by Sarah Graham
Many anglers are preparing for the opening of the new angling season on Saturday 7 August and it's shaping up to be another good one with the fishery in excellent health as a result of last year’s drought breaking rains. There are many great fishing locations around the State from which to choose for the opening weekend and early season fishing but here are a few suggestions.
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 !
AAT recently contacted Forestry Tasmania re access to Lake Rowallan and were told all access roads to Lake Rowallan have been closed including the Borradaile Plains access. The Parangana bridge is out and there have been massive washouts and landslides with vast quantities of replacement fill to be put in place eg 70,000 m3 in one washout.
Remedial work has started and will take some time (months not weeks) and this is the reason roads have been closed.
A video by Rod How is available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLafM92cLn0
Thanks to Rod for making this video public.
Grammar Girls team in action at Cressy Trout Expo today (Monday). Pictured are 3 teams from Launceston Grammar Junior currently competing at Tasmanian Schools Trout Fishing Competition, including 1 all girl team.There are over 400 students out here.
The Grammar team sponsored by TasFish.com for the second year.exciting day ahead.
Click Read More for more pictures.
A heavy frosty morning meant for a nice sunny but cool day and also a good one to go fishing in a river somewhere.. I decided it would be the Meander River which is 45 kms from Sheffield. I'm hoping the river level has dropped low enough so I can get in and fish it. I couldn't get a reading of the river levels online due to the gauge still being out of order since the June floods. So I'm going to take the chance and hope it will be okay. Once there I could see it was down and just wade-able going by a log the juts out from the river bank. I have used this log as a gauge for many years now and I know when the river is at a safe level for wading. Today it's borderline, so I decided I would have a session in the river. I'm not going to take any chances though, if I get to a stretch of water that doesn't feel right then I won't be going any further. Besides I'm not sure what has changed on the river bottom either, has it been washed out in places or is it still as it was before the floods. I could see how high the river had been during the floods, the good thing is that there's still plenty of undamaged foliage along both sides of the river.
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Read more: Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships Report 2016
After lunch I thought I would take the trout gear and head on over to Merseylea in the hope I may finally get to wet a line in it for the first time this season. Once there I could see it was still running very high and there was no way I would be hopping in for a wade. Still on with the waders etc and off I went walking down through the paddocks to where I knew there would be some nice back water that I could hop in and wade. After a brief fifteen minute walk I was soon at the bottom end of it where it flowed back into the Mersey River. There was plenty of water running down it too and I had that feeling there would be a few trout holding in a few stretches of it as well. Just before I entered the back water I flicked the little Muzza's hard body into a small flat piece of water close to the river bank, this type of water quite will often have a fish in it. It was on the second cast when I had a nice solid brown take the lure. It headed straight out into the main flow and then off downstream for some thirty meters before I managed to turn it then slowly lead it in towards the river bank. With the river running so fast even a small brown is going to peel line off the reel once it enters the main flow. Any way, after a brief tussle I soon had this nice solid brown in the landing net. As always, after quick photo it was soon back in the river. That fish went 430gms.
Please read the report at this link http://www.ifs.tas.gov.au/about-us/publications/aat-report-for-august-2016
Today I was in two minds of whether to go and wet a line or not given the forecast was for cold and wet conditions. It was a little cloudy here and very cool but it didn't look like it was going rain for quite some time, so I decided I would go and wet a line for a few hours. This time I decided to head over to a river just to the West of home, one that I often have a session on early in the season. This river usually gives up a few browns at this time of year because there's always plenty of flow in it. During the warmer months it drops to a very low level as well as being crystal clear. I only ever fish it during the warmer months if and when we have had some decent rain. I wasn't sure what the river would be like after the record June floods either, it could be completely ruined by them. Once there it was a relief to see it was still intact, though a little wider with some damage to the rivers banks. It was running at a medium height, cloudy and most importantly it was wade-able which mattered most to me.
Well it was lovely and sunny with very little breeze when I left Sheffield at 12.30pm for a session back to the same creek that I fished a couple of days ago. Once there the cloud had moved in and there was a stiff breeze blowing making it quite cool. The water level had dropped by some 5-6 inches too, but it's temperature hadn't. It was icy cold, same as two days ago. Today I'm testing a couple of new hard body lures for a small tackle company. These are a small 5 cm floating hard body lure in a rainbow & a brown trout pattern.
Two hours of the World's best fly fishing
Fly fishing’s most celebrated annual event, the RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival, continues its global tour during August and September in Australia. The film tour serves as a stage for the best Australian and Kiwi filmmakers in the industry to premiere their latest offerings, allowing the fishing community to share their passion for the sport by attending film screenings across the country.
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Scott McDonald
The first Atlantic salmon eggs used to begin Tasmania's Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry were introduced into Tasmania in 1984. From these humble beginnings a valuable Tasmanian industry has evolved with a worldwide reputation for having a premium disease free product. This industry provides a spin off to all anglers in the form of regular escapes of salmon from the farms.