This time it was Jon, ex Brit who now lives in USA and is visiting Australia on a work trip, found our site, loves river and stream lightweight gear dry fly fishing and had to get down here to give it a go.

Not a bad day, 35 to the fly and 18 or so to hand (all gently released) was a good effort.

It reminded him of his early fly fishing days in the UK, only this was a much more ‘natural experience’ with Tasmania’s wild brown trout.

After the hiding the combination of weather and fish gave us on the last outing it was a very relieved guide that reports on a most successful UK duo’s day at Currawong for the last January trip.

John had done a little and Di no fly fishing to date, had a great shore-based lakes fishing introduction to Tasmania’s fly fishing options.

John with his first brown is delighted with his efforts, while Di gets aquainted with her first ever wild brown trout on the dry fly.

‘hoppers ‘hoppers everywhere with the grasses all a quiver,
‘hoppers ‘hoppers everywhere from seedheads to the river!

To watch those big wild brown trout slurping them down is poetry in motion. Yes they are still going strong and are a good part of the trout’s diet.

For those who follow the antics of this Tasmanian guide, we noted the first ‘hopper taker was back in November. There is still, in my opinion, a good month left in them yet — what a ‘hopper season.

So for last chance at some late season dry fly fishing Tasmania’s streams come on down!

Robert stripping in fast to get control of another wild brown

Michael and Robert from NSW had just one day with Red Tag, which included a special detour via Miena to collect them, on a river somewhere.

They are good fly fishers and love small water work, and collectively got 18 to hand with something like 40+ to the fly despite the late start, although this did include a particularly hectic period of Rob’s where he had eight to the fly with none to hand only to find on close inspection the point past the barb of the hook missing!

Was some discussion about whether the guide had put on a punishment fly?

It does go to show, if you are fishing well and the fish are taking, always have a look at your fly to see if all is OK!

Michael with one of the best stream wild brown trout of the season — 3.5lbs+

Despite the continuing hot and dry weather, German flyfisher Roman, had five days with us mid-January, on five different waters and fish caught each day.

A top trip considering the conditions with the best day a 10-to-hand effort, all on the dry.Here is nice brown at Currawong Lakes.

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.

We thought the grasshoppers were out early last season in early January in 2007, well this past November, guess what? Ye,p the Pink Bum ‘hopper took its first wild brown for 07/08 season courtesy of John.

Really amazing how early things are getting in the trout’s food chain these days.

John and wife Jan booked us at our first Pro Angler promotional night with Tourism Tasmania and had a great trip. Lovely couple who enjoy their fly fishing a lot.

In the middle of our busiest November ever, I had an introductory fly fishing day with a difference — a two day/overnight (Somercotes) project with Warren and his wife Mary to introduce Mary to fly fishing.

Sounds straightforward so far, it is one of the services Red Tag offers, however the pressure comes on a bit when Mary is the wife of a top Australian freelance fishing journalist Waren Steptoe (Steptoe Media).

Although Mary had done a lot of fishing with Warren, she had never fly fished or been the ‘talent’ in a project before.

We met at Currawong Lakes and started the day on the grassy slopes with the basics, how to rig up, learning to load the rod, lay out a straight cast, roll the leader over, etc.

During this hour or so we spotted this trout, a rising feeder, cruising just a few metres off the shore and I mentioned to Mary “that’s your first fish down there”, to which she replied “we’ll see” with a degree of skepticism which seemed only fair as we had not even completed the introduction to the gear stage.

Grass stage over, now to the water where Mary succeeded well beyond all our expectations. Havind found our target fish still patrolling its beat, the aim was to get the (Red Tag version) Dark Brown Emerger Mary was using in the right place, at the right time … no problem! Here it comes on a return beat.

Second cast, Mary dropped it gently in the mouth of a clear bay amoung the reeds where we had noted this brown always visited when on this beat and within seconds it was gone!

Lift! was the cry and Mary set the hook beautifully only to have all the fly line and half the 40m of backing stripped off on the first run.

After some great leaps and a number of follow up runs, Mary had her first brown trout (est 3.5-4lbs) on the (dry) fly to hand … time for morning tea.

This effort was followed up with an even larger brown on the Blue Damsel between am tea and lunch and a close on 3lb rainbow (again on one of our Blue Damsels) after lunch.

Not a bad day at all for a first timer ‘on camera’, and none of it staged.