. I tend to push the CDC wings up a little so the wing is more visible. I am not sure if this is for me or the trout.

There are many Tasmanian dun patterns. The one I tie is called ‘Simply Dun’. Here are three of my favourites.

Flies Hare Nymph Hook: Wet fly - sizes 10, 12, 14 Thread: Black or brown Tail: Small bunch hare fur tips Rib: Medium weight copper wire Body: Brown seals fur Thorax: Hare fur This fly can be weighted by winding lead wire the full length of the shank first.

CDC Emerger Hook: Light weight size 10, 12 Thread: Black or brown Tail: Small bunch of CDC fibres Rib: Very light bronze wire Body: Dubbed CDC fibres Wing: Two CDC feathers tied in over the body. Keep the body dubbing fairly fine remembering too much body material adds weight.

NOTE: These are not Jan’s flies. I had Jan’s flies setup to photograph, left the room, and when I came back the flies had gone. Jock, the nine month old pup had slunk off as well. Although I looked they have not reappeared yet.

The dog seems healthy, and was released unharmed.

These are my dodgy representations. Ed -Mike.

Simply Dun Hook: Light shanked 10, 12 Thread: Brown Tail: Grouse feather fibres Rib: Very fine copper Body: Mid brown seals fur Wing: Bunch bronze mallard feather fibre Hackle: One dark brassy dun hackle feather or mid-brown will do Front hackle: Two turns of grouse feather When the fly is finished cut half the underside of the hackle away and the fly will sit better on the water.

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Fishing News - Page 33

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Fishing News - Page 34

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01_12_ Tas Fish News_XD Oct

RU4 Reel Boat Skipper & Humminbird® Pro Team

Cleaning your catch New techniques to try.

Shane Flude

M

ost of us have learned the various basic fish cleaning techniques passed down over the years. I am always on the lookout for faster and better methods and have picked up a few that I will describe in detail in this article. Once you have practised them I,m sure you will use some of these new methods in preference to your old ways.

Trout Like many anglers I started catching and cleaning trout at an early age. There was only ever one way to clean them namely by slitting them up the gut through to the gills and then getting your hands in and cleaning out the rest. However on my first trip to New Zealand I purchased a New Zealand Trout book which featured the following method. It looks and is quite simple and I have used it to clean trout ever since. Apart from my immediate fishing companions I have never seen it used by other anglers.

Step 1 Hold the trout upside down and slit up the gut as you probably normally would however stop short of the gills by about 30mm, right between the pectoral fins.

Step 2 Work your knife through the soft tissue under the trouts bottom jaw and cut through and up above the tongue. This is the final cut needed and you should now have a nice gap to place your left finger to hold onto the trout by the bottom jaw for the rest of the procedure.

Step 3 This is the trickiest part so pay attention.

By holding the trout as mentioned work your left thumb back down along either side of the cut made under the jaw.

Slowly tear this cut through until the lower part of the jaw is fully opened up. Now place your left thumb deep into the guts and clasp the flesh around the gills and fins with your fingers. Push down slowly and roll your hand over as you go. The flesh around both fins will tear through and all the guts, gills and fins should pull out completely. Sometimes if you have cut to far up past the fins to start with the flesh here will simply pull through. This just means you now have to work each side separately to get both fins.

I have found with large fish over about 4 pound it is best to work each side separately and slowly as sometimes the neck of the trout will break and you no longer have anything to hold onto. The final product may appear a bit funny with the front two fins missing but who eats these. Trust me once you have mastered this method you will not revert to your old ways.

Couta Certainly not a preferred sea fish for many people but its probably the long lateral bones that run through this fish that put people off. This method removes the flesh from a couta fillet which can later be made into fish cakes, a now staple diet in my family. All you need for this method is a bowl and large desert spoon.

Fillet the fish like any other and then lay the fillet skin side down. By holding onto and starting from the tail end slowly work the spoon up the length of the fillet. Because couta flesh is reasonable soft each run of the spoon will roll off some flesh which is simply placed into the bowl. Work all parts of the fillet thoroughly with the spoon. You should end up with a near fleshless piece of couta skin with all bones attached.

Flathead Probably the most sort after and certainly one of the best eating fish easily caught in Tassie waters, but are we all sick of the rib cage bones. This method results in a skinless, boneless fillet. The following method will only work on fairly fresh fish as it involves some tearing of the flesh. Once the fish goes off even slightly the fillet will pull apart and half will be wasted.

Step 1 Fillet as you normally would by cutting down under the front fins to include as much meat as possible and fillet right down to the tail leaving the fillet just attached to the fish by a small piece of skin. Laying the fillet skin side down work the knife between the skin and flesh but stop just short of where the rib bones start.

Step 2 Hold onto the skin of the fillet in one hand and with the aid of a wet rag grasp the flesh that has been filleted off and pull it slowly down and over the ribs. The meat should tear off around the bones leaving you with a Y shaped boneless fillet.

Garfish When I first started targeting garfish I’m not sure whether they were harder to catch or clean. They certainly proved to be tricky little numbers but on our most recent trip to Georges Bay at St Helens everything came together and once located and kept in place with the berley trail we caught a decent feed. These fish are well worth the time and effort , they have to be one of the best eating fish we have. This brings us to cleaning methods of which I have now tried three but revert to the second method I was taught by an old master on Georges Bay namely the butterfly technique. The other two methods involved crushing a whole fish with a rolling pin or bottle and extracting the backbone from the tailend by cutting through and pulling it out. Don’t bother with either of these two methods, the first leaves small crushed bones, the second takes too long and a similar amount of meat is gained with the butterfly technique. A small razer sharp knife is essential for this technique as you only tend to use the extreme edge of the knife. The average size flathead style fillet knife will simply not cut it on these small fish.

Step 1 Prepare the garfish well by scaling them thoroughly.

Half their scales will already be strewn around your boat as these things are second to squid for messy fish to catch.

Starting near the tail fillet as you normally would and run the knife from the tail right up to behind the head just above the backbone. Expand the cut on the fillet by running the knife carefully along several times until the silver/blue belly sac is exposed. About two thirds of the fillet should be done. Repeat this process for the other side.

Step 2 Hold the fish up and work the fillet down by slowly tearing the flesh under the front fins.

Once you have enough fillet to grasp simply tear it right down to the tail from underneath. You should end up with a double fillet, joined underneath by the thin belly meat. It will be bone free and ready to cook. Cut up through the middle if you prefer to cook individual fillets .

This method looks and sounds easy but takes a bit to master. The small sharp knife is the key, don’t start with anything less. When you have it down pat it takes about 45 seconds to do a fish.

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Fishing News - Page 35

A small love affair Gavin Hicks

Under the spell of 3 weights A

s the years progress and the fishing gods pull you further under their spell (and your partner allows you) somehow you seem to gather quite a collection of gear. Fly rods are no exception to this rule and I have even had to build an outside room so I am able to keep my collection away from certain eyes, if you know what I mean!. In recent years light line fishing has become more and more popular. With the number of people now going “Twigging” increasing, so to is the availability of the lighter line weight rods in varying lengths. Twigging is commonly referred to as fishing with 3 weight rods or lighter. You can now buy rods right down to a 000 line weight, and by the time you read this I will have one in the rod rack ( thanks Nick). Until that rod arrives at Essential Fly Fisher from the US the 3wt is as light as I own. Over the past few years I have become a lot more interested in the smaller stream fishing. There is just so many of these streams all around the state that are full of hungry fish it seems crazy not to fish them. As a result of this stream and river fishing I have built a small collection of 3wt rods.

A small north western creek is the perfect location for light weight rods.

5’9” 3 wt......

The most recent addition to my light line collection has been a Vision 5’ 9” 3 weight. This rod is out of their Cult fibre range, and is a whole lot of fun. It is actually labelled as a 3-4 weight but I have not ran a 4 line on it as it is perfect with a 3wt Rio Selective Trout 2 line on it.

On one of my regular trips into East Devonport for a chat with Leroy from Big Fin he pulled out one of these rods to show me as he knew I would be interested in what it had to offer. As soon as I had it in my hand I knew it would be a blast to use, and the

brain started ticking. A phone call a week later from Leroy only managed to fuel the fire and the rod was ordered. I couldn’t wait to get it out on a creek and see what it could do. As soon as it arrived I took it home, matched it up with the above mentioned line and an Abel Super 2 reel and headed off to my local favourite creek for a fish.

I had never used a rod this short before so I was interested to see how it would perform. Some sections of the creek I was fishing have become quite grown over in the last couple of years and the short rod really shone in these conditions. Being

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a fibreglass rod it has quite a slow, soft action.

Where it really shines is in its ability to fire off a nice tight roll cast.

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But its real calling is firing a single dry tight in under cover to those hard to reach fish, and as we know some of them can be quite surprising in size in these smaller waterways. If you have never played a fish on light fibreglass rods I suggest you give it a go, what a blast. Thanks for introducing me to the glass Leroy, I owe you one.

7’6” 3 wt......

Before the introduction of the above mentioned glass rod the 7’6” 3wt was my go to small water rod.

My rod in this length is out of the Sage ZXL range and it is a beauty. It is more of a medium action and for its size and length is still surprisingly powerful when needed. It still amazes me how they manage to pack so much rod into something that only weighs a touch over two and a half ounces.

Before I owned longer rods in this line class I would use it for everything from small creeks to our bigger rivers, and even on tailing fish at the lakes.

