The 2005/2006 Season in Profile

“They were the best of times, they were the worst of times” - a famous literary quote from Charles Dickens which amply describes the past trout season. We had some terrific fishing, in many ways some of the best I have seen, and we had some very trying and difficult days. Whilst the normal cut and thrust of a Tasmanian fishing season varies from good to difficult, I have rarely seen a season where the contrast was so stark.

In short the highlights were brilliant polaroiding on Arthurs and Great Lake, very good dun hatches in the Cowpaddock leading up the Christmas, very poor dun hatches everywhere else, excellent western lakes fishing, particularly right out the back and some exceptionally good wind lane fishing on Arthurs Lake after Christmas.

So – the season in profile!

September saw us return home after a pleasant sojourn to Cape York aboard the Eclipse. Without boring you with details of big fish and heaps of fun – we had heaps of fun and caught heaps of fish. The main observation from a week on Cape York is that it is nice and warm, the wind still blows hard up there, and no matter what, you can’t beat trout on dry fly!

Our first trip of the season saw our good friend Philip Weigall and Lindsay join us for two days early season fishing. Day one saw us on Arthurs looking for tails, which weren’t as apparent as we had hoped. Not to be beaten, we assembled the sinking line and heavy wets and had a great session pulling woolly buggers in about ten feet of water. Pulling wets can be great fun if the fish are on the tooth, but it can be quite tedious if they don’t show themselves after 30 minutes or so. Fortunately we didn’t have the latter!

The next morning we headed out west at dawn for the early morning tails at Lake Kay. When we left Rainbow Lodge it was -6°. When we arrived at Lake Kay I’ll bet it was more like -8°! Still being a kid at heart I couldn’t help but jump on all the frozen puddles on the walk down to the lake – there were more than a few that didn’t break, and I’m not twinkle toes!

Despite the edges being frozen we still found some fish working. The key was measuring the water temperature. In some spots it was 3° - no good – in others it was 7° - spot on! Phil and Lindsay both landed fish to three or four pounds, with Phil getting one in the marsh at Double Lagoon later in the day at around five pounds.

Later in September I spent some time volunteering for school camps in the north east (see, told you I was still a kid) in amongst chasing fish on the fast rising shorelines of Arthurs Lake. The lake continued to rise all through spring, reaching its peak around Christmas time.

Early in October John Vernon from Sydney joined me for three days of trying fishing. The tailers at Lake King William were a real feature in spring, and they proved to be very difficult on some days and suicidal on others! The day that John and I ventured down there they were in a very difficult mood, compounded by driving rain and howling wind. We had truck loads of tailing fish in front of us all day, but alas…

Merv Williamson came for two days straight after John, and where the fishing was tough with John – the opposite was the case with Merv – how quick can things turn. We had some great beetle falls which saw the fish greedily sipping beetles down one after the other in some wonderful warm spring weather. In-between times the sinking line and a couple of McGoo’s did the trick.

After Merv returned back to Victoria my good mates Chris Baty and former Modern Fishing Magazine editor Andrew Mayo came for five days of bream and trout mayhem. We had planned to spend the week in the north east pestering some huge bream in my secret little estuary, but ten inches of rain in a week put an end to that! So we had to resort to a day on Arthurs, a day breaming on the Derwent and two days on the east coast breaming on the Scamander River. The trout on Arthurs were predictable although very tough, but Andrew snatched his first Tassie brown, albeit on soft plastic!

The bream fishing in the Derwent was excellent to say the least. In a shortish session the boys pulled 16 big fat black bream, the smallest 36cm and the largest 43cm. For a Sydney sider like Andrew, these bream were like trophies. For the Derwent it is an average sort of day! The Scamander was good to us as well over the two days we spent down there, with loads of nice bream coming from the snags and rocky edges.

November was a typical November, with the exception of some early localised dun hatches in the Cowpaddock. It really looked like we were in for a bumper dun season, but alas it was not to be. There were trickles of beetles, good tailers, rough days when you wondered if it was a wise decision getting out of bed and flat calms with sipping midge feeders.

Bill Reddick from Ballarat had a great day out pulling wets (they wouldn’t have a bar of the dry) and Jeff Randall teamed up with young local gun angler Patrick Sullivan for a sublime day of dry fly searching. In contrast to the day with Bill, the fish were really looking for the dries, especially later in the day when actively pulled dries accounted for some fantastic fishing in the mid reaches of the Cowpaddock.

Jenny and Darcy Smith and Kay and Angus Graham joined Christopher and I for four days of their first foray into fly fishing. The first day was horrendously windy, so a relaxed casting lesson on the lawn at Rainbow Lodge prefaced an interesting afternoon on the lake. At the end of the four days everybody had caught some lovely fish in a wide variety of conditions and with a range of different techniques. I am not sure what was more keenly contested, the fishing during the day or the hands of bridge at night!

