Great Lake - Fishing the waves

Shane Flude
As we go to print many of Tassie's rivers are still in flood, most of the major storages are filling nicely and a number of those dams on the Mersey/Forth and Derwent river systems have been spilling for two months. What all this means to the avid trout angler is that we are simply spoilt for choice of locations at the moment. Great Lake is one storage that has risen dramatically this year coming up almost four meters.

Great Lake Early Season Fly Fishing

Craig Rist
By the time July and August comes around, the browns in Great Lake are back in feeding mode, after spending the last couple of months spawning. Stick caddis, the Great Lake Shrimp and native galaxia and paragalaxias are highly sort after by these fish at this time. The galaxia and paragalaxias are small native fish that inhabit Great Lake. The majority of these inhabit the shallower margins of the lake; making shore based wet fly fishing a productive option. The colourations of these small native fish range from golden brown through to dark grey or black and are generally around 40 to 50 mm in length. Many trout, early in the season, find it hard to refuse a well-presented fly that even remotely resembles one of these fish.

Winter at Great Lake

Craig Rist
Many anglers pack away their rods come the end of trout season and then start counting down the days for it to reopen again in August. If you find it hard to wait until then, as I do, there is some great shore based fishing to be had at Great Lake if you're prepared to brave the cold. Apart from Tods Corner, and Canal Bay, the remainder of Great Lake is open to trout fishing twelve months of the year.
By the time I have finished a few jobs around the house at the beginning of winter I start to think about those brown trout feeding up in the shallow bays of Great Lake after their annual spawning run. These trout are hungry and in the need for a quick protein hit. The resident paragalaxias are on the menu, as are the ever reliable stick caddis and Great Lake shrimp.

Great Lake is great in winter

Jamie Harris
The Great Lake to many is a cold, barren, windswept place, almost void of any life apart from the odd roo or two.
To me it's become my number one trout fishing destination. Three or four years ago Arthurs Lake would have been my first choice but since the Inland Fishery's good management of fish stocks in the lake, the quality and size has improved no end. For those who don't know, the IFC has been removing some of the brown trout from Great Lake and restocking the waterways with these adult fish. Then replacing these with thousands of rainbow trout fry and fingerlings.

Mainland yabbies recovered at Great Lake

by Sarah Graham IFS

Inland Fisheries Service inspectors recovered a number of yabbies believed to be the mainland Cherax species, along with some mussels and foreign weed, from the edge of Great Lake on Thursday 27 August.

Autumn days on Great Lake

Joe Riley
As the days of Autumn shorten, and the brown trout season draws towards an end on the last weekend in April, it is good to know that those with "the affliction" can still pursue the odd trout on a hand full of lakes. Great Lake remains open year round with the exception of canal bay, which by the time you are reading this, will have closed along with all spawning creeks and canals.

Great Lake

Jim Allen

One of Tasmania's premium fisheries, and in my opinion the most under utilised, is Great Lake. I have had a shack at Haddens Bay for many years and spend every summer there. So I look at the opportunities Great Lake has to offer very closely.

Great Lake in Spring

Lets face it,  Great Lake at first glance is not the most inviting of waters.   Barren rocky shores and drawn down bays do little to invite the fisherman to try his hand.   But this lake offers good sport right through the season for both the boat and shore angler alike. October and November  see the onset of warmer weather as Spring pushes on.   Midge start to hatch more regularly making morning wind lanes inviting, and the gum beetles and other terrestrials around the lake begin to offer the dry fly fisherman a taste of things to come.   However around the shore there is some excellent wet fly fishing to be had, and this also boons during the late spring to early summer period.

Great Lake by Boat

An examination of this summer's boat fishing prospects.
In this two part series, Neil Grose of Tasmania's Premier Fly Fishing Guides gives a run down on what is most likely to produce the goods over the coming four months of summer.

Trout in the waves at Great Lake

Polaroiding on the Great Lake Jim Allen explains his technique polaroiding trout in the waves of Great Lake.     

The requirements of polaroiding on the Great Lakes are a big northerly wind and a blue sky. Quite often in the warmer northerlies a lot of terrestrial insects get blown onto the water - particularly after Christmas. When you get the beetles on the water the fish get up in the waves.

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