Now it is reserved mainly for places such as the upper Meander, Minnow and waters of that size where sometimes that extra bit of length is required for mending and reaching over or around bigger boulders and the like.

I have caught countless fish on this rod in the Mersey River and other bigger waterways and it will handle any size fish that come out of these waters with ease, the only area that lets it down is the slight lack of reach you get with line control in the bigger rivers. On the up side, being a 4 piece rod at that length it packs up to nearly nothing, so it is always in the car along with a Fishpond pack carrying all the required gear for a fishing session if and when needed. You never know what might be under the next bridge you cross so it pays to be prepared.

The good thing being it is still a lot of fun to fish if you stumble across an unknown small creek, but quite capable of getting you onto a fish on a bigger river as well.

8’ 3wt.....

In the 8 foot class my rod of choice is a G Loomis.

It is from the old IMX range of rods and it is not far off being my all time favourite rod ( at the moment anyway). This rod was previously owned by my brother in-law and it took a lot of annoying the crap out of him before he finally gave in and offloaded it to me. What a great day that was!

It is a two piece rod and with a classic old sliding band real seat it is a thing of beauty. I now reserve this rod mainly for use on tailing fish at the lakes.

Compared to other 3 weight rods I would class it as a medium/fast action rod. For places like Little Pine Lagoon where on occasions you need to get back off the waters edge and cast around 40 feet of line to its tailing fish this rod shines.

I have hooked many fish in the shallows of Little Pine and other lakes across the central plateau on this rod, and let me tell you when you get an angry fish in the 2 to 4 pound class with nowhere to go

Beautiful colours in this fine little trout. The ink is good too. but away from you it will have you yelling with joy as much as my youngest son when he gets to go to the skate-park on his new bike!

9’ 3wt.....

This is the rod currently getting the most use out of all my 3 weights. It is from the XP range of Sage rods and is a two piece. I swapped a very fast actioned powerful 4 weight rod for this one and it turned out to be an excellent decision.

I made the choice to swap as I thought this rod would be perfectly suited to the bigger rivers around the state. It has plenty of grunt but is still light enough in the hand to be loads of fun on the smaller fish that can be encountered on these rivers.

On the Mersey River over the last few seasons I have done everything from double nymph rigs, tungsten nymphs, nymph/dries, two dries and single dries either big or small and have yet to encounter anything this rod would not handle. Last season in a faster run I hooked and landed a nice brown that when slipped into the weigh net turned out to be three and a half pound, it always amazes me how big some of these fish turn out to be. When you see them rising in the half light of evening it can be quite a surprise when you get to set the hook and they explode out of the water.

I had a memorable session on the Mersey with the XP this year on Devonport Show day. I decided to head out for a midday session, which I don’t get to do all that often on the rivers. I arrived at one of my favourite sections of river and it looked sweet.

I couldn’t set up quick enough and I was knee deep in the water in a flash.

It was a beautiful clear day and there were a few duns drifting down past me in the current. It was only a matter of minutes and a fish came up under my never fail parachute and turned off it at the last second!. Never mind, I could live with that, cant catch them all can we. Two more fish followed with the same reaction and it was time for a change of flies.

In the next hour I cast to plenty of fish and went through all my go to Mersey flies for one fish. In a moment of desperation I went for a fly I rarely use, and to be honest was never a big fan of, the CDC F-fly. I have always carried them in my box but not used them, just a mental thing really. As soon I tied one on it was like a switch was flicked, the fish was all over it. Every fish I saw move and covered and a lot that I didn’t see rose to the little F-fly. A lot were lost or missed on the strike but plenty were slid into the weigh net as well.

It also brought about an encounter with my best river fish to date. I came up to a pool that had a nice deep run on the opposite bank that was lined with willows and a shallow gravel bar on my side. I waded out and started to work what looked like the perfect bubble line. Two casts and I was into a nice brown that went just over two pound. After he was safely released I waded a bit further up and started to work the bubble line again. For some reason I looked behind me in the shallows and laying just upstream from me in about a foot of water was a good fish. Initially, going on the size of it I just didn’t think it was a fish, but it was. I crouched down and

A Vision and Sage rod compete for glory.

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Fishing News - Page 37

landed the f-fly just in front of him. It drifted down past the big brown and he turned on it straight away, only to drift back on station at the last moment.

Bugger it, I thought to myself that would be my only shot but I cast again anyway. This time the fly sank, as they can have a habit of doing and drifted towards the fish. Once again he turned as though he was going to scoff it but turned away again.

By now I am thinking I am running out of chances, but had another shot at him anyway. The fly landed right on track and this time it floated again. When it got to the spot the big brownie rose up and sucked it in without a care in the world. I set the hook and he nearly bent the 3 weight in half with a couple of massive jumps as he left the gravel bar. After a couple of minutes I had him beat in front of me.

I grabbed the weigh net and reached out for the fish when all of a sudden the hook pulled out. He gave one big kick of his tail and slipped down over the drop off into the deeper water as I had one last lunge with the net. He was gone, I was gutted. I don’t like to mention missed or lost fish to much as people tend to give it the “Yeah, right o mate”. But he was a big fish, at least five pound going on other fish I have landed. It was a fun fight on the 3 weight while it lasted though. Sorry, got side tracked there a bit.

Setting up.....

When fishing the shorter versions of the 3 weight rods I like to keep leader lengths around the same length as the rod you are using. I have found this

formula has served me well, especially in the tighter creeks as it is more about getting your fly in there than it is about presentation.

As the water starts to open up you can adjust leader lengths for better drag free drifts and the like. I like to keep it simple with gear as sometimes you can do a lot of leg work in a day on a creek.

I carry a small sling-bag style pack with a box of flies, tippet, spare leader and floatant and then carry my camera on its shoulder strap wrapped in a dry sack. Don’t forget the most important piece of equipment, the forceps.

These smaller fish are famous for engulfing the flies and sometimes they can be difficult to remove without harming the fish. The forceps do a great job eliminating this risk so they can be released unharmed.

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When you are next in the market for a new rod why not have a look at a 3 weight. You can go shorter for the small creeks or longer for the rivers. Try a stiffer rod for throwing nymphs or a slower, softer rod for delicate dry fly work. You can even take it to the lakes for some real fun if you feel like it. Once you hook a fish on the lighter rods you will realise what you have been missing out on. If you are in the East Devonport area call in and see Leroy and get him to hook you up with one of the new glass rods, excitement guaranteed. So grab yourself a 3 weight and get out on the water, and if we happen to come across each other stop for a chat and tell me some of your stories about the 3 weight action.

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Fishing News - Page 39

Echo Revisited Shane Flude

Rough options

I

t’s been five years since I last did an article on Lake Echo so time for an update on my still favourite water.

Each year I manage several trips which due to the distance from home are usually one or two night excursions.

The spring months from September through till November still rate as the best times however the month of April in ideal conditions can be brilliant. By ideal conditions I mean rough as hell, in fact during April the rougher the better. Most Tassie autumns can be quite mild and some seasons I haven’t even gone as it was just too calm.

Finding calm weather in spring in rare and the two recent trips which I will describe later were in less than inspiring weather. When I first wrote about Echo I was dubious that by revealing my secrets I would soon find other anglers fishing my chosen spots at the right time. I needed have worried in fact in the past five years I would say that fishing pressure at Echo has decreased despite a new boat ramp to Large Bay and even a recent upgrade to the road.

Two wheel drive vehicles can now easily travel right to the water’s edge at Toby’s point and the new ramp.

Frank’s 3-pounder In fishing terms our catch rates have probably increased slightly over the last few years but the size of the average fish has dropped to around 600m grams. A fish over two pound is now the exception. Their condition varies like most waters each season but his year I would describe it as good to excellent. The orange/red colour of the better fish is magnificent.

Despite the intensive rainbow stocking program for many years their catch rate now is practically zero. During the last four years we have caught 250 browns for just 6 rainbows.

Redfin perch numbers in the Lake have continued to decline, we haven’t caught one in seven years. 10 years ago one perch caught for every 20 or so trout would be average.

Perhaps it is the decline in perch that has led to the slower fishing at the canal mouth, once a place I would have rated as the best spinning water in Tassie. All the bigger fish were caught there and many had a number of small perch inside them. My last few visits have proved fruitless.

The most obvious addition to the Lake Echo skyline is the construction of two very high wind monitoring towers on the north eastern corner of the lake. They were erected two years ago to measure wind speed and direction for the proposed Cattle Hill wind farm and can be clearly seen right across the lake. The wind farm has almost been granted full approval and construction on the 100 turbines is expected next year with power being supplied in 2014. The farm will have a generating capacity of 300mw which is over twice that of Woolnorth and ten times what Lake Echo produces in hydro power.

I can’t say the resident Wedge Tail or Sea Eagle populations will appreciate these new structures much but I can certainly vouch for the fact that Echo is a notoriously windy place and obviously well suited to such a development.

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The remainder of this article is a summary of two recent trips to Echo describing the methods used and places fished.

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Trip 1 day 1 Arrived and quickly set up camp in our usual location just before Toby’s Point. Trolling a mixture of Rapala CD7s in the perch and rainbow patterns we did both top bays and then down the northern shore through the trees to the canal mouth. The final tally for several hours trolling was me 1, Frank 1 and

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Glenn 5 including his first ever trout. Harley arrived several hours behind us and trolling a floating size 7 Rapala he managed to get his bag. In between we spun the gaps in the trees in both top bays and I had the boys let me out so I could scout the flooded margins of Large bay. I saw 12 trout but they saw me and I didn’t catch a thing. Overall a slow first day.

missed strikes was the final result. It was time for tea and big fire. I was however happy with claiming my bag for the day and all were in good to excellent condition.

