My favourite piece of gear?
What's the best piece of fly fishing gear you own? It's a bloody hard question to answer! Rods and reels can be sentimental favourites, but I don't think that makes ones of these items the best. Waders certainly come and go, and I've had some trusty old faithfuls, but lets face it, they all eventually die a death of a thousand leaks, leaving a bad ending to the friendship. So where does that leave my answer? I thought the best answer would...
Fly Fishing Tasmania Hatch Chart – March 9 2016
Current Tasmanian fly fishing conditions: Warm and humid conditions have continued into March, creating periods of great tailing and slicks on the lakes, and baetid hatches on the rivers. River levels in general are good, while Great Lake, Arthurs and Woods Lake on the plateau are very low. Great news from our experiences this week were large amounts of cinnamon jassids, and smaller amounts of black and red jassids and gum beetles on the lakes (including Western Lakes). Our Spinner Damsel fly continues...
Hatch Chart – latest Tasmanian fly fishing conditions
Check out our latest Tasmanian fly fishing hatch chart by clicking on the image below. Up to 500mm of rain has fallen in the past fortnight amongst headwaters, breaking the drought and leaving the rivers in an excellent condition for late summer hoppers, and autumn mayfly. The Western Lakes continue to fish well, as does Great Lake, Little Pine and Penstock Lagoon. Happy fishing! Fish condition is generally excellent.
Damsel flies…
-2020 Update- the damsels are currrently out in full force, make sure a few of these are in your flybox! 2018: Each season we look to develop a new fly pattern. One that's easier to tie, and easier and more effective to use than all the rest, a sort of continuous improvement. The Fastwater Dun, Scruffy and Mini-WMD Hopper are all brilliant flies that have resulted from this process. Our favourite fly of summer 2015/16 is the latest pattern to...
Fly fishing Tasmania Hatch Chart
Here's the latest hatch chart. It's dry in Tasmania, but the wilderness fly fishing lakes are having the best season ever 🙂 Click on the image to enlarge. Have a great summer, Daniel RiverFly 1864
A weekend with the Sage MOD, CLICK reel and RIO Single Handed Spey flyline
Wombats, wallabies and wild brown trout were our bedfellows for the morning of New Year’s day 2016. It’s not often that I get to fish with mates during peak season, so it was pretty cool to have three days at our Western Lakes wilderness huts, complete with the usual array of Tasmanian animals, as well as Australian fishing legend and Sage Fly Rod Ambassador, Peter Morse. The fact that it is the peak of the mayfly season didn’t harm either!...
Christmas Shop Opening Hours
Christmas Shop Opening Hours: Thursday 24th - Monday 28th of December Closed for Summer break Tuesday 29th - Thursday 31st Open Friday 1st-3rd - Closed for New Year Break Monday 4th, back to normal trading hours. Thank you for your business, and have a great new year. Daniel, Simone and the RiverFly1864 team
Hatch Chart – Fly Fishing Tasmania
The headwater springs have been fishing great, along the Western Tiers and North East The big dry has continued in Tasmania, but the fishing has been great. A generally windy week has brought about some excellent terrestrial action on the creeks and rivers of the north-east and Western Tiers, with baby hoppers, thrips and willow grubs all on the menu. This is 100% sightfishing each day, which can't be beat. The lake fishing has also been...
Fly Fishing Tasmania Hatch Chart and Fishing Report
Simone Hackett with a ripper wild Tasmania trout It's been a brilliant week for fly fishing in Tasmania. The lowland rivers are having excellent daytime mayfly action, and early morning caenids have just started. The mayfly season has also begun on the lower altitude highland lakes, with Penstock and Woods featuring good hatches for nearly a fortnight now. Lake St Clair Lagoon just had a ripper spinner fall, and the tailing trout in the 19 Lagoons continue. Have a cracker weekend!
Fly fishing Tasmania Hatch Chart Oct 19
A ripper Tasmanian trout falls for the Pheasant Tail Black Spinner. Photo: Peter Broomhall The past fortnight has seen predominantly ripper weather for fly fishing in Tasmania. With El Nino in full swing, things are dry, but we've had tonnes of sight fishing. Mayfly are out on quite a few of the rivers, and a single Black Spinner does the trick much of the time. We'll be heading out to the Western Lakes at the end...
Fly Fishing Tasmania fishing report and hatch chart – Oct 2
The past week has seen the Tasmanian fly fishing season really get going. The first mayfly of the season are showing on the lowland rivers, and whitebait / sea trout action has really strengthened on the north and west coasts. Frogs in the 19 Lagoons are starting to peak, so there are some great choices on the river. Check out our Hatch Chart below for more details (click to enlarge). Thanks, the RiverFly team.
Fly fishing Tasmania weekly report and hatch chart – Sep 14 2015
What a ripper past few days for fly fishing in Tasmania! I was lucky enough to get on to the Derwent River for a few hours on Friday evening and Saturday morning, landing my first sea runner for the season, along with some mullet and Australian salmon. The silver bullet (sea-runner) was harassing juvenile mullet and whitebait, and a simple B.M.S. style fly did the trick; we have the exact same ones tied up and ready to go in the shop. Further...
Fly fishing Tasmania – the season has sprung!
It's been a busy month at RiverFly 1864 HQ, after the Tasmania season opening in early August. We've all been tying trout flies ready for the new season, with the Gold Humungous, Earthworm, Woolly Caddis and Black and Peacock Spiders all being very popular and effective. Chartreuse has also been a really good colour to use on river nymphs, as caddis grubs dominate the food types during early season - we hooked a dozen during our last river trip, all on chartreuse...
New Sage MOD rod, Sage CLICK reel and Aquasoul DVD just added.
For all the gear junkies out there, we've just added the new Sage MOD medium-action fly rods to stock, and the new 2016 Sage CLICK large arbour reel. We'll be testing out the Sage Mod over the next month, and I've already bought myself a CLICK reel for my go-to trouting. The new design is aesthetically brilliant, and the larger-arbour (compared to the previous model) is a really great idea for smoother retrieves. We've also added an excellent new film...
New book on Tasmanian high country hut builders and pioneers
Written by Simon Cubit and Nic Haygarth, Mountain Men is a collection of biographies of ten 'mountain men' who lived or worked in the Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair high country from the 1870s to the 1990s. These men are Dan Griffin, William Aylett, Gustav Weindorfer (Cradle Mountain), Paddy Hartnett, Bert Nichols, Ron Smith, Lionel Connell, Dick Reed, Ray Miles and Basil Steers. Chances are that if you've fished the Mersey Valley, Chudleigh Lakes, walked the Overland Track or Walls...