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.
Read more ...Hit the Leven River again this morning and had a great start to the spin session. On my last trip here I had a follow and a few hits from one very nice large and solid brown. I was a little worried that day as I thought had he taken it and done the crocodile roll I would see the fine 4 lb mono giving way. It's not so much as the line breaking, it's the knot where it will break as that's the weakest point. Even it it didn't roll the size of that fish was enough to test out the knot any way.
Today I went back to the same area where I had seen that large brown, this time I have a 6 lb leader set up to the little GagaGoon MI Perch hard body lure. It wasn't all that long when that large brown came out from a shallow flat water (a little further upstream from last time here) and had three goes at the lure and like the other day it missed taking the lure.. I watched the big bugger move off and went in behind a large rock in the river. I couldn't see him at all after that so I decided to cast the lure downstream past the rock then slowly retrieve the lure up past where I felt it was sitting.
Today I decided I would head on over to the Leven River seeing as I haven't given a thought to fishing it all season for one reason or another. Last season I only had the one trip here and that was early February 2017 after we had 20 mms of rain, that day I caught & released 10 browns and 1 rainbow. Since we had some good rains a week or so ago I checked the river levels and it had a reasonable flow of water in it so I felt it's worth a shot. I'm well over due for a good bag of fish so I was hoping this may be the day as I new exactly the stretch of river I'll be fishing too. It's fished well before for me and I'm reasonably confident it will do so today. The hardest thing will be the choice of lure to use, the gold & copper Aglias & Black Fury spinners have worked well here before, so have the f3 Rapala rainbow & brown trout hard body lures.
It's been two weeks now since I damaged the hamstring and I felt it was time to put it to the test. Even though I have to see the physio again on Thursday, to me it feels good enough to have a short spin session in a river. Left Sheffield at 1:15 PM and arrived near the river just before 2:00 PM. I soon had the waders & boots on then off for leisurely forty minute walk that included a little bush bashing before I was finally at the rivers edge. All I had to do then was to find an easy entry point, instead of sliding down a steep river bank. It only took me a couple of minutes before I found one that was good enough, providing I took it easy. At last I was back to what I love doing most, spin fishing a river for that elusive trout.
Read more: Only one trout caught and hamstring all good - 2017-08-22
After being out for lunch I thought I would dart of for a few hours to check out a couple of rivers, if either one was running at a reasonable height and clear enough I'd have a go at catching a trout. After a forty five minute drive I was soon bush bashing my way through some heavy scrub to check out the first river which I found to be running too high and a little dirty. A bush back to the car and it was onto the next small stream which I found was a nice dark tannin colour & just the right height to hop in for a spin session.
Read more: Four wild brown trout and one badly damaged hamstring - 09/08/2017
Presented from Issue 108, February 2014
I believe the Leven River to be one of the best rivers in Northern Tasmania. It flows freely from Black Bluff Range below Mt.Tor, through Loongana and the Leven Canyon. It then flows through the farmland district of Gunns Plains all the way to the estuary at the seaside township of Ulverstone. There is not a single dam on this beautiful river to interrupt its natural flow and that is great. The river above the Loongana Bridge is now classed as a rainbow water, and below it is classed as a brown trout fishery, and a very good one it is.
Refer to https://m.ifs.tas.gov.au/about-us/publications/river-leven-angler-access-brochure for current information.
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Wading boots |
Well it was an earlier start on the river today than yesterday, this time I was back in the water by 10:00 am. Yesterday it was sunny and windy whereas today it's very dull with low cloud and a cool South Westerly breeze. I prefer it like this too with no sun on the water, it gets the trout out and about more often than not. Stuck with the same set up that I finished with yesterday and the session started off very quiet. Not a sign of a fish over the first three hundred meters at all. Where the hell have they gone I said to myself, they were every where yesterday.
Still can't worry about it, just continue to work my way upstream as I'm sure I'll pick up one sooner or later. I came to a large fallen tree across the river that had a nice pocket of water under it and with a back hand cast into it I was soon onto my first trout of the morning. This was a solid fish too and one that was in a fighting mood as it fought hard all the way into the net. This female trout went 540 grams and was in excellent condition.
With just the two days of the 2016/17 trout season left I'm giving the small streams a go as they'll be full of well conditioned aggressive trout by now. Well that's how I see it any way. It was another afternoon session on a stream in the Gunns Plains area, another stretch of water that I have never fished before. I hit the river at 2:00pm today and the first thing I noticed was the water was a very dark tannin colour with good flow. I started off flicking the spinner into a deepish pool without having a touch or a follow from a trout.
Read more: Small stream gives up a few more browns - 2017-04-29
Today I decided to have a trip to a small stream/creek in the upper reaches of Gunns Plains it's one that I haven't fished for six years. The reason I decided to check it out was because I was going back through my diaries and came across a report of one of my trips to it. I have no idea if it's has a name or not as it's one I stumbled onto one day while checking out a few back roads that crossed over small creeks & streams in the area that flow into the Leven River. It's very over grown in most sections and calls for some accurate casting.
I had an appointment at Devonport planned today, so I organised a day off work, I also thought with all the rivers down that way, why wouldn't I take the boat? Naturally Trev came along for the ride , ..with the Leven our river of choice. With only a couple of hours to spare, we were hoping to snare a sea runner; hopefully I would be lucky this time, especially after Trevs effort last week.
With humid conditions I was undecided where to fish today, so tossed a coin heads will go to the Leven River and tails to the Meander River. Heads it was. On arriving at the Leven my usual area I fish was flowing very fast and having to cross it there was too risky, so I moved further upstream to another of my favourite fishing zones.
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Hello everyone, I thought it would be a good time to introduce myself.
My name is Stephen Smith and I have been managing the website tasfish.com since May 2009.
It has been an epic journey of learning and discovery and I am indebted to Mike Stevens for his help, support and patience.
I am developing a new venture Rubicon Web and Technology Training ( www.rwtt.com.au ). The focus is two part, to develop websites for individuals and small business and to train people to effectively use technology in their everyday lives.
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Mike Fry doesn’t only live on the Wild Side of Tasmania, but also goes fishing in probably the wildest boat ever to troll for trout—certainly in Tasmania.
When your mate says ‘What are you doing tomorrow, want to come up the Gordon for the night?’ it would be pretty hard to say anything else except “you bet” and start checking out your tackle box and packing your overnight bag. But if your mate was Troy Grining and he wanted to give his new 52ft, high speed cruiser a run across Macquarie Harbour, test the new onboard dory with a chance of landing a nice Gordon River Brown you would have to feel privileged. I didn’t say anything about getting on my hands and knees and kissing his feet…just having a lend of ya’ but I did feel very appreciative.