Day 2

Day 2

I decided to have a concerted effort with the fly rod and wasted another half hour in Large Bay before being dropped off in Broken Bay. I found a good number of fish in a small pocket amongst the flooded kerosene bushes, claiming 3 and loosing 2. It was tight fishing and I literally lowered the fly on top of the last two fish to catch them. The boys picked me up and we wasted several more hours trolling for nil result. Back to Large Bay for a session on soft plastics in the middle of the bay. We claimed 7 nice fish with lots of other hits and strikes. Harley who had also trolled for hours empty handed headed home.

Three inches of snow on the tent overnight was not a promising start to the day and the weather only went downhill from there. For the next three hours I battled howling south westerly winds and frequent snow storms in probably the worst weather I have experienced on the lake.

Due to the extreme winds When the fish fishing was only possible in close to the western shore. By midday despite four layers of thermals and gortex clothing and no fish bites I pulled the plug and headed home before being snowed in. Wise decision as it snowed for the remainder of the day and well into the night. I awoke next morning to a perfect snow covered western tiers.

Day 3 Abysmal weather conditions greeted us the last morning and dressed in everything we had we headed out for the last hoorah. Glenn who was new to this trout fishing thing later told me he thought we would all freeze but didn’t say anything at the time. Only 2 fish claimed on soft plastics before the weather forced us out. Best fish for the trip was the perfect almost three pound brownie Frank is seen posing with. 35 claimed in total, all browns and a couple of very small ones thrown back. All up a below average trip which I blame on the freezing weather.

safe looks like this, it’s time to head home.

Despite the poor fishing and woeful weather conditions driving me out the last day I will return. If Echo continues to rise this season it should reach the minus 2 metre mark which results in some great flooded shorelines. All the bays namely Teal, Broken and Large are well worth a look. Hopefully if things

Trip 2 day 1 My most recent trip was on the freezing grand final weekend just gone. All the usual starters pulled out, I think they had studied the weather forecast better than I had. I arrived and set up camp with no other anglers to be seen on the lake. Fishing by 11.15am and by 12 I had five in the boat from Large Bay, four by trolling CD5 Rainbow Rapalas and one by spinning with them. I then swapped to soft plastics and claimed one first cast, quickly followed by two more. As the weather improved the fish went off the bite and for the next half hour I had heaps of hits and strikes but no more hook ups. With the sun out I waded the entire length of the eastern side of Large Bay in what looked like perfect flooded conditions. Not a trout to be seen.

Back in the boat and around to Broken Bay for more of the same. One nice fish trolling in and two more lost. Plastics again claimed three in quick time followed another hour of constant hits and strikes but no firm hook ups.

Harley’s camp set up, everything including the kitchen sink! warm up a bit the fish will move in. You can walk to Large Bay but a boat is really the only option when fishing Echo and opens up all the water.

Essential fishing gear includes a good supply of Rapala CDs in size 5 and 7 in the Rainbow, Brook and Perch patterns. For soft plastics the Berkley T tail in olive pearl colour seems to out fish the black and gold colour on this lake. For fish in the shallows a black woolley worm or small black or brown possum fur nymph will do the trick. So no excuses then, get up to Echo, you won’t be overcrowded.

Glenn’s first Echo fish

Shane Flude

A phone call from Harley had me retreating to the ramp to pick him up for the last hour or so of trolling in what is normally the most productive time of the day. Not so this trip, two

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Fishing News - Page 41

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Sea runners Christopher Bassano

Early Season Excitement C

onsidering the world class quality of our sea trout fishery, these fish are not sought after by enough anglers. Sea runners live in the salt water and run up our estuaries and rivers from the start of August to the middle of November. At this time of the year, they are here to eat the many species of fish that are either running up the rivers to spawn or are living in and around the estuary systems. Trout, both sea run and resident (Slob Trout) feed heavily on these small fish which darken in colouration as they move further into fresh water reaches.

The majority of these predatory fish are brown trout with rainbows making up a very small percentage of the catch. They can be found all around the state but it would be fair to say that the east coast is the least prolific of all the areas. They still run up such rivers as the Georges (and many others) but their numbers along with the quality of the fishing elsewhere make it difficult to recommend the area above the larger northern, southern and western rivers.

When to find the action Timing your trip is extremely important. Although there is a small window of opportunity to catch them in April when they return to the rivers and estuaries to spawn, it is the first third of the season when the best action occurs.

A dry August followed by a wet September makes for ideal conditions as rain and therefore fresh in the rivers can bring the bigger fish out. Although dry conditions make fish easier to see and the white bait runs easier to follow, bigger fish will make up a smaller percentage of your daily catch. A small flood around September and October after the bait has started to run is perfect. Unless the river is in raging flood, it should still fish well. Unfortunately this year, it has been wet, wet, wet. The rains came earlier than we would have liked for excellent sea trout fishing but we often get a late run of fish and that is what I am counting on. Not to say the fishing hasn’t already been good but it will improve if the bait arrives in larger numbers.

Southern waters

By October we have usually seen the best of the Derwent, Huon and other southern estuaries.

Fortunately, this spring has been very wet and the

wonderful sight fishing associated with sea runners at the start of the season has not really happened.

Yes, there has been some good fishing at times on the lower Derwent but it has been patchy.

The Huon was very poor early but bait has now shown up in reasonable numbers although often quite deep. Fish that have been caught in all of the southern rivers have had whitebait inside them but almost all of these fish have been caught underneath the fresh water in the salt pockets.

On the Derwent - just north of the Bridgewater Bridge has been the most consistent area although fish are still showing up chasing bait around Cornelian Bay and Old Beach. They are often very close in to shore. As usual, fast and accurate casts are needed. When there is not much bait around, the time between trout raids on bait schools can be lengthy. A bit more patience than normal is required but when you get a cast in the right place, the fish are more likely to take.

Sleek and silver - from the shore. places to look for sea runners through October even if you are shore based. If you are planning a trip to the D’Entrecasteaux and Catamaran River, a boat or canoe is a must.

Timing the tide Picking the right stage of the tide during which to fish will directly influence your success. A strong out going tide is the best time to fish. The speed of the water running down the middle of the river forces the migrating bait to the edges where trout lie in ambush. The little fish use logs, rocks, bridge poles, eroded banks and anything else that breaks

Wind direction has never been a factor I have considered very much but of late, the calmer shore has made sighting the trout much easier. It may be due to the smaller numbers of bait fish present that has made for smaller explosions.

For some reason, there have been an unusually high number of Atlantic Salmon coming to the fly in the first two months.

Although they usually make up a small percentage of fish caught, many fish around the five pound mark recently made up over fifty percent of the fish we caught on a recent trip to the Huon. I am not aware of an escape of salmon but they are there!

Although a boat opens up the rivers up to you, the Huon River and those to the south such as the Esperance, Lune and Kermandie, are all good

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Fishing News - Page 43

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the current to hide from the strong flows and rest before continuing up river. Trout then use these same obstructions to hunt them down and surprise the schools as they rest.

The top and bottom of the tide are the quiet times as no flow allows the bait to move freely up the river and spread out across its width. A rising tide assists the bait in their quest to move up river and more importantly, brings in another fresh run of whitebait with every high tide. Big tides are therefore better than small tides, especially on the west coast where some rivers do not have a strong connection to the ocean.

West coast The west coast has some wonderful fishing around this time of year. The wild coast line has many tannin stained rivers with plenty of sea trout action from early October onwards.

The Arthur and Pieman rivers have very limited walking access but boat fishermen can make the most of these spots. Reports from the Arthur River so far have not been good with extremely high water making fishing difficult with fly rods but those trolling and generally fishing deep have had more success. The fresh water current has been running flat out making it difficult to get anything deep enough in the flow.

Further south near Strahan, the Gordon River is even more difficult to get to and a boat is essential.

The mouth of the river is the major hot spot although casting under the over hanging trees is a reliable fall back.

The most productive rivers on the west coast are usually the Henty and Little Henty. Both of these rivers are north of Strahan and are hard to access more than a few kilometres upstream of where they empty into the sea. The walk to the Little Henty is very scenic but is hard to recommend due to the distance that is needed to be covered to reach the mouth.

The Henty itself is the most accessible of all west coast rivers. A boat ramp is located next to the highway bridge and four wheel drives can be driven to the sand dunes at the mouth where a camp site is located. Usually, low light levels are a bonus when chasing sea trout but during bright days, fish can be polaroided cruising over the white sand lip in spite of the tannin water. For those with boats, upstream from the launching ramp is also worth visiting.

Tides are very hard to predict on the west coast but if you are fortunate enough to make sure you are fishing here during large tides, the fishing will be far better. The bait seems to darken very quickly on the west coast and unless I am fishing the mouth of the river, dark olive and even black lures and flies work best. If you are planning a trip to this area, mid October is usually when it is at its best. Couple this with a big high tide and you should be salivating at the prospect.

Mersey and Forth rivers The Mersey and Forth are the main sea run fisheries on the north west coast although fishing in almost every river emptying into Bass Straight can be good.