December heralded the start of our really busy time of year, with Hugh, Craig, Peter and Steve returning for their regular four day spot. These four days were symptomatic of the whole season, great one day, not so great the next. We were lucky enough to have the best dun hatch of the season on one of the days, where Christopher and I were joined by Dan to guide Steve and Craig’s sons. A great day was had by all – lunch wasn’t taken till 5pm – the duns wouldn’t let up. Some cracking fish were landed in the teeming rain and nippy southerly wind as the duns kept piling up towards the top end of the Cowpaddock. Rainbow Lodge again reverberated with stunning wit and tales tall and true.

Roger Armstrong copped some brutal wind on his first day, with only a couple of tiddlers to show for the day. The next day we polaroided some nice fish right in close amongst the flooded trees and on the third day Roger bagged out in the Cowpaddock on a mix of dry fly and tweaked nymphs as a nice rollicking dun hatch kept us entertained.

Old friends Mike and George Hitchen returned once again along with Chris. The fishing was again a little trying. Although George kept winkling out trout after trout with his little wet fly technique – no one does it as good as George does. A few nice dun hatches kept the gander up as well.

John Worrell and son in law Osi had some terrific polaroiding on some sublime blue sky days. In many ways the polaroiding this year on Arthurs was the best ever, as some lovely fish headed in close to chomp on the flooded feast. Most of the time the boat was firmly stuck on the bottom as we waited (and it usually wasn’t long) for some really nice fat three pounders to cruise on by!

Our great mate Del from Sydney rounded out the pre Christmas period with five days of sight fishing on the shores on Arthurs. We had some terrific polaroiding, with a great deal of it done wading the shallows looking for fish in amongst the drowned scrub and tussocks. The biggest fish I have ever seen came like this, and was the only fish for the day. It measured 64cms and was in very fine condition. We didn’t weigh it, but I guess it was well over six pounds. Incidentally, I saw the same fish three more times over the season, but didn’t get close to catching it. It stayed pretty much in the same area, and I hope he is still there when next we go shallow water searching!

After three days off over Christmas, David and his family joined us for two days of incredibly windy weather. In fact, so windy was it that for the first time I can remember I wouldn’t launch the boat at Jonah Bay. Jonah is normally very sheltered, but not this day. We retreated to Penstock, which was very muddy and uninviting, but we managed to salvage the day.

The wind continued into early January, when Merv Williamson returned for a five day stay. Merv had some of the roughest weather I have seen while being on the lake, at one stage we were tucked up in the Lily pads watching water spouts go ripping past us into the Sand Lake. Yet on New Years Eve we had a cracking day. Merv caught a few feeding on midge balls (you don’t see that very often), wade polaroided a cracker, drifted one up on a Carrot, snuck in a few dun feeders, and then launched into one of the hottest sessions we saw all summer. To cut a glorious story short, at 4pm Merv had five fish and we were quite content. Then the ants fell. By 6pm, Merv had 19. 14 big fish in a two hour session is really, really nice going! The next day we reverted back to howling winds and scratching up fish from sheltered corners!

Tarquin from Sydney came again this January, and still the wind didn’t let up! In fact so windy was it that we left the mountain and fished the North Esk River with Dan for the day. Winds over 65 knots were recorded in Miena that day, so it was wise to get out of it!

Del returned again for another five days in mid January, and for a change the wind dropped out, presenting us with some magnificent wind lane and slick fishing. The fish weren’t easy, and the complete calm conditions made presentation difficult, but persistence paid off and Del once again hooked into some lovely fish. As the lake was dropping rapidly, there weren’t so many fish in close, so the wind lanes were a pleasant saviour.

One of the best lanes I saw all season was with Christine Watson – the lane basically went from the south end of Brazendale Island right into Jones Bay at the north. The fish were kindly coming one at a time about every five minutes, time enough to hook up, land and release the fish, change flies and present to the next one. It was great fun and plenty of really fat fish found the parachute emerger just too convincing.

Christopher at the same time was guiding Brian and Margaret for their first fish on fly. The calm conditions didn’t help, but the seed was sowed and the bug has bitten.

In mid January we again had the pleasure of Phill Jones and Richard Rule visit for four days. These guys are the comic relief at Rainbow Lodge, two more fun guys you would never meet. The wind lanes again turned on a treat, with one awesome lane on the eastern side of Arthurs producing fish every cast for two hours – every accurate cast that is!!

