A rapidly rising Great Lake is littered with dead worms, which will provide awesome sight fishing opportunities along the edges as soon as we get a couple of consecutive warm days. Lake Augusta is also producing excellent sight-fishing in high water conditions, however the gate out West is still shut. Lake Huntsman is the pick for tailing trout, early and late, with the chance of good midge-hatches during the day.

The St Patricks is running consistently high, but very clear, likewise the upper North Esk which stays clear until near its confluence with Burns Creek. The Meander is high and murky, but the South Esk is reaching fishable levels and clearing. The Upper Macquarie is primed for the upcoming mayfly hatches, at a nice and high level and reasonably clear for this time of year. Great news is that Brumbys is up and flowing again, and look for good beetle falls over the next month.

That’s all for now, but look out for this season’s first newsletter next week.  Until then, you can check out our new flyshop at www.flyshop1864.com.au for some great Orvis gear, along with products from Recycled Waders, Loon, Dr. Slick and Rio flylines. We have some great value fly tying materials being added for the site next week.

Thanks

Daniel, Simone, and our new edition, young Sidney James!

Also set to show will be Soulfish 2 (check out the trailer below), Fly Nation (Steelheading the Skeena River) and the slightly crazy Jazz and Fly Fishing. Tickets are available here

NEWS JUST TO HAND – Co-inciding with the Fly Fishing Film Festival coming to town, rumour has it that a new fly shop will open it’s doors in Launceston on the 24th. We’ll be there for beers and fly tying prior to the film evening, and plan to make an afternoon of it. We’ll post the location and details as they come to hand…

HATCH – Fly Fishing DVD Trailer from Gin Clear Media on Vimeo.

Trout Waters Tasmania

It’s here! The updated version of Greg French’s Tasmanian Trout Waters (2002) is due for expected release in July 2011. It’s been nearly a decade since TTW was published, and the book has since became known as ‘the bible’ for anyone wishing to know where and when to fish in Tasmania.

The comprehensively re-worked 2011 edition, titled Trout Waters of Tasmania, has evolved even further to include more waters, and features an even greater coverage of the great Tasmanian river fisheries. We’ve been proud to help Greg out with new features, including comprehensive river level references for the northern rivers, and awesome maps of the Meander, Mersey, Macquarie, St Patricks and Brumbys Creek.  The Brumbys Creek Top Weir map is priceless, clearly displaying the best fishing areas, which are the floodplains that inundate during periods of high flow.

The lake maps have been re-worked also, and now show the shorelines at full supply levels, average levels, and low levels. These maps alone make the new Trout Waters of Tasmania an invaluable purchase.

Available now for purchase from FlyShop 1864, our sister business and fly shop.

Here’s a mini-report for the last week of the season:

Lots of flooding in northern Tasmania has meant the best fishing has been on the small rivers and streams. The St Patricks and Meander have proved the pick, with 25% of trout to dry flies (Fastwater Duns) , and the rest to nymphs (Pheasant and Peacock, Black and Peacock, and Ostrich Herl nymphs). Late afternoon, from 2-4pm has seen the best fishing, and the chance of small-scale baetid mayfly hatches. The South Esk should be at a great level for fishing by this weekend, whilst the lower Macquarie and Brumbys Creek are best left till next season.

Fly Fishing during May: The best of the rainbow fishing will be on the rivers, including the Weld (southern Tasmania), Leven (rainbow sections) and upper Mersey.

Out in the Western Lakes the tailers are well and truly back in action, along with dry fly fishing on the still days. Gum Beetles and Jassids are out on the lower altitude lakes.

The key for this time of year, whether on the rivers or lakes, is to fish the calm weather patterns: frontal systems affect the fishing quite severely.

March 2, 2011 mini-report:

Autumn is here, and so are the autumn mayflies. Black spinner and beatids are beginning to show on the Lower Macquarie, Brumbys, South and North Esk, and St Patricks Rivers. Our Pheasant Tail Black Spinner has been the best pattern, though the Shaving Brush has also been reliable. Hoppers are around in sporadic numbers (typically on the warmer days), with action on the Lower Macquarie and South Esk – as per usual, the WMD Hopper has been our best pattern. Both raft fishing and wade fishing have been great during periods of stable weather.

 Ants have also made an appearance last week, on the Lower Mac and Brumbys, where sippers were undone with CDC F Flies.

Most rivers are running at great heights, though the Meander River is unpredictable at present.

Late dun hatches have continued through to late February on Penstock and others, as has general dry fly fishing during bright spells on the plateau. Recent snow on the mountains will see a drop in water temperature, and fish move to shrimp-beds.

If you are keen for some dry fly fishing and mayfly hatches on the rivers, then now and the next two months is the time. Just drop us an Email http://www.riverfly.com.au/contact

Mini-report:

Lower Macquarie and Brumbys Creek are fishing well, with high and clear water during the weekdays in particular. The fish are in superb condition, averaging a shade over 2lbs, all on dry flies (raft fishing these waters should be on every angler’s ‘bucket list’). The two Esks are also fishing well, with high flows from recent rains. The St Pats and smaller creeks have colder than normal water-temps, however dries and nymphs are effective. The Meander is still dirty from a land-slip caused by clearfelling in the headwaters (State Forest), and it is not known when it will clear. Hoppers have begun, with our WMD Hopper claiming some good catches during the past week. Mayfly will also increase in numbers again, as the month progresses.We are expecting excellent hatches during March and April. Sight-fishing the Western Lakes has been below average in general, caused by the unusual weather patterns this year. The bonus is average sizes measuring 30% above average years, so bright polaroiding weather (when it comes) has yielded trout to 6lbs on the dry this season.

http://www.harcourts.com.au/Property/View/TRT0095/Perth-15046-Midland-Highway

A Sunburnt Country

With the large-scale floods across Australia at the moment, it’s an appropriate time to remember Dorothea Mackellar’s iconic Australian poem, My Country. Here’s an excerpt that fits in well with the last decade of drought and floods in Australia:

 ‘I Love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.’