The Forth River mouth is a popular fishing location for those chasing others species but it produces its fair share of sea runners too. On the south side of the highway bridge trout are commonly seen along tussock lined banks and amongst the tea tree. A large weir used to cross the river south of the township of Forth. The area still fishes very well for sea trout and in fact has produced many fish already this season. The fishing in this river has been surprisingly consistent through the early months this season. Bait is there in good quantities and trout are feeding on them. Lures and flies with dark coloured tops and lighter underbellies have, and continue to be, the most successful.

I have not fished or heard many reports from the Mersey River this season. It did produce some very good fishing towards the start of the season

The Henty, above, is easily accessed and has some great fishing. Shown right is whitebait swimming along the edges and below is a fish taken on a Stiffy lure above the road bridge. but when the rain came, it shut down. At the time of writing this, it is running very high and filthy. There is no reason to think that it won’t produce as many fish as usual in October and November this season when the bait comes back. Not far from there in the Rubicon River, whitebait is certainly present.

back water. I would love to see a photo of that fish if someone catches it - hopefully it is released. That fish drives me to insanity sometimes! The best fishing I have had at this time of year is often in the north east of the state.

North East rivers

Those who do chase sea trout every year will agree that it is the highlight of the season. They are much harder fighting than those that only live in fresh water, are more elusive and equally frustrating.

Of all forms of trout fishing, chasing these fish is more suited to the experienced angler than any other. The ability to repeatedly make good casts in exactly the right spot for hours will bring success. I don’t think I have ever seen one of these fish caught with a bad cast. The difficulty in catching them is part of the attraction because when you do, you know you have done everything right! Unlike the highlands in October and November, the weather at sea level is normally much warmer and more pleasant – another big plus.

The north east coast doesn’t get very much pressure from travelling anglers but the locals catch some wonderful fish and I will certainly be spending a few days here in the coming weeks. The Little Forester is difficult to access but well worth the effort. For those with kayaks, launching just short of the road bridge once you have driven through the town of Bridport is thing to do. Bait, runs well past this bridge in incredible numbers and after any prolonged dry period in October this will be the place to fish. The bank is over grown and hard to recommend above the Great Forester on the other side of Bridport. For the golf nuts, this river divides Barnbougle and the Lost Farm golf courses. It is narrow and exposed and very easy to fish from the bank. Many people make the long walk down to the river mouth but as is often the case, great fishing occurs at the road bridge. A bit of stealth is needed because fishing happens at close quarters and again, a falling tide is best. Trout activity can often be seen from the road bridge.

There is a fish that consistently seems to feed under the small tea tree just north of the bridge at the mouth of the

Worth the effort

Fast and accurate casts are needed with bait fish patterns that at least resemble the rough

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Fishing News - Page 45

shape and colouration of the natural prey. There is no need to fish ‘light’ and a ten to twelve pound flurocarbon tippet is standard. Five to seven weight rods are sufficient although when targeting big fish or when using sinking lines, the heavier option is more practical. The BMS in grey and olive is a very good fly in tannin water but I have found more life like patterns better in clear, saltier water. If you remember to fish darker flies further into the fresh water, you will be close to the mark.

For the lure angler, I have friends who catch them on mainly on Rapalas down deep and trolling the brown trout and rainbow trout patterns. This is particuIarly relevant on deeper rivers such as Derwent, Huon and west coast rivers including the Arthur and Henty.

Plenty of anglers also chase them using soft plastics and like fly fishers these anglers need to be accurate and consistent. There are some superb plastics for the job and these include Berkley minnows - pearl/watermelon; Gastronomics in a variety of colours; Squidgy Flick Bait in 70mm Evil Minnow or Pacific Pearl; Yep 3 inch Flick Bait in Whitebait or Pearl White.

The real advantage with soft plastics is being able to fish different depths without jig heads. It is simply a matter of letting the plastic drop for a few seconds and varying the retrieve.

Plastics can also be fished unweighted and this can be dealy at times when a fish is smashing into the bait/whitebait. Often they will smash at it — then come back and pick up the dmaged whitebait. If your plastic is slowly sinking and rolling around you are in with a chance. In this situation where you are basically fishing without retrieve it is important to watch the line for movement rather than feel. Strike if you see the line pull away.

If you are in a boat a Minn Kota bow mount is almost essential and is probably the most useful fishing accessory you can have. The new iPilot has a ‘spot lock’ feature that allows you to anchor via a GPS signal. It is awesome.

Shore based fishing can be fabulous for lure and fly fishers.

The Derwent has great access at many areas. The Little Henty, Henty and Great Forester have some good access points.

Sea trout fishing has a level of excitement

Accurate casting is essential and a Minn Kota keeps you close to the action.

unmatched by other forms of fishing. They fight harder than any other trout, provide wonderful sight fishing, are often more accessible than their fresh water friends and grow to sizes not seen anywhere else in Tasmania. You don’t have much time to take advantage of them this season so get out there.

Christopher Bassano

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Renovators Delight

Bass boat to flats boat Craig Rist

The author’s budget bass boat in fully operational mode.

D

uring the filming of “Black Bream Tasmania” I spent quite a bit of time shooting footage from Mike Stevens Haines Hunter Pro Strike and Leroy Tirant’s Stratos. Both of these boats are fibreglass bass boats and are ideally suited to any lake or estuary fishing in Tasmania. Working and fishing from these boats profoundly changed my once negative views on small fibreglass boats.

From the moment I stepped foot on one of these boats, I noticed how stable they were at rest and when we were on the move, the hull design quietly cut through a half a metre chop with ease. The low profile, and the extra weight, of these boats significantly reduced the affect the wind has on the hull while fishing a drift.

Choosing a Boat Be it aluminum or fibreglass, there is always compromises to be made when choosing a boat. For me, the biggest deterrent for choosing a fiberglass boat has always been how venerable these hulls are around rocks, which is why I have always leaned towards an aluminum hull. With that said, I just couldn’t dispute how good these bass boats were to fish and film from. All of a sudden I was prepared to live with the fact that I might damage the hull on a fibreglass boat, if I owned one. The fact that they are so easy to repair also eased my concern a little and was the reason why I eventually decided to look for a used glass Bass Boat, with the aim of transforming it into a purpose built fly-fishing and lure fishing flats boat.

Extreme Bass Once the decision had been made, I looked long and hard for a boat that I could afford and would eventually meet my needs as a flats boat. I finally found a Bass Boat on Boatpoint.com.au which was located in Brisbane. Despite its location, it was well within my budget, even after the cost of relocating it to Tasmania.

The hull was a 5m Extreme Bass, it was powered by a 50 HP Tohatsu and a 54 pound thrust, bow mounted electric outboard. The boat was configured as a centre console with forward and rear casting platforms. It already had a live well and an under floor fuel tank, which was also a big incentive.

The only thing it really lacked was storage space, which could be easily overcome with the intended modifications I had in mind.

Customizing the interior With the purchase and relocation back to Tasmania complete, it was time for the fun part, redesigning the interior to meet my needs as a flats boat. One of the things I really like about most Bass Boats is that everything is stored below a raised casting deck. This leaves a huge area that can be kept clear of any obstructions that could catch any loose fly line stripped onto the deck, which would obviously be a disaster when hooked up to a good fish that is taking line.

With this in mind, the centre console layout of the Extreme Bass was transformed into a side console to allow enough space for five more storage compartments to be installed. This was done by extending the forward and rear casting platforms, to leave only a small area behind the side console for some leg room for the driver and passengers.

I wanted the new under floor compartments to be constructed from fibreglass and, because needed a professional job, I engaged the help of “Penguin Composites” to carry out this part of the modification. These guys have a passion for restoring and modifying fiberglass boats, which is clearly seen in their workmanship that has gone into some of their earlier work of transforming old half cabin glass hulls into very unique and modern looking Bass Boats.

As bought and before any changes.

I simply supplied Penguin Composites a rough plan containing the dimensions of each compartment and they set about making it a reality.

A few weeks later they had completed the fibreglass compartments and I was ready to cover the entire deck with ply and marine carpet.

Storage The existing fibreglass hatches were removed and replaced with new carpet lined ply hatches that were to become part of the new casting platform.

To make a simple handle for each hatch, I formed a loop in a piece of flat woven strap from an old redundant ratchet tie down and screwed this material to the underside of each hatch, allowing just enough of the looped strap to protrude above the deck to accommodate a couple of fingers to pull the hatch open.

Two narrow lockers were installed down each side of the boat to house a large drogue and any other lengthy items such as rods tubes and landing

Extra hatches, rod storage added, console moved, lean pole added and all carpeted.

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Fishing News - Page 47

a platform, without the need to weld or bolt together an aluminum frame. In the end the solution was blatantly obvious. Four lengths of 1200mm x 40 mm Aluminum tube would drop into each of the angled rod holders.

The poling deck would be made out of 16mm ply, covered in carpet with four more stainless steel angled rod holders screwed to the under side of the poling deck to slide over the 40mm aluminum tube. Initially this whole arrangement lacked some form of bracing to make it a ridged platform. This was quickly rectified by engaging Harry Murfett at the Boat Shack in Devonport to fabricate a set of stainless steel wire rope stays, complete with adjustable turnbuckles.

This gave the platform some diagonal bracing and pulled it down to the rear casting platform.

nets. When closed, the width of these narrow side lockers allowed an area down each side of the boat to temporarily lay down any unused rods that may obstruct overhead casting area.

