The Tasmanian fly fishing season is off and racing, and the fishing in general has been great (despite some big freezes early on!).
The season kicked off with galaxia feeders in the 19 Lagoons, quickly followed by a comparatively early run of whitebait in the north and southern rivers. Whitebait feeders to 4lbs were common. The north-west has had three of four minor flood events in the river catchments, leading to great flood fishing on the 1864 Earthworm fly whenever rivers were rising.
Moving into late September and early October, and frogs have had a big year in the highlands, along with scud feeders at Little Pine Lagoon, up to 6lbs! The floods last week caused some brilliant flood fishing on the Central Plateau lakes, including worm feeders at Arthurs Lake, and flooded-spider feeders at Fergus. Down on the lowlands, and the mayflies have begun on the midlands rivers, including famed red spinners on the Macquarie, prior to the current flood. Our go to red spinner fly for the next few months is our famed Pheasant Tail Red Spinner. Four Springs is featuring excellent dun hatches, with one angler describing ‘duns walking on duns’.
As the river levels drop into the next week, we look forward to some solid black spinner feeders on the rivers, and the first mayfly hatches on the hydro lakes. We certainly are lucky to live and fish in Tasmania!
