• Trout Fishing

From the Archives ...

"Angling is an art - Hannah Ledger

and an art worth your learning.."

Presented from Issue 112, October 2014
So said Izaak Walton in the 1600s. It seems that Burnie’s Hannah Ledger has combined angling with art rather well. Hannah is a fish fanatic, outdoor enthusiast and budding, self-taught artist. From as young as she can remember, she has always had crayon in hand, colouring book under arm and as she’s grown as a painter, jars full of paintbrushes and cupboards full of ready-to-go blank canvas’.

A country girl at heart, Hannah was schooled at Yolla District High School, a small ‘farm’ school in the states North West, then went on to Hellyer College where she was given the opportunity to really grow her art skills; And by grow, that meant skipping the classes that would probably have more an impact of getting her somewhere in life, like English and Math to spend every spare minute with the art teacher, painting or drawing.

As typical teenagers do, they make poor decisions- and after being accepted in to one of the countries top art schools, turned down the offer and decided to move to the big island, where she lived for 5 years working in what seemed ‘dead end’ retail.

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Polaroiding Central Highlands


The highlight of any season usually revolves around the best days sight fishing. Memories of the hunt, approach, cast and hook set will remain in your mind long after those of another ‘flogged up’ have gone. The main prerequisite for this style of fishing are sunshine and cloudless days – two things that should become more plentiful from now until the end of the season. Good polaroiding water is not hard to find but some places are easier than others in which to find fish while others are simply better.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 1870

Mythbusters – Excuses or fishy trends

Too windy, not windy enough, wrong wind direction. Too bright, too dull, too wet, too dry: excuses—or are they? Farmers and fishing guides have two things in common: firstly, they’re both in the weather everyday, working with Mother Nature. Secondly, both groups will tell you that the animals in their lives all react differently according to subtleties and vagaries of wind direction, atmospheric pressure and lunar cycles. In the case of fishing guides and experienced anglers, you can add a list of hatch and water level factors to the nuances of Mother Nature, vagaries which become plausible excuses at the end of a tough day. After the question of weather patterns and their affects on fishing came up on the FlyLife internet forum, I thought it might be a good time to do a bit of myth-busting with the aid of my fishing diary.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 1848

Surface lures For Trout Fishing

The surface is just about the most fun you can have as an angler. Whether chasing giant trevally in the coral sea, bream in the estuaries, or dry flying trout here in Tassie you can’t help but get excited watching something come up and slurp or smash your top-water offering. Although they have been around for many years, surface hardbodies for trout have never really hit a spotlight but with the new methods and gear being developed at the moment it’s only a matter of time before people begin to look more seriously at top-water options. It takes some time to perfect your technique but it is essentially easy to get started and can be a very effective tool in your trout fishing arsenal.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 4641

Big wets work

Gavin Wicks
There is no better sight in fly-fishing than seeing your dry fly taken off the surface. Seeing a fish rise up from the depths, then its mouth close over the fly is truly magical. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Sometimes other methods have to be used to fool our target species. When conditions are bleak and cold, early or late in the season, then sometimes we have to resort to blind fishing big wet flies. Some fisherman like to refer to it as blind flogging, but I don’t think that gives enough credit to it, so we will stick to blind fishing.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 2103

Up top early – Highlands rewards the hardy – Christopher Bassano

Yes it is cold—some even think miserable, but wow, the fishing can be fantastic. After three months of winter and very little fishing, the beginning of August is the traditional start of the fishing season. Many people leave it until the central highlands warm up before venturing ‘up top’ but by waiting that long, you could be missing out. 

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 1938

Fly In Fly Out Boating

Enjoy a day on the water with a boat for hire from http://www.tassieboathire.com.au/

This newly released video shows some of the great options for boat hire available from http://www.tassieboathire.com.au/

Have a look at the video at https://youtu.be/CgtlrWUniP8 and from the description at youtube:

In this episode of Starlo Gets Reel, Starlo and Jo head to the Central Highlands of Tasmania in pursuit of trout... and checkout the boat and trailer packages available from Tassie Boat Hire whilst they are there. If Tassie trout are on your radar, take the time to watch Starlo's wash-up and find out whether this product is as good as it sounds...