Rod storage is always paramount on my boats, so a rod locker that was capable of stowing two full-length 9 ft fly rods was installed into the forward casting platform. To do this in the limited space available, these two rods would have to bend to the shape of the boat. To achieve this, two lengths of black poly pipe would be installed beneath the casting platform to guide and bend the tip of each rod around to the bow of the boat. The butt of each rod containing the reel would then sit on top of a short length of foam covered aluminum tubing that would be fixed to the side of the rod locker. Each rod handle was then held firmly in place by a loop of bungee cord.

The other two large storage lockers would be used to store additional batteries, spinning rods and the removable poling platform as well as any other general gear.

When the poling platform is not needed it’s just a matter of releasing the wire stays disassembling the platform to be store under the rear-casting platform.

Poling Platform I’m a big fan of poling platforms for sight fishing the flats. The two major advantages I see, is that the person poling the boat, instantly becomes a spotter from this elevated position and secondly, by using a pole to move the boat over the flats, you have the ability to instantly and most importantly silently stop the forward motion of the boat when you have located fish or a some fish holding structure. This ability gives the person doing the fishing many more opportunities to present the fly or lure to a given area, without worrying about the boat drifting onto fish.

New ideas and designs are often developed through sharing your thoughts and experiences with like-minded people who have owned and used boats for sight fishing. I was sharing my plans to install a poling platform to my bass boat with Leroy Tirant, owner and operator of Bigfin Fishing Tackle

The Pole The pole is made from 25mm graphite tube and is 5.5 m long. The reason for such a long pole is to improve the efficiency of the poling operation by reducing the number of times you need to reset the pole as you move forward.

The pole, poling brake and poling platform all work superbly. in East Devonport and as soon as I mentioned this concept, Leroy immediately voiced an idea he had been thinking of for some time, which was to make a removable poling platform that fits into four-rod holders mounted into the rear of the boat. I thought Leroy’s concept was brilliant and I wasn’t about to leave it at that.

Back at the workshop I spent quite a lot of time staring at the back of the boat trying to visualize the many variations of a poling platform.

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The starting point was four stainless steel angled flush mount rod holders mounted into the rearcasting platform. My initial thoughts were to have an aluminum tube frame welded up, as I had done on the poling platform on my 3.75 Quintrex. This time however, I wanted to avoid this expense, by finding a way to fabricate

Storing such a long pole brings on its own challenges, not only when the boat is on the water, but also on the trailer.

My solution for this was to install another set of 655mm stainless steel handrails to the bow of the boat, inline with the existing rear handrails. This arrangement gave me something to mount some purposes built nylon brackets, to secure the pole along the out side of the boat.

Pole brake attachment The design and fabrication of some form of pole brake attachment began out of necessity. After all, one of the main reasons for installing a poling platform was to be able to hold the boat over the flats. Traditionally this is done by holding the foot of the pole down against the seabed while relying on the connection your body has between the pole and the boat. With a strong wind or tide pushing the boat, the physical strain on your body can be just too much to stop and hold the boat. I decided to make a pole brake attachment, well that’s what I call it anyway, that could be mounted onto the leg of the outboard. With the pole brake installed, the pole could then be hooked into this attachment to transfer the force on your body to a physical point on the boat. This attachment creates a huge mechanical advantage, allowing the pole to be used as a lever to then very easily stop and hold the boat.

To make this very basic attachment, I cut its shape out of a sheet of 16mm nylon. At one end it was split in two and shaped to fit the profile of the outboard leg. To the other end of the attachment, a

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Storage and decks under construction.

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hook shape was cut into the nylon to accommodate the diameter of the graphite pole.

When the boat is on the plane, this attachment sits above the water line because it is mounted above the cavitation plate. At slow speeds this attachment is under the water but has no affect on the boats performance.

This strange looking attachment is certainly getting a few strange looks, but for me, it’s serving its purpose well.

DIY Wind Shield Lexan polycarbonate is a clear and almost unbreakable UV resisting plastic that is used for glazing and many other applications. One of the main reasons why I like to use this product for a basic windshield over the normal Perspex, is that it can be folded in a sheet metal bender without the need for it to be heated. This basic folding technique allows a windshield to be fabricated with two folded sides that can then wrap around a standard console such as mine. This strengthens the windshield and offers some side protection for the electrical hardware that is often mounted on top of a console.

Lean Pole

A new boat from your old glass clunker Penguin Composites specialises in taking your old fibreglass boat and building it into a modern, practical fishing platform.

There are many excellent boats around that just need a revamp to bring them up

to date. Yours could be one of them.

That could mean a pod on the back or a total make over from a cuddy cab or runabout to a terrific little bay, estuary, lake, bream or trout boat.

From this

To this

During rough conditions, a lean pole can give you the confidence and stability to stand up and fish, during less that favorable conditions. Lets face it; it’s very hard to catch fish when you’re sitting on the deck worrying about falling in.

The lean pole I chose to install was the basic tube design, mainly because it would allow any loose fly line to slip right over this type of lean pole.

From this

To this

Once again, this was something I knew I could make myself using some 40mm aluminum pipe and a couple of straight flush mounted stainless steel rod tubes.

To bend the pipe I took it down to my local Midas Mufflers shop, which have the machinery to bend very thin walled pipe. For a very reasonable fee I had two 90-degree bends put in my tubing, then all I had to do was cut it to the required height.

To give the lean pole even more strength, the rod stops in each of the stainless steel rod holders were removed so that the lean pole could slide down through these rod holders and into two more mounts fixed below the deck.

From this

To this

The End Result I now have a boat that can comfortably fish three people, is stable at rest and soft riding over those short choppy conditions that are so common on our waters. It has loads of storage and has the ability to sight fish to bream in our estuaries and trout in our lakes. All I have to do now is use it.

From this

To this

From this

To this

Craig Rist

So if you have an old clunker that you think has the makings of a modern sporty, practical boat give us a call.

We also do simple or complex repairs to hulls, floors, replace transoms and

Putting it all to work.

love anything to do with fibreglass and other composites.

Call our manager - mad fisherman and ‘The Man of Glass’, David Mercer and have a chat.

Ph: 03 6437 2791 808 South Road, Penguin, Tasmania 7316 www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

Fishing News - Page 49

RECREATIONAL SEA FISHERIES NEWS October/November 2012 News for the 2012-13 Recreational Season The new season for recreational sea fishing is just around the corner. The licensing year begins on 1 November with licences going on sale from Monday 15 October. Licences are required to fish for abalone, rock lobster and scallops or to use a graball, mullet or beach seine net or a set line. They are available from all Service Tasmanian shops and on the internet at www.fishing.tas.gov.au/licence

New Recreational Fishing Guide This season’s Recreational Sea Fishing Guide is now available. News or changes for the 2012-13 season include: A new bag and possession limit for all waters in Bass Strait north of the line of latitude 39°33’ now applies. This bag limit was introduced during the last rock lobster review to assist with policing by aligning with Victorian catch limits in this area.

A biosecurity order previously preventing rock lobster fishing in this area has been removed.

A closure for scallop fishing remains in place for the D’Entrecasteaux Channel for the 2013 season to protect scallop stocks.

Pick up your free copy of the new Guide now from your nearest Service Tasmania outlet. Fish measuring rulers for scalefish and gauges for abalone and rock lobster are also available. Or pick up Guides and rulers from your local tackle shop when visiting to prepare your gear for the new season and get hot tips on what’s biting.

fishing events around the State and have the satisfaction of knowing they’ve made a difference.

distributed to Tasmanian government primary and high schools. With the educational tagline “Size limits protect breeding stocks. Release fish smaller than this”, these free large-size posters are specifically designed for use in curriculum areas including sustainable fisheries and fish biology.

What do Fishcare Tasmania volunteers do?

The printing of the poster is supported by the Fishwise Fund which is revenue from the sale of fishing licences. Copies will also be provided to tackle shops and coastal Marine Police stations.

Fishcare Tasmania is a volunteer program Fishcare Volunteer operated by the Rob Wood educating Wild Fisheries a youngster.

Management Branch of DPIPWE that educates the public about responsible recreational fishing.

Fishcare Volunteers give up their time to spread the responsible fishing message at events such as fishing expos and AgFest. They may also participate in the popular Fishcare schools program, educating children about responsible fishing practices.

Volunteers only take part in educational activities; they do not have any enforcement role.

Who should become a Fishcare Volunteer?

Ideally, Fishcare recruits are recreational fishers who communicate well and like talking to people about fishing; are interested in educating kids about good fishing practices; and are keen to help keep Tasmania’s fisheries sustainable.

Men and women, young and old are encouraged to apply.

Training Induction and training is provided to all recruits in topics including fisheries rules, fish identification, communication skills, and volunteer rights and responsibilities.

Please contact the Statewide Fishcare Coordinator Rob Green on 6233 6208 if you’re interested in becoming a volunteer or email robert. green@dpipwe.tas.gov.au You’ll find more information about Fishcare at www.fishing.tas.gov.au/fishcare

Fish ID Posters for Schools and Tackle Shops New Fish Measuring and Identifications poster featuring actual legal size fish are currently being

New Members needed for RecFAC Do you want to tackle recreational sea fisheries management? Why not nominate to be a member of the Recreational Fisheries Advisory Committee?

The Department is seeking nominations to fill up to nine vacancies for recreational fisheries representatives on the Recreational Fishery Advisory Committee (RecFAC). Expressions of interest close on 30 November 2012.

