Curries River Lake

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Sea run trout tactics – Craig Vertigan

During the trout off-season I tend to spend a bit of time chasing bream, to continue getting a fishing fix, and spend time tying flies and dreaming about the trout season to come. It’s a time to spend doing tackle maintenance, stocking up on lures and dreaming up new challenges and goals for the trout season ahead. When the new season comes around I usually spend the first few months targeting sea runners. Sea run trout are simply brown trout that spend much of there lives out to sea and come in to the estuaries for spawning and to feed on whitebait and the other small endemic fishes that spawn in late winter through spring. Mixed in with the silvery sea runners you can also expect to catch resident fish that have the typical dark colours of a normal brown trout as well as atlantic salmon in some of our estuaries that are located near salmon farm pens. Living in Hobart it is quick and easy to do a trip on the Huon or Derwent and is a more comfortable proposition compared to a trip up to the highlands with snow and freezing winds to contend with.

Curries River Lake

We had a trip to Curries River Lake today with Dale & Trev Howard. Dale picked me up around 10.30am and we arrived there about 11.15am. No one else was there which was good so we had the lake to ourselves. We headed off to the south east corner where the small river enters the lake, things were quiet early, but we picked up plenty of fish on the sounder and they seemed to be hugging the bottom.

After plenty of casts with Yep hardbodys Dale finally nailed a beaut brownie of around 3lb on the Yep golden seducer. After this fish we started getting onto a few, managed a nice brown of around 2lb, then a nice little rainbow which were both caught on Yep KW Galaxid. Trev was next to strike with a nice little bowie on the Yep red nut. We could have had a few more in the boat if luck was with us a bit more, as we all missed a few. Also saw a couple move on top, the browns were feeding on galaxias and the rainbows had some sort of green mushed weed in their stomachs.
Thought that was a bit odd??
Also saw a pair of sea eagles and their nest high up in a dead tree, which made a fantastic sight.
So in summary, a good little session.
We will be doing a bit of fishing here next season, a much underrated water so close to home.
Thanks for taking me Unit.
CHEERS PHIL ZANETTO