Across Tasmania, the word is out. The best season in 40 years is coming.

Mercury angling columnist Phillip Ellerton writes: “… Well I truly think — along with many others — we are experiencing one of the best seasons in recent history.

“I say this because of what the wet winter has done for the fishery. BIG fish and lots of them … The majority of these trophy fish have been in superb condition, a testament to the abundance of food around at present”.

Check out our Bookings Calendar now, and get in early.

One of a number of tour options we have at Red Tag Trout Tours is a short day teaching workshop close to Hobart for those tight on time (less than 30mins drive) that allows us to give beginners a go at a variety of fly techniques on still water.

Here Steve, self confessed heavy metal salty for many years, quickly gets to grip with a decent delivery, despite the ‘breeze’ in the background, and is soon laying out some nice casts on the water.

Although getting a couple to the fly, none came to hand, this time the fish had the last laugh!

However, Steve definitely has caught the ‘fly bug’ and is heading back with Dad another day to get on the streams.

Jon was our next introductory 3-day workshop ‘Tagger’ and besides getting some great fish at Currawong on day 1, he also took the first wild brown river fish of the season in the backwaters on the lowlands rivers.

This lovely brown is less than three years old and is one of the wild spawned browns in the creeks at Currawong Lakes.

Here Jon breaks the wild river fish duck for the season, a very fit brownie approx 2lbs, full of vim which took a slightly weighted Tasmania fur fly (red tag version) fished just below the surface.

Another top conditioned early season brown, lurking alongside the bank to Jon’s right.

This one picked up on a brass beadhead nymph. This section will dry up in the next few weeks, just shows that fishing the flooded backwaters can be quite productive.
This was still August, late Tassie winter!

In addition on day 3 we saw the first mayfly hatch out in a quite, sheltered back water. Trout didn’t take it, but further inspection revealed many well advanced nymphs so close to go.