The RecFAC provides expert advice to the Minister on the management of recreational sea fishing matters including fishery reviews, policy and Fishwise Community Grant Funds. Most of the members are recreational fishers, with other members from DPIPWE Recreational Fisheries, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, TARFISH, Tasmanian Conservation Trust and the Marine Police. Membership is renewed every 2-3 years.

Individuals who are able to demonstrate an ability to provide strategic input into management, research and educational planning for recreational sea fishing will be considered. An informal background briefing on fisheries management will be provided to appointees.

At least one representative will be considered from each major Tasmanian region (south, north/ north-east, and northwest/west) and there will be up to 6 other recreational fishing representatives.

The RecFAC meets 5-6 times a year to consider issues of importance for managing Tasmania’s recreational fisheries, providing advice to the Minister and the Department. Members are not paid for their work on the Committee however travel allowances may be paid to attend meetings.

Further information, including details on how to apply, is available from Rod Pearn, Recreational Fisheries Section, DPIPWE, phone (03) 6233 3523 or email rod.pearn@dpipwe.tas.gov.au.

Need more information?

Get a copy of the Recreational Sea Fishing Guide from Service Tasmania; visit www.fishing.tas.gov.au; or Phone 1300 720 647 (local call cost) or 03 6233 7042

Fishcare Recruitment Why not become a Fishcare Volunteer?

Fishcare Tasmania is looking for new recruits.

Becoming a volunteer is a great way to do your bit by looking after Tasmania’s fisheries and meeting other like-minded people. Our volunteers attend

New Fish ID posters.

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Fishing News - Page 50

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and it’s also fantastic for us to be able to show the positive outcomes we have been achieving back here in Tasmania, and to share that good news around so others might benefit from our team’s work,” Chris Wisniewski said following his return from Minnesota.

The IACRC, Mississippi River Basin Panel and the Inland Fisheries Service supported Chris’s attendance at the meeting.

Meander River Access restored

RECREATIONAL INLAND FISHERIES NEWS More vandalism in the highlands Vandalism has occurred at Lake Catagunya boat ramp at Wayatinah. Signs have been shot at and trees destroyed, including driving steel spikes into the trees to hang tents on and rubbish has been left onsite. It is disappointing to have this kind of vandalism/littering occur; the trees have now had to be removed for safety. It has been only recently that a new concrete boat ramp has been installed at the site for the convenience of anglers. These kinds of actions prompt consideration of closing the access areas.

A popular access point upstream from Knights Bridge, on the C 732 Westwood Road, has been restored.

Access has been blocked since the start of the season due to a log jam approximately 200 meters upstream from Westwood Road. IFS staff have cleared the track and slashed blackberries to restore upstream access. IFS would like to thank the landowners for their continued cooperation.

Curries River Reservoir road upgrade In response to feedback from anglers about the poor condition of the access road to Curries River Reservoir IFS has funded grading and potholing of the road. Work was completed on the 13th September. IFS would like to thank Forestry Tasmania for their assistance in coordinating this project.

Reports from Curries have been positive with the stocking program in recent years focusing on wild stock brown and rainbow trout showing promising results.

Tasmanian carp eradication program taken to the international stage The environmental damage caused by introduced pest fish species can never be underestimated.

None more so than the European carp (Cyprinus carpio) with their detrimental impact on native fish populations and their often severe effect on the quality of our river and lake habitats.

Change to access to some parts of Four Springs Lake Gunns Limited advise of the closure of their Four Springs property near Selbourne from 28/9/2012.

This will mean an end to access arrangements through the Gunns land at Four Springs. Locks to this part of Four Springs access road will be changed and those that hold permits will be notified of this change. This closure applies to Gunns Limited property only and it is anticipated to remain in place until April 2013. Gunns apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.

Since 1995 the Inland Fisheries Service has been tasked by Government in implementing a Carp Management Program, with the aim of containing and preventing the spread of Carp in Tasmania. By any measure the program has been an outstanding success, with Carp having been eradicated from Lake Crescent and with this unwelcome guest now under sustained attack in nearby Lake Lake Sorell.

The success of the IFS Carp Management Great Lake Bradys Lake Program has drawn some very positive Cluny Lagoon international attention, with many countries Lake Repulse keen to learn from our experience and Lake Barrington expertise.

Brushy Lagoon The American Fisheries Society held its Four Springs Lake 142nd annual meeting in St Paul, Minnesota Brushy Lagoon from 19 -24 August 2012. The meeting also Craigbourne Dam included a two day symposium entitled Brushy Lagoon Biology and Control of Invasive Fishes: Brushy Lagoon Lessons across Species and Regions.

Lake Kara Chris Wisniewski from the Inland Fisheries Craigbourne Dam Service, along with a number of international Penstock Lagoon guests, was invited to present a paper on the successful eradication of carp from Lake Big Lagoon (Bruny Is) Crescent. This work is seen as being at the Clarence Lagoon forefront in integrated carp management Lake Plimsoll and the recently released IACRC (Invasive Lake Rolleston Animals Cooperative Research Centre) Lake Selina publication “A manual carp control: The Blackmans Lagoon Tasmanian model” was used as a basis for Big Waterhouse Lake the presentation.

Little Waterhouse Lake The symposium organisers, Professor Lake Waverley Peter Sorensen and Dr Przemyslaw Bajer, Lake Waverley also led a field trip to the lakes in the St Paul Rostrevor Lagoon area where they have been undertaking Rostrevor Lagoon their studies on common carp. This was Brushy Lagoon particularly interesting to Chris as they had Brushy Lagoon presented a number of related papers at the Lake Barrington symposium.

Carters Lake “The opportunity to network with fisheries Lake Chipman professionals from across the globe, and First Lagoon see firsthand their work is of great benefit, Craigbourne Dam

Date 12‐Jul‐12 12‐Jul‐12 17‐Jul‐12 17‐Jul‐12 19‐Jul‐12 25‐Jul‐12 25‐Jul‐12 31‐Jul‐12 09‐Aug‐12 21‐Aug‐12 23‐Aug‐12 24‐Aug‐12 31‐Aug‐12 05‐Sep‐12 06‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 11‐Sep‐12 31‐Aug‐12 07‐Sep‐12 12‐Sep‐12 12‐Sep‐12 13‐Sep‐12 13‐Sep‐12 18‐Sep‐12 18‐Sep‐12 18‐Sep‐12 18‐Sep‐12 19‐Sep‐12

Jonah Yick from the IFS releases an Atlantic salmon into Lake Barrington.

More salmon for all regions Over the past month (mid August to late September) the IFS has stocked several waters with Atlantic salmon, large ex-brood stock rainbow and brook trout. Craigbourne Dam has received 850 Atlantic salmon, Brushy Lagoon has received 720 Atlantic salmon, 500 rainbow trout and 60 brook trout, Lake Barrington has just been stocked with 450 Atlantic salmon as it has finally stopped spilling.

Thanks must go to Petuna Aquaculture, Springfield Fisheries and Saltas for the supply of these fish.

Anglers are reminded that these fish are a resource for all licensed anglers to share with a daily bag limit of five fish with no more than two fish over 600 mm in place for all of the above mentioned waters.

If you do see a delivery of these fish to one of the above waters please give these fish time to recover before fishing for them. Anglers have been observed fishing for these fish as soon as they have left the delivery truck. Not only is this poor sport it is inconsiderate of others as well as a bad look.

Species

Stock

Number

rainbow trout brown trout rainbow trout rainbow trout Atlantic salmon Atlantic salmon rainbow trout Atlantic salmon Atlantic salmon Atlantic salmon rainbow trout Atlantic salmon Atlantic salmon brown trout brown trout brook trout brook trout brook trout brook trout brown trout brown trout brown trout brook trout Atlantic salmon rainbow trout brown trout Atlantic salmon brook trout Atlantic salmon brown trout brown trout brown trout Atlantic salmon

wild wild wild wild domestic domestic domestic domestic domestic domestic domestic domestic domestic wild wild domestic domestic domestic domestic wild wild wild domestic domestic wild wild domestic domestic domestic wild wild wild domestic

15,000 80 5,000 5,000 1,500 50 60 360 400 450 500 450 400 15,000 1,000 5,000 20,000 10,000 10,000 5,000 1,000 1,000 250 95 2,500 3,500 270 60 450 1,000 3,000 1,000 450

www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

Origin

Type

New Norfolk Liawenee New Norfolk New Norfolk Saltas ‐ Wayatinah Petuna Aquaculture Springfield Fisheries Springfield Fisheries Saltas ‐ Wayatinah Saltas ‐ Wayatinah Springfield Fisheries Saltas ‐ Wayatinah Saltas ‐ Wayatinah New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk Petuna Aquaculture Petuna Aquaculture New Norfolk New Norfolk Petuna Aquaculture Petuna Aquaculture Saltas ‐ Wayatinah New Norfolk New Norfolk New Norfolk Saltas ‐ Wayatinah

diploid diploid diploid diploid diploid diploid triploid diploid diploid diploid diploid diploid diploid triploid triploid diploid diploid diploid diploid triploid triploid triploid diploid diploid triploid triploid diploid diploid diploid triploid triploid triploid diploid

Weight (grams) 30 1,000 30 30 1,500 4,000 2,500 2,800 1,500 1,800 2,250 1,800 2,000 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 250 1,000 40 1 3,000 1,500 2,000 1 1 1 1,500

Fishing News - Page 51

New Strike Tiger Worms Released

• Multi-disc Carbonite drag system

Strike Tiger has recently released a unique range of soft plastic worm lures designed for fishing for trout and bream. The worms are slender in presentation. They are 4 inches in length and can be easily cut down in size to suit your fishing style.

