Jim, and son Brantley, had a top time ‘catching up’ on their recent tour. Jim has fly fished for quite a while and was keen to see if Brantley would enjoy the experience as well.

While Jim (bringing it to hand, above) took the honours on day 1 with a nice 4lb wild brown trout at Currawong Lakes, Brantley soon picked up the importance of presentation and was top rod on the rivers both day 2 & 3.

Brantley is justifiably happy with this very nice Tassie wild brown for his first trout on the fly – dry (‘hopper pattern) at that!

He then topped that off by outfishing Dad on the second river day with fish like this one, catching them on a 2 to 1 ratio!

Finally showing a mastery of all aspects of the art, Brantley helps Dad out by netting one of Jim’s feisty browns.

Now living in West Australia, but still a keen fly fisher, Ewan was in search of some wild trout during his recent visit to Tasmania.

He Found one of many to hand over his tour in this well formed ‘bubble-line’ seen above.

A very plump wild brown trout brings a well satisfied grin to end the last trip of 2011.

Fishing buddies Tom and Alby from the USA were blown away with their Tasmanian wild trout fly fishing experience.

Tom, who has fished a number of times in Chile and New Zealand, says Tasmania is now top of his list.

Alby, who has been to Chile with Tom, said he had never experienced dry fly fishing like it and now has headed back home to fish the nearby streams of Nevada (all I can say is look out home state trout!).

Tom (right) and Alby ‘doing it tough’ after a hectic morning session.

They loved their rivers and stream fishing, and fished a different area each day over four different rivers, all to wild trout (mainly browns), primarily with the dry, covered kilometres of water on numerous rivers and only once saw another angler (end of day six, farmer and friend upstream for an evening flick) for the whole time on the water.

A nice quiet corner, Alby looks on while Tom presents upstream to a rising fish .

Apart from the wild trout, they saw wombat, echidna, platypus and wallaby plus dozens of local birds … the complete Tasmanian experience.

Tom even supplied entree one evening complete with local wine, Tassie beer, fresh homebaked bread and open fire. Know it sounds like a hard life, but Tom understands, someone has to do these things!

This was top fish on day two for Alby; client and guide very pleased with the result.

Alby has got the 4wt working well on this one.

While next day, Tom gives his new Sage a workout on this lovely lowlands brown, shown at the top.

You can see Tom’s thoughts on his newfound favourite worldwide trout fishery on our Feedback page.

Marcus (a regular with Red Tag), leaves his Tasmanian handmade Peter McKean cane rod in the state and comes down regularly to visit rod and fish with both being very active on each occasion, as shown above with the third fish at the top of the first pool!

All this action was on dry flies, as part of the tradition on these trips, and the joy of using the rod.

It is single dry fly ‘upstream only’ fishing.

The guide has been known (very) occasionally to think nymph (not to be uttered out loud), and as for wets … the cane rod hasn’t even seen a wet fly since it was made, let alone cast one.

The #4/5wt – 7foot+ cane can really handle good fish in tight conditions.

Fred, an experienced stream flyfisher from the ‘old dart’, hit double top the other day on the river, on the dry.

First cast, fish to hand and then lifts the season bar to 20 to hand for the day!

By this stage, above, Fred had got three to hand in a space of 15mins and 20metres of stream.

Another very nice stream wild brown is netted, Fred is obviously enjoying getting re-acquainted with this group of ex-pats.

Being a natural hunter also helps the angler read the situation. Fred clearly enjoyed the ‘untamed’ nature of our streams and this added to his appreciation of the days action.

Above: Norm is delighted with this solo effort on a very nice wild brown.

In the past, Norm and Roy have come down and fished separately with Red Tag, but this time they teamed up for a two day trip that went very well, despite an overcast and cool first day.

Fair to say Norm had the best of day 1 at Currawong Lakes and Roy finished top rod on the river on day 2.

Norm is working hard on what turns out to be an excellent rainbow and gets some well earned admiration for this one on the dry in tough conditions as Roy lends a hand to net the result.

Roy’s first feisty wild brown on the river on Day 2 was one of six to hand.

On the best early season mayfly day yet (October), Josh, a lover of small stream/river fly fishing got among them in style.

With 16 to hand (and released) all on the dry – emerger early then red spinner after lunch – and numerous others to the fly.

Seen above was the first on the emerger, well over 1kg.

Nice work on the #3wt Josh.

In the afternoon the action was just as fast and furious, here some good footwork, high sticking, left, and frantic retrieval results in another very handsome wild brown, below.

 

Lance, over from South Africa on a family holiday, had never landed a brown trout on the fly before this trip.

This is one of a number he and (return ‘Tagger’) Anthony got to hand during a cool day on the stream.

Although no hatches, due to low temperature, the bead-head nymph worked well throughout the day.

Anthony also got a number of nice small stream fish, shown below.

Here he is hooked up to a good fish and a quick photo of the result before release.

Click here to view the YouTube video.

Gavin & Eddie, from Pro Angler, Bentleigh, had been ‘talking’ about coming over to film and fish in Tasmania for our wild trout, ever since Tourism Tasmania and Red Tag Trout Tours have been presenting our Pro Angler/’Tasmania’ nights for some five years or more.

Well, they finally made it earlier this year along with assistant Stuart, and Wow!

After 60 fish to hand over four days, four different waters and more than 75% return on the dry fly. They can’t stop talking about it! Three days on a wide variety of rivers, and one day at Currawong Lakes, in total probably 120+ fish to the fly, they have video show footage par excellence.

Waters covered with Red Tag ranged from the faster southern streams to lowland meadows to clear water spring-fed rivers.

The fish were in excellent condition, often sighted feeders or polaroided ‘on station’ and gear ranged from #2wts to #4wts on the rivers and #5 & #6wts at Currawong Lakes.

Gavin stalks a feeder working upstream, waiting to sight its position accurately before presenting the fly.

Successful presentation, this plump wild brown pounder is typical of the small waters wild trout on day 1. These small waters really surprised the Pro Angler team with the quality, quantity and, at times, the size of the trout in them.

On another river somewhere, again a small water stream and lots of action to keep the crew both on their toes and fully focused.

Attempting the ultimate ambush! Eddie had (polaroided) spotted this ‘monster’ brown idly cruising along the bank under these trees so the challenge was on. Could the combined efforts of these three crafty, skilled and experienced anglers outwit one of nature’s natural hunters? You will have to get a copy of the Pro Angler DVD to find out!

The boys then went on to do a number of days with Bob McKinley from Fish Wild Tasmania on the central highland lakes which was also very successful and will be part of the DVD and TV shows, details of which will be noted here as the project finishes.

After heavy downpours on the lowland rivers, visiting German fly fisher Daniel had to go wet!

They wouldn’t look at a dry (not a rise all day), ignored the nymph but took the Woolly Bugger with relish.

Best results in conditions like these were casting out and across into the fast water, then retrieving with plenty of fly action along the face of the backwaters – ‘fishing the face of the D’ as we call those breakouts.

This was one very pleasing result of six or so on the Woolly Bugger for the day.