 Like most of Australia, Tasmania has received record rainfall. The floods of last week took out bridges over the Liffey, Brumbys and Meander, and made roads over the Mersey, Georges, Brumbys and Meander all impassable. Poatina road along with the East Coast and Bass Highways were all closed in sections. Six hundred cubic metres of water per second is currently flowing down the South Esk and into Launceston. It’s plain to see the damage and heartache that floods across Australia have caused, but what is not immediately clear is the beneficial gasp of fresh air that the aquatic environment will receive, once the mud is gone and scouring has repaired.

After two years of above average rainfalls, it has been amazing to see the way aquatic eco-systems bounce back. When I first started guiding, late in 2002, I’d guide and fish on the Lower Macquarie and Brumbys Creek for one hundred days per season. The water was always high, and always clear. This all changed as the drought took hold, and these famed tailrace fisheries began to lack the medium to high flows that had been norm since the late 1960’s. All of a sudden there were months at a time when either fisheries were not worth fishing. Trout from Brumbys Creek and the Lower Macquarie River dropped to an average size of a pound or so, and long gone was the polaroiding and dry fly fishing that elevated these fisheries to icon status. But then the rains came over the winter of 2009, Great Lake began to fill, and in January 2010 the waters began to flow high and clear again, down Brumbys Creek and into the Lower Macquarie.

Move forwards to the current day, and these fisheries have made a remarkable return to old. The average size of trout in Brumbys Creek for the season has been 2lbs, and the Lower Macquarie has featured an amazing average size of 2 1/4lbs. The flies of choice have all been dry flies. Over on the Meander River, which has benefitted from legislated environmental flows for the first time in history, the average sizes have doubled in size from the drought years, and rare and endangered green and gold bell frogs now happily dot the green riverside banks. The rains have certainly had their benefits, and our rivers have shown that given the chance, they will rejuvenate from the worst of droughts, and no doubt, the worst of floods.

 Fishing report Dec-Jan 2011

Terrestrial beetles have been a major food source on the rivers over the past two months, with mayfly (including red spinner) also present. Black spinners have been the most dominant mayfly during spring and early summer, with baetids and caenid hard to find. The damsels and dragonflies have been out and about, tempting trout at the usual haunts of Brumbys Creek and the South Esk. The South Esk fished well through December, when flows decreased enough to wade. The Lower Mac has been flowing high and clear, and featured excellent dry fly fishing to sippers. Lots of fish in the 3-4lb class for those with a keen eye. Brumbys has also featured excellent dry fly fishing, in particular from 1pm-3pm, prior to the afternoon sea breeze. The upper Meander has fished consistently, though the middle and lower Meander has been too high to fish for most of the season. We are expecting exceptional conditioned fish as the levels drop by late January, and the hopper fishing begins. The upper St Pats and North Esk have fished extremely well as trout have been less flighty in higher than average summer flows. The Western Lakes have fished sporadically (reflecting the weather patterns), but stable days have seen some excellent sight-fishing on the big fish waters, particularly to gum beetle feeders and black spinner sippers. Frontal systems have effected the fishing more than usual however, and prolonged high waters have left the flooded edges less fertile than would be found during spring floods. Woods lake and Great Lake have been the pick of the hydro-lakes.

February –April forecast

As January progresses and dries out, we will be targeting sporadic hatches of juvenile grasshoppers and mayfly. Damsel and dragonfly leapers on Brumbys will also be a reliable target, as will sippers on the Lower Macquarie. Into mid February and the hoppers will start in proper, and be joint by the beginnings of the late summer / autumn mayfly hatches on the South Esk, North Esk, Lower Macquarie and Meander. As late March arrives the hoppers will disappear for the season, leaving us with six weeks or so of excellent ant and mayfly hatches to the end of April.

Tasmanian Land Conservancy New Leaf Project – $23 million conservation project

Many of you would have heard that Gunns timber company sold the majority of their freehold land assets(28,000 hectares) to conservation group, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy. Make no mistake, this is a turning point in the history of Tasmania, and a monumental move away from extractive industries such as wood-chipping, and towards sustainable industries such as eco-tourism supported by conservation. The Tasmanian Land Conservancy now manages more than 1% of Tasmania’s land mass for conservation, but this comes at a cost: more than $23 million dollars. The initial land purchases were funded by a number of philanthropic Australian business people, including the founders of Kathmandu and Wotif.com, but to ensure that the properties remain in the hands of the TLC, significant additional funds need to be raised. The project has be coined the ‘New Leaf Project’, and if you want to see Tasmania turn over a new leaf and change direction from industrial clearfell logging to eco-tourism and conservation, then I urge you to visit this site, and make a donation. http://www.tasland.org.au/newleaf/

Fly Cards fly tying booklet

Just a quick reminder that our new Fly Cards fly tying booklet is available from www.inseasonflyfishing.com . Fly Cards has recently received great reviews in FlyLife magazine.

That’s all for now, have a great 2011! Thank you from the RiverFly Team – Daniel, Simone & Patrick.

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