• Forged aluminium, red anodized star

The hybrid design utilizes the body of a worm and the tail of a curl tail grub. These features, together with Strike Tiger’s best soft plastic material, result in a very realistic swim action. Coupled with the ‘Tiger Scent Formula’, these lures are irresistible to both fresh and saltwater fish species.

Recessed thumb bar for comfort

• Anodized aluminium swept handle reduces wobble while cranking • 4BB+1RB stainless steel bearings • External magnetic cast control system • Ergo grip handle knob • Dual anti-reverse system (mechanical & roller bearing) • XL Gearing: Drop down gear box with 6.2:1 gear ratio • Quick-Set anti-reverse roller bearing • MSS: Mechanical Stabilizing System for increased durability • Self lubricating gear system, all models • Cortez reels are backed by a Okuma Australia’s Lifetime Guarantee For a serious all round overhead combo match the Cortez reel with the all new Cortez rods.

There are four colours in the new range that are sure to impress!

The worms sell at a RRP of $8.95 for a 10 pack.

New Minn Kota Wiring Loom Minn Kota is synonymous with quality products and innovative accessories.

BLA have just released another product to their growing list to help you when installing your electric motor. The Minn Kota

Scientific Anglers redesigned Tippet spools

Wi r i n g Lo o m i s a simple yet extremely effective product to help you with easy, safe and hassle-free installation.

The Wiring Loom is made up of marine grade tinned wire and comes complete with 2 Anderson Plugs and a 50 Amp Circuit Breaker. All of this is wrapped in a protective layer cover. The Wiring Loom is a complete system that can connect your electric motor to your battery anywhere on your boat. There is no longer the necessity for extra wiring, clamps or joiners. Fitting your electric motor is as easy as following the instructional step by step guide that comes with the Wiring Loom; and then getting out on the water and getting amongst the fish.

The Minn Kota Wiring Loom is a great product to replace old wiring on your existing electric motor and it is compatible to both 12V and 24V electric motors, while the 50 Amp circuit breaker makes for safer boating.

For more information on the new Minn Kota Wiring Loom and to find your nearest stockist visit www.minnkota. com.au or www.bla.com.au

Okuma Cortez Nimble, agile and simply a pleasure to fish with, the Okuma Cortez brings light tackle performance to a whole new category of anglers.

Drop down gearbox, swept in handle and Ergo Grip knob accentuate balance and delivery of power from the XL gearing, anodised and machined aluminium spool and multi-disc Carbonite drag system. Graphite frame and side plates maintain a feather light feel and balance while increasing corrosion resistance.

Whether you pack it with braid or monofilament and drop lead to the depths, vertical jig, troll or beach cast, the Cortez’s externally adjustable magnetic cast control system gives you ultimate spool management to keep your line tangle free.

Features: • Corrosion resistant graphite frame and sideplates • Machined aluminium, red anodized spool Fishing News - Page 52

Scientific Anglers is pleased to announce its redesigned tippet spool and updated label graphics. The new spool features an independent, free wheeling hub that allows the tippet spool to spin freely when joined together. The hub can be retracted to become flush with the spool body when used alone, or with other tippet spools on the market.

Each of the spools are colour coded to correspond to the tippet material type. Green for freshwater nylon, blue for saltwater hard mono, and orange for fluorocarbon. The spools are also molded with UV inhibitors to help protect the tippet from degenerating UV rays. Built into the spool rim is a razor to cut the material right where you want it.

The tippet material is managed by a colour coded tippet retainer band that also has the size of the material printed on it. Each spool will include 30 meters of material which is approximately 9% more than the competitors.

– Scientific Anglers’ patented shooting technology – and a front loop.

The line, which was developed by SA’s Chief Line Designer, Tim Pommer and members of its pro team, retails for $99 in Mastery shops around the Australia.

Contact Mayfly tackle Pty Ltd for your closest stockist (03)9899 0034

Abu Garcia® Revo® S Spinning Reel Expanding the Revo Family Quality components and the name Abu Garcia®, what anglers look for when choosing a reel. Abu Garcia meets these criteria with the Revo® family of reels including the new Revo S Spinning Reel.

Lightweight and strong for hours of fishing, the Revo S has a one-piece X- Cräftic™ alloy frame, a graphite stem and polymetric body and rotor. Internally, a one-piece gear-box allows for more precise alignment. Other features include a Carbon Matrix™ hybrid drag, machined aluminum braid ready spool, Everlast™ bail system, six stainless steel HPCR® (High Performance Corrosion Resistant) bearings plus one roller bearing and a stainless steel main shaft and components.

The Revo S20 weighs 236 grams, has a gear ratio of 5.1:1 spooling 67.5cm each handle turn and a spool capacity of 130 yards of 8-pound test mono/190 yards of 8-pound braid.

The 251 gram S30 model has a gear ratio of 5.8:1 taking in 82.5cm of line per crank. The reel holds 140 yards of 10-pound test mono/180 yards of 10-pound braided line.

The 290 gram S40 has a gear ratio of 5.8:1, retrieving 82.5cm of line per crank. It has a spool capacity of 180 yards of 12-pound mono/210 yards of 14 pound braided line. Materials X-Cräftic™ alloy frame Polymeric body and rotor Graphite stem Bearings 6 HPCR® + 1 roller bearing Drag Carbon Matrix™ hybrid

Scientific Anglers products are stocked by all good tackle stores Australia wide.

Trade enquiries welcome – call Mayfly Tackle Pty Ltd 03 9899 0034

SA win Best Freshwater Fly Line Scientific Anglers scooped the Best Freshwater Fly Line at IFTD for the second consecutive year.

The company has followed up the success of its Mastery Textured Trout Stalker line at New Orleans in 2011 with its latest addition to the GPX fly line family – the GPX Hover.

Ta r g e t e d a t anglers who want to fish just under the surface, it gives fishermen the ability to reduce drag when fishing chronomids, emergers and other flies.

It also gets your line under surface chop which is crucial in low drag situations. The GPX Hover is engineered to be density compensated to level out at one to four inches below the surface. It will maintain a level at a slow retrieve to be extremely effective in that fishing zone.

As with all Scientific Anglers’ GPX lines, it is one half heavy in weight to the help loading faster action rods.

The Hover includes the company’s SAID feature where the line type and weight are printed on the line, its AST

Ocean Kayak Prowler Torque – Hands-Free Fishing Ocean Kayak, a renowned leader in the paddle sports industry for over 40 years, has released a new kayak in the Prowler series, the Torque.

The Torque is a 4.2 metre kayak, seamlessly blending all the features that kayak anglers need on the water.

Offering a dry and extremely stable ride, it includes two forms of direct propulsion – paddle power but also electric power, a feature appealing to many fishing enthusiasts.

The Torque includes a Minn Kota Maximiser drop-in motor with hands-free infinite variable speed control, allowing anglers to easily find their perfect trolling speed.

Also available with a Humminbird 385cxi GPS sounder combo unit, the kayak will offer a complete angling experience.

Other key features include a large bow hatch for easy storage, areas to mount fishing accessories, transducer compatible scupper hole, paddle holder and a comfortable seat back. The Torque has a carrying capacity of 212kg, however weighing 32.2kg without the motor, it is easily transportable. The kayak also features a generous ‘V’ in its bow and drain holes that aid with fishing in the rough.

The Ocean Kayak Prowler Torque is now available in a great Camo colour. For more information visit www. ocean-kayak.com.au or consult your local stockist.

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Power Pro Bite Motion Best Braid In Show

The first thing you notice is weight,THERE ISN’T ANY with the largest box weighing in just over 1oz. This box is a very close cell foam injected ultra light and remarkably robust fly container. This box has a completely flat surface in the left compartment for larger wets and nymphs with the right compartment having seven major ridges with plenty of space for dry flies,small nymphs or wets.

The braided line market is becoming pretty crowded these days, so for your product to be recognised by the industry as the best new braid is a real triumph.

This is exactly what happened to Power Pro Bite Motion at the Australian Fishing Tackle Association trade show back in August.

Scuff resistant fabric covers the box and I’m sure this contributes to longevity of the product. The unique nature of the foam construction holds the fly hooks better than anything I have previously used and it recovers almost totally after extraction of the fly - showing little sign of wear and tear.

Ideal for finesse fishing on anything from freshwater trout to knobby-headed snapper, Bite Motion is available in 3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20 and 30 pound breaking strains on 150 metre spools.

Bite Motion is a high visibility orange in colour, making it perfect for situations where using the line as a bite indicator is vital to success, but its visibility is enhanced even further by the presence of 13 centimetre black sections every metre. Against the orange main line, these are easy to see, and all you have to do is watch them closely and strike the moment they move. The black marks can also prove handy in targeting fish at a specific depth, or setting up a tight trolling spread.

Of course, Bite Motion is well suited to fishing scenarios where braided lines’ many attributes like fine diameter, high breaking strain and zero stretch are beneficial, but for fishing in tricky situations such as fast current and/or wary fish, it is without peer.

Trade enquiries to: Dunphy Sports/Fishing Imports P/L, PO Box 2082 Taren Point, NSW, 2229. Ph: (02) 9526 2144. Fax: (02) 9526 2510. Website: www.shimanofish. com.au Blog: www.shimanoshack.com.au

The hinge is foam and looks flimsy. Mine are as good as the day I got them with no signs of fatigue. The manufacturer assured me they have a zero failure rate.

