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.

• shake down the gear,
• grease the reels,
• clean the fly line.
• madly start tying (or buying) flies,
• check, clean and dry the ‘old waders’ (leaks in early season are very cold!)

From having a proper winter down here this year, it looks like being a cracker season this time round! Lots of good spawning water, rivers well up during winter, lots of run-off to fill lakes, etc.

How to take advantage:

Book a trip with us, just check out the Booking Calendar for availability and then hit Contact/Enquiries and fill out the details to let us know when you’ll be here, what experience you are looking for, how many, etc, and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

Red Tag Trout Tours are river & streams, shallow margins stalking specialists, and together with our complete introductory workshop options they can provide the complete package including accommodation options to best suit your fly fishing requirements.

The Pro Angler Packages:

Still places available on these tours which are a combination river and stream, plus lakes and margins, action. Email Pro Anglerfor more information.

The Pro Angler/Red Tag three days & two nights Tassie trips & Stalker gear prizes (valued at $5,000 each.) were drawn and winners are:

NSW – Peter Mason
VIC – Brian Ware

Congratulations Peter and Brian, we look forward to introducing you to some wild Tasmania trout in the 11/12 season and Pro Angler will be in touch with you to advise how you can take advantage of the wins.

These usually kick off around 7pm and are always top nights put on by the boys.

Come along and see the latest from the Isle of the Trout plus a great Tassie teaser — a glimpse of the top fly-fishing footage Eddie and Gavin took when down in Tasmania earlier this year with Red Tag on the rivers and Fish Wild up in the lakes.

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.

Good north of state rains during winter have meant the lowland rivers and streams will have a strong flow and be somewhat coloured for the first few weeks.

However, expect mid to late Spring mayfly, etc, to be good again. Southern waters have had little to no winter rains yet, but hopefully August will see that corrected and water levels increase to give us a good run into summer.

My favourite private lake levels are full and this should mean top-conditioned fish and plenty of fly life, ie, excellent mayfly hatches as spring progresses.

If the settled, if occasionally cool, weather continues into early season, it should be great learning time and August/September have plenty of booking spots available.

Paramatta – NSW July 12 and 13
Bentleigh – VIC July 14
Geelong – VIC July 15

We will be launching the next Pro Angler / Red Tag Trout Tours / Tourism Tasmania wild trout fly fishing Give-a-Ways (2 x 3 days & 2 nights ALL inclusive guided tours) for the 2011/12 season.

There’s one for Pro Angler New South Wales clients and another for Pro Angler Victorian clients.

Gavin from Pro Angler will be releasing the details, with entries welcome at all stores right through the year to the Tassie nights functions in 2011.

You could even enter on the Tassie nights – check with Pro Angler – conditions apply.

He gets an all-inclusive five-day, four-night trip with fishing mate or partner on Tasmania’s wild trout waters plus two sets of the great Pro Angler range of gear, including the Stalker Aire top of the range fly fishing outfits.

Congratulations Phil. Red Tag Trout Tours is looking forward to introducing you both to some wild Tasmanian trout this coming season.

Download the contest details here.