 

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 2606

first-saturday-bGreat success Saturday!

After rising at 6:00 am to go for a morning fish, all I could hear was wind and rain, but that didn’t stop me from going. I left at 7:00 am and walked to the lake. There was weed on top of the lake everywhere so it was making it hard to get casts in without getting weed on the lure. I fished for 2 hours more without a hit so I decided to head home for a warm up and some breakfast. But I wasn’t going to give up, so at 1:30 pm Samuel and I went for a fish at one of our favourite spots.

Time was going by with only seeing 1 fish and no hook ups, I was starting to doubt if I was going to get any until I saw a little shadow behind my lure. Next I felt a little tap so I striked and hooked a little brown 1.5 pound and 40cm long. I was happy because it was the first trout for the season.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 3376

Adrian's (The Trout Stalker) Trout Seasons 2000 – 2015

(Adrian has supplied his "stats" in anticipation of this years season - Ed)

Here's my stats since moving down to Tassie back in March 2000. The first 4 years were a little on the low side (catch rate) due to me getting to know the rivers and where i could get in and fish them. After that and getting to know several farmers, land owners and the purchase of a pair of waders the fishing really went up from there on. Having access to many more sections of rivers and wading them really opened up some great fishing seasons for me from then on that's for sure.

Cheers
Adrian Webb

Click here to see the stats !

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 3181

400-dAdrian's 400th

Trout number 400 reached today. 6/4/2015

Needing another six more trout to reach the 400 for the 2014/15 season I thought a trip back to Merseylea would be worth a shot. I knew the Mersey River still had a good flow of water coming down and this area would give me the best chance of reaching the mark. I was in the river by 4.30pm and didn't realise how low the sun was, with daylight saving out of the way it was much lower than I expected. Still I knew I would still have at least two hours to get the trout I required. The first run of fast water didn't show any signs of a fish, but in the next run I managed five hook ups for three browns caught and released. This was just the start I wanted and I had only fished some twenty meters of this fast water. It went quiet for the next ten meters before I had another brown take the little Mepps black fury, it was soon in the net. With only two more required I was feeling pretty confident of reaching my target before I made it to the end of this fast run in which I still had some thirty meters left to fish. It didn't happen, the rest of the run didn't give a yelp much to my disgust.

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 3918

jim-and-fenwickThe best drogue ever

“A drogue is fundamental to lake fishing success in Tasmania!”
- Jim Allen
A drogue is a device that enables you to moderate the drift speed of the boat. This drifting technique originated on the reservoirs in UK and Ireland. The lakes of these countries are very much like ours in Tasmania and if the fish are hard to locate there is no better fishing technique than this as it enables you to cover large areas of water in a controlled manner.
Jim Allen, has fished Tasmania’s highlands for 40 years and shares his thought on drogues.

Click here to view the PDF

Category: Trout Fishing
Hits: 3378

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When you have finished for the day, why not have a brag about the ones that didn't get away! Send Mike an article on your fishing (Click here for contact details), and we'll get it published here. Have fun fishing - tasfish.com

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Get a Drogue

Catch more fish - use a Tasmanian Made Drogue

Jim Allen drogue Woods Lake

Current River Heights for the Northern Rivers

Current River Heights Northern Tasmania

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Rubicon Web and Technology Training

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.

Please contact me via www.rwtt.com.au/contact-me/ for further information - Stephen Smith.

From the Archives ... (last chance)

Trout tips - from tackle shops

Presented from Issue 105, August 2013

We did a bit of a runaround Tasmania’s tackle stores to see what their tips for the first month or so of the tackle season were. We asked what the top three places to fish were, plus lures, flies, baits and a few other things.
Here is a rundown on their answers Whenever, and wherever you fish - anywhere, or for any fish in the world - ask the locals and especially ask at the local tackle store. They know what was caught today, yesterday and on what.

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