They float open or closed and are shatterproof. I have nothing but praise for these boxes and if you are lucky enough to be a travelling angler they pack and carry perfectly.

Lastly but by no means least for me is the fact that you can open these boxes in 20 knots of wind and every fly is held securely. To me they are the Perfect Fly Box. But, beware of imitations. Ken Orr Distributed by E.J.TODD & SONS.

Temple Fork Outfitters 5Ft Half Weight Fly Rod I have just been putting a Temple Fork Outfitters 5ft. Half Weight Finesse Fly Rod through its paces to see what this tiny wand could do. This was the first one in the country and I felt a little unsure about pushing it to its limits. But I must say that this sweet little rod handled everything I threw at it.

Rapala Balsa Xtreme Minnow With the responsive swimming action of balsa wood and the strength and color technology of plastic lures; Rapala’s Balsa Xtreme Minnow is the culmination of Rapala history and a modern concept united.

Encased within a heavyduty copolymer shell, you will notice a perfectly lure shaped wooden body made of the same product that Lauri Rapala was carving lures from during the days of Rapala’s inception – balsa. It is this balsa wood that provides the unmistakable ‘wounded minnow’ action that Rapala has become so famous for.

Combining these traditionally separate raw materials generates a unique mix of rolling and wobbling action at a ratio of 60 to 40 that is super responsive, even at low speeds. The body is long casting and floats on a pause making it ideal for a number of shallow-water or heavystructure applications.

Available in 10cm/10g and in 4 great colour patterns.

The BX series is the perfect combination of life-like action, natural look and strength for Xtreme angling conditions!

Morell Fly Boxes I am totally convinced that these are the best boxes I have ever used and am still using boxes I bought 14 years ago. As a guide I probably give them ten times the use a recreational angler would.

Morell took a big leap forward from the boxes of yesteryear and significantly improved the item often taken for granted.

In all my years of fly fishing I have never cast a rod that was so light and so short and that includes the 0 weight Sage. This rod opens up a whole new world of possibilities. As it is not possible to buy a half weight line, I was perplexed as to why it has been called a half weight rod and I really have not been able to find a satisfactory answer. As we all know, the rod and line weights should match.

None the less my mate Shane Broadby helped me test every line from a 0wt to a 5wt through this rod, testing its line carrying capacity, shooting power, accuracy, and of course distance, and to say we were pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

We must remember that this rod is not one of the hugely popular BVK series but joins the Finesse series and is engineered with the same materials and taper that facilitates the accurate and delicate presentations that the T.F.O. family is known for.

At 1.2oz and a meagre 22inch pack length this is a little 5 footer that is guaranteed to make you smile as you think of those small creeks and streams that once seemed impossible, but now could be within reach.

The half weight features a cigar style grip comprised of “Flor”, grade cork and beautifully finished with a burled cork butt. Two adjustable sliding rings enable varying reel placement for finding the correct balance. I am sure like other TFOs this will come onto the market at a very affordable price and will be covered by there industry leading lifetime warranty programme.

To coincide with the rod release TFO have introduced a new BVK Large Arbour 0 weight reel to suit and perhaps you should look at purchasing them as a matched pair.

During the line testing we gave each line weight a really good going over and agreed that WF2F got the best performance out of the rod and yet we were able to cast all lines mentioned and I could have almost leant towards a DT3F at a push.

With that in mind another member of my guiding team, Ross, wanted to be the first angler to land a fish in Australia on the 5 footer and took the rod to trial under field conditions on the Tyenna River. The river was high and weather windy so bead head nymphing was the order of the day, and while the rod would cast a bead head fly Ross felt a dry fly would be more forgiving and suit the rod far better.

The shortness of the rod while a great benefit in casting tight stretches made line control and mending a little difficult in fast flowing water and striking had to be immediate, but having said this Ross did land half a dozen good fish, but found that anything over a pound was really difficult to control once they got downstream in heavy water.

This rod is not a toy, but a serious piece of kit for dry fly fishing small, slow water for pan sized plus trout, and will find a niche with Australian fly fishers who like a challenge and like to pit their skills in tough water for tough little fish on super light gear.

My team and I agreed that we will be all adding this rod to our armoury and talked of starting our own 2222 competition using a size 20 fly on 2lb tippet with the 2 weight line on the 5FT TFO rod to catch and land a 2lb plus trout, quite a challenge I think, but what great fly fishing fun. We will let you know how this goes over the season as the six of us try to outdo each other with this TFO 5FT half weight Finesse Fly Rod. Most tackle store will be able to source one for you from EJ Todd. Ken Orr

Sunline PE Most anglers today understand the principles of braided or gelspun superlines so there’s no need to cover old ground. Whislt there are numerous brands on the market not all are what they advertise to be in fact there are probably only 3 or 4 that I would recommend. One of these that I think is by far the best is Sunline Super PE. I much prefer a limper braid for ultimate line control when fishing with soft plastics and find when trying to cast small hardbody bibbed diver type lures the limpness will help cast further than say a wirey gelspun line.

Sunline PE comes in three colors white, dark green and my favourite a bright green. It is available in 3 spool sizes 150, 300 and 600 with line strengths of 6lb to 50lb.

It is pure Dyneema that has a beautiful round weave feel that comes from Smooth Surface Manufacturing that lays line perfect on your spool, and its ultra thin diameter means you can pack a lot on to your reel.

This line is ideally suited in mind for freshwater to light tackle saltwater its ultimate tight braiding provides enhanced durability and feel with super high sensitivity having only 5% stretch. Get some on a reel today.

FC Rock Leader material whether for fly fishing or whilst fishing with braid is the most important factor in how you set up your gear for a days fishing. Ultimatley your leader is what you connect to your fly or lure so it needs to be thin for control, durable for abrasion resistance and invisible to fish. Yes there are many brands of leader that would fit this bracket but most of the better ones would break the bank so let me introduce you to Sunline FC Rock. This is a hell of a line for the price. It is of course 100% fluorocarbon.

FC Rock has a triple resin coating process which gives it its abrasion resistance and its knot strength. It has a hard outer shell which improves knot strength when joing with PE braided lines.

When you look at the spool you’ll notice it is laid parallel this is done to ensure no line damage when spooling.

FC Rock comes in 100m spools in sizes 2lb to 50lb.

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Fishing News - Page 53

Fishing and Boating Directory Advertise here for $77. Contact Mike Stevens 0418 129949

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Call in for all your fishing tackle including full range rods, reels, lures, landing nets and bait. Also life jackets plus diving gear and stuff for all water sports.

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Top Service – Top Price Fishing News - Page 54

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Fishing and Boating Directory

Experience: You Advertise here for $77. Contact Mike Stevens 0418 129949 obviously need strong paddling skills including a reliable brace and Eskimo roll, and a good handle on how sea conditions are influenced by the wind, tides and currents. Offshore from the Tasman Peninsula is not a place for novice kayakers.

OKUMA TITUS GOLD 15S $330.00 Safety gear: A 20S $350.00 marine VHF radio is especially handy, and I routinely car r y an EPIRB, flares, whistle, SHIMANO TLD50 FULL ROLLER 24KG ROD paddle float, strobe light $575.00 (for my own epileptic marine disco), map, compass and a GPS. I barely ever use them, but its comforting to know they are all there.

Fishing gear: A handline is much cheaper SHIMANO TYRONU S 50 than a rod and reel and ROLLER TIP 37KG ROD seems to work fine for $779.95 this type of game fishing A dream fulfilled and thankful to be on hard ground again.

BULK MONO LINE providing you have a PRICE PER METRE Handline trolling for bluefin from a kayak is not easy, but is way to securely attach it, 10KG $0.04 achievable as the author shows.

15KG $0.06 and plenty of line (I use 24K G Inn Lake Leake is situated $0.

08 by Lake Leake , nestled in Endurance: You might need to stockpile some patience, about 300m of 37 kilo mono). Don’t forget your gloves. Include 37K the heart G of Tasmania’s $0.10east coast forests, 30 km from a couple of lures that swim well at kayaking speeds, ideally fitted since the reality is you’ll be slow and with only one lure out Campbell town and Swansea .

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It is no exaggeration to say the Tasman Peninsula is truly remarkable with possibly the best sport fishing, highest sea cliffs, outstanding diving in giant underwater kelp forests, renowned fine food producers, Australia’s leading convict site and some of country’s best bush walks.

Situated at Eaglehawk Neck, and just one hour from Hobart, The Lufra provides relaxed affordable accommodation close to Port Arthur and natural attractions and is ideally located as the base for you to enjoy many activities, sitting as it does at the narrow isthmus which connects the Forestier and Tasman Peninsulas. Visit the Lufra and you’ll share more than a stunning view because the area abounds in many attractions — both natural and made-made — all within easy driving or walking distance.

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Fishing News - Page 11

Fishing News - Page 55

Issue 100 October - November 2012

ISSUE 100

15 Fantastic Feature Stories

Kayaking

Lake Echo

Sea Runners

Western Lakes

NEW Fish Cleaning Techniques

Three Weight Rods

River Mayies

Sandy Rivers

Fly Tying

Weather Tips

WWW.TASFISH.COM - 1000 FISHING STORIES

Print Post approved; PP 702512 00027

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