From the Archives ...

Fishing on the Wild Side

Fishing on the Wild Side

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.

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Please check all relevant authorities before fishing - www.ifs.tas.gov.au and dpipwe.tas.gov.au . Don't forget issuu.com/stevenspublishing for years of back issues !

110 salmom softPresented from Issue 110, June 2014
Winter is a time when we tend to slow down, the days are shorter and the weather is predictably cold, wet and windy. Some of us stop fishing all together and are happy to wait out the winter while others eagerly await the winter run of juvenile Australian Salmon. These fish often sneak into the quiet estuaries that are now free of summer anglers, skiers and jet skiers. They come into these estuaries to feed on the scattered bait schools, worms and prawns that live over the sea grass and shallow rocky shorelines.

Category: Australian Salmon
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110 katePresented from Issue 110, June 2014
Winter is a time to reflect on the past season and contemplate the new one. In recent articles I mentioned what a hard season it was - especially for fishers of the dry fly. We had some good fishing to hatching stoneflies in November, but after that the best results were usually on wet flies with sinking lines.

I reckon this sort of fishing is hard work, but it certainly gave us some good results. Of course it makes sense, because as we all know eighty percent of a trout’s food is in the water, not on it. So with little surface activity it has been most important to find the depth the fish are at.

Category: Jan’s Flies
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110 winterPresented from Issue 110, June 2014

Winter fishing in Tasmania is a funny thing, and as we all know it’s been written about many times over about places to go and what to use. If we look back over the years we will find the fishing has changed greatly year by year because of different things like environmental factors, stocking rates, weather patterns etc. So it may be an apt time to look at Winter fishing again.

Tasmanian anglers from all walks can be a funny bunch and pull the pin on freshwater fishing once Easter passes or because of the closure of most waters, simply ignoring or forgetting about the waters which are open to them year round.

I find the fishing during winter albeit cold can be fantastic. Fishing from May to July can bring some fantastic blue sky days and if you rug up can be rewarded with hungry rainbows trying to fatten up before spawning or browns trying to put condition back on after they have contributed to their population growth. It’s just a matter of picking the right weather, which is something we probably do during the season anyway.

Category: Trout Fishing
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110 garfish fishPresented from Issue 110, June 2014

I think ‘Gars on George’ would be a terrific name for a restaurant. In fact, I think that Georges Bay on Tasmania’s lovely east coast is one of the best seafood restaurants I have ever been to. All the great fish are in the bay and they are ever so fresh if you are good enough to catch them. calamari, salmon, mullet, trevally, flathead, leather jackets, bream and whiting are more or less in abundance.

What more could you want? garfish - I say ! I just love them. Both the catching and the eating of them.

Gars have a delicate sweet flesh that eats superbly with a light salad a few lemon wedges and a bottle of Pinot Gris. Could a feed of fish get any better than that?

Category: St Helens
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109 kingston squidPresented from Issue 109, April 2014

The lower Derwent River and North West Bay can be great places to catch a feed from the shoreline throughout the year. The bays in South Eastern Tasmania boast an impressive head of cockie salmon, sand flathead, squid, wrasse, barracouta well as the odd shark or two, all available to the keen landbased angler. As you move further along the headlands, the species become larger and competent anglers can often take good bags of black-back salmon and nice sized flathead, great fun for the family while catching a feed, all within thirty minutes of home. While this article focus’ on spots thirty minutes from the Kingborough district, the techniques and lures discussed will prove effective all over the state for an array of species.

Category: Derwent River
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109 st helens breamPresented from Issue 109, April 2014

April is an exciting month in Tasmania, the weather becomes much more stable with less wind and as far as our estuaries are concerned there is an abundance of fish species on offer and Georges Bay in St Helens is one of the best. This year will see the annual Tasmanian Family Fishing Festival happening again on the waters of St Helens on Saturday April the 26th. To help budding anglers along I have put together a few hints and tips on where to fish and what to use for the species that you will be targeting. This certainly applies for Georges Bay in April and May, so even if you can’t make the Fishing Festival come down for a few days anyway.  Jamie Henderson

Category: St Helens
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2017 08 09 Best of the session 540 gramsAfter 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.

Category: Leven River
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Mepps Agliae catches the first trout of the 2017 18 seasonFinally after two very wet, windy days I had a chance to go for my first spin session of the season. This trip was to the Mersey River in the Union Bridge area. I wasn't even thinking of going today even with the fine weather but I thought what the heck go wet a line. Once there I found the river to be running reasonably high and fast with a colour that was like the black coffee I have in the morning. The area I'm fishing today is one that hasn't fished all that well over the past season or two either so I'm not expecting too much this trip. Today is all about getting out and wetting a line for the first time in over three months since the trout season closed. Not that I minded the closure of the season either because it gives me time to get the old body back in some sort of working order for the start of the next one. Each year it gets that little bit tougher on the body for me. With the water still being very cold I thought it was a good time to test out one of the new model Mepps Aglia-e Fluro spinner that I had sent to me to try out on the trout here in Tasmania. I tried several deep long medium flowing stretches of river without a sign of a fish, I was starting to wonder if my trip here was going to be a waste of time. I did try a couple of hard body lures in these long deep runs too before going back to the fluro spinner.

Category: Mersey River
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Last week, IFS and AAT staff ,with buoys kindly supplied by MAST, set up the recommended outboard motor corridor for Penstock Lagoon and the recommended outboard motor free zone at Little Pine Lagoon. Boat users are asked to familiarize themselves with these arrangements to help protect the fragile weed beds which characterize these shallow lagoons. Details of the arrangements are contained in the 2017/18 Angling Code, on signposting at Penstock Boat Ramp and soon at the ramp at Little Pine. Anglers Alliance has produced a detailed flyer.

Category: IFS, DPIPWE, MAST and Peak Bodies
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Source http://dpipwe.tas.gov.au/sea-fishing-aquaculture/sustainable-fisheries-management/fisheries-management-strategies/north-coast-calamari-closure

 The commercial and recreational southern calamari and squid fisheries will be closed in two areas off Tasmania's north coast from Friday, 6 October to Sunday, 22 October 2017 inclusive to protect spawning calamari.

Category: IFS, DPIPWE, MAST and Peak Bodies
Hits: 4203

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From the Archives ... (last chance)

Sea run trout tactics – Craig Vertigan

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.

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