Following the tough day of our last US anglers, Harold from Hawaii had a ball. Something like 40 to the fly of which 19 were to hand giving him the best day of the 07/08 season to date.

Below Harold is onto a very nice stream fish from the concentration and rod bend.

This season is turning out to have a real international flavour. Over the December–January period we have had South African, Americans, Danes, Singaporeans, Scots and German fly fishing clients plus all Australian states and territories except WA or the NT, but the season is far from over yet!

Although only in its infancy, Tasmania’s international status as a world quality, wild trout fly fishing experience is definitely alive and well.

Local fly novice Harry and daughter-in-law Melita, on holiday from Cambodia, had dual success in more ways than one on their pre Christmas introductory workshop.

First up both hooked up on the dry at the Snowy Ranges fishery still water opening session when in helping Melita to land a rainbow, Harry (background) is also feeling the weight of a nice fish.

The second success was even more rewarding, for both wanted to have a go at the stream wild brown fly fishing in the same day.

This was a tough ask for Melita, Harry had at least tried the fly before, to have success in one day from never having held a fly rod on arrival to catching (and gently releasing) your first wild brown on the dry fly.

Melita is delighted to be rewarded for some hard work and concentration with this well conditioned little wild brown trout. Harry also got a wild one to hand.

Having seen Iain putting his 00 through its paces and assisting by netting it, John soon got into a decent stream fish of his own.

Seen here with the Pro Angler #3wt and some weight on another good wild brown trout.

Iain is patiently waiting to return the net favour as soon as John has his fish under control.

Being a keen and very capable small water flyfisher, Iain brought down a new 00 3pc with him for this trip. Don’t think he was too disappointed with some of these wild brown trout workouts during the tour.

While below, John looks on while the Iain’s rod gets an even bigger trout to tackle.

It is not usual to have three anglers fishing one section of river at the same time, but here these three friends share a chance fish together, work a broad water, keep cool on a warm day and cast to some nice trout.

Rebecca, nearest camera, Iain, and John working the far bank.

I refer to the last story of John and his early PB ‘hopper success.

On landing his wild brown trout, John and Jan decided to have it for dinner so I proceeded to clean it, only to have a couple of unusual things happen — first when taking the chance to examine the fish’s recent food choices, this frog, above, was one of two just eaten (gulped whole more like).

Not much of a likeness to the BP Grasshopper.

Just goes to show, John’s good presentation over came any hesitation the fish may have had to ‘matching the hatch’!

Secondly when cleaning said fish, along came nosy parker eel.

Jan got this shot of the eel calmly swimming around my legs picking up any offerings from the cleaning process. Seen plenty of eels in the waters over the years, but none as cheeky as this one.

Just to show it wasn’t John having all the fun, here Jan nets one of her (many) lovely wild brown Tasmanian trout on the dry while a delighted John admires the effort.