Round bottoms and long legs - Big Flies!

Daniel Hackett

Attractor Flies
If there were ever any facts that could be agreed on in fly fishing, it would be that "Chernobyl Ants" have nothing to do with ants, that there is no such thing as a "Stimulator" hatch and that the Cricket does not provide a consistent food source for the fish of Great Lake. Despite these facts, these comparatively large "attractor" flies with their fat bodies and long legs can result in excellent dry fly fishing in the absence of any surface food, or indeed during a heavy hatch.

The Break O Day's Magic Mayfly

The orange mayfly spinner danced up and down within a balmy and gentle breeze. Every so often it would pierce the water with its tail - releasing more eggs, then return back to its dance. As the seconds turned to minutes more of its kind joined the action until before me hundreds of spinners lined the silver coloured surface of the river.

Australian Salmon On Fly - Location Cremorne


Mark Simpson with a nice Australian salmon taken from the Cremorne Channel. This is an easily accessed southern Tasmanian water that can be very productive. Mark explains his methods.

The Potent Possum Flies

Andrew Pender looks at what is one of the most easily found fly tying materials - possum fur.
Brush tail possum fur certainly seems to have come into vogue as a fly material over the past few years. I had heard about the potential of possum fur plenty of times, but always dismissed it as just the same as any other fur. That was until a friend gave me some to try out.

Flathead Fly fishing tips and tactics

Before we start the following is just a guide to get you started. Don't use the concepts presented here as absolutes, mold them to suit your needs, skill level and equipment.

The key to a catching a flathead is understanding their habits. Most predators in this world hunt their food. They head out into their marked territory and find their prey, stalking their prey and then attacking at the opportune time. Alternatively a few predators wait for the game to come to them, one such predator is the Flathead.

Dry Flys With Attitude

If there has been one single revolution in Tasmanian fly fishing in the last three years, it would have to be the use of the English style reservoir dry flies. Popularly known as the pommy" dries, these bright little numbers have taken loch style fishing in the Tasmanian entral highlands by storm. There has been quite a bit written about them lately, and as he technique is developed even further, no doubt a few more thousand words will be pawned in fly fishing publications.

Ask The Guru

GURU
" An acknowledged expert, a teacher"
In this issue we begin a new column for readers to ask the questions they
were always too afraid to ask. Tasmanian Fishing and Boating News has
assembled the best fishing brains in the business to answer your questions.

To start off we have put together a few sample questions, to give readers an
idea of what is involved.

Jan's Flies

Posts
When learning to tie flies one of the methods that gave me great trouble was posts for dry flies. Most experienced tyers find the method quite easy, but if a learner tyer has not been shown how, like many other techniques, it can create big problems. I am often asked how to tie "posts" and what materials should be used.

Top 5 Anglers

One of the greatest searches that is conducted every fishing season is the quest for the best mayfly pattern. Any keen angler will tell you that. The difficulty with that is that there are so many excellent patterns, some of them shrouded in mystery, others blatantly simple and readily available. Some excellent patterns are to be found in all good tackle stores, or within the pages of any number of fly tying or fly fishing books.

Nymph Indicators

Poor results in fly fishing are one of those things that has always promoted lateral thinking. It has spurned better rods so longer casts can be made; a plethora of flies running to thousands of different patterns that will surely fool a trout, hundreds of different types of tippet material - including the supposedly invisible fluorocarbon. None of these are a panacea - and all fly fishers know the answer is not always available. Sometimes the fish just aren't eating. Many a lake fisher will tell of those dreaded days when stillness, sun and temperature combine to create horror conditions for fishing. As bad as a day as this might be for anglers - my wife would - for her pursuits as a sun worshipper call it perfect.

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