Late January saw the beginning of a very warm and settled period, with blue sky days and reasonable winds making for some great fishing conditions. Milt and Dicko from Sydney returned again this January, this time for a much anticipated western lakes adventure with Christopher. While waiting for Johnno to arrive for the walk out the back, I guided Milt and Dicko on Arthurs on a spectacular blue sky day. Right from the start the fish were on the tooth in the shallows, and what followed was some brilliant sight fishing for actively feeding fish in very shallow water. The boys nailed heaps of nice fish in close, and then we moved out into the slicks for yet more great sight fishing action.

It must have been an omen of good things to come, as their western lakes trip yielded some of the biggest fish that this guiding business has ever seen. The three boys in three days of arduous trekking and fishing caught ten fish, with two of them over the magic ten pound mark – one would have given 13 or 14 pounds a good nudge! They were all on dry flies and polaroided prior to them taking the fly – I am pretty sure it doesn’t get much better than that!

The last week in January saw the Masterman crew return for the obligatory January long weekend celebration of trout! The inshore polaroiding was still kicking goals, and while we basically had a heat wave that shut down the fishing during the middle parts of the day, the evening wind lanes were very good compensation. For a change we spent the last day of their trip on Great Lake, which was ok without being spectacular.

In early February Christopher was kept busy guiding Mike and Harry and then Gerald. As had been the pattern over the whole season, some days were diamonds, some were dust! Chris and his mate joined me for four days at the same time, and whilst our dun hatches let us down, we did still manage to boat reasonable numbers of fish everyday. Graham and Freda Buirski along with new fly fishers Alan and Rosemary joined Christopher and I for three days of hard shore fishing and testing wind lane action. As the season progressed the fish in the wind lanes seemed to get a bit touchy, and longer casts were necessary to get takes. Such as it was with Graham and Freda, Graham can cast 60 feet, where Freda makes a really good 40 foot cast. Most of the fish were seeing the boat at 50 feet, meaning that Graham caught ten in quick succession.

Brian Roberts returned for another crack at this fly fishing caper and managed to nail quite a few fish with Christopher on his two days, which has really cemented the fly fishing bug. Mike and George Hitchen also returned for their usual autumn fishing trip, and while the beetles didn’t make their anticipated return, we did get some half reasonable actions.

John Worrell made his usual March pilgrimage for some testing action. The beetles were being quite recalcitrant, but midges and small aphid like insects kept the fish on the go, and we began to see the first jassids of the season. These were the small cinnamon jassids, and while they didn’t have the red colouration of their bigger brethren, the trout actively sought them out. Quite often at this time you would search the lake all day for practically nix, and then bag six or so fish in the last hour of the day!

March then progressed into a series of trips down to the rivers, some hot bream action and some interstate trips for our winter publishing work. The rivers were fantastic. Philip Weigall returned for three fantastic days in the north east. Phil and I were fishing together, so for me it was all about the fishing. Phil on the other hand was actively seeking article and photo fodder, and the fish obliged in a big way. We based ourselves in a little cabin at Upper Blessington, and from there we fished the North Esk River, Pig Run Creek, the Ford River, the St Patricks River, the Forester River, and the South Esk River. All of these streams were within 30 minutes drive of our base and yielded at least 150 fish for the three days between us. It was simply fantastic; we didn’t see another soul on the river, didn’t have any worries with access nor crabby farmers, got 90% of them with the dry fly and had an absolute ball.

Later in March I competed in the first Tasmanian round of the Australian Bream Tournament in Hobart. Conditions were atrocious, but I managed to keep my nose mid field, and learnt a lot along the way. In 2007 there will be two of these national bream competitions held in Tasmania, with a trout tournament in-between. Nicole and I are organising the trout competition.

April was a shocker with the weather, most of the first three weeks it snowed or rained in the highlands, basically cancelling any hope of good dry fly fishing. However in the last week of the season the weather settled and delivered some amazing calm days interspersed with the usual grey blustery days. The wet fly fishing was wonderful though, with sink line and soft plastic techniques resulting in bag limits on most days, and near bag limits on others. On the bright sunny days it payed to move well away from the creek mouths and concentrate on the trees, as most of the fish around the sticks were feeding really well on scud and shrimp.

As winter has progressed the promising autumn rains have dried up, and little or no snow has meant no run off at all into the bigger lakes. The western lakes have been topped up by the autumn rain, so hopefully we get a nice wet spring like last year to really kick off the season well.

This winter Nicole and I are working on a new and exciting project. We are publishing a new Tasmanian fishing magazine called the Tasmanian Sportsfisher. This new bi-monthly magazine is a high quality gloss A4 magazine that will feature the best sportsfishing that Tasmania can offer. For more details have a look at the web site – tasmaniansportsfisher.com.au