Happy starter. Having not waved a fly rod for some time, but very keen to start again, Alan (from Western Australia) had a good day on the wild trout river with us in spring.

Success on the wild trout!

Although the water was a little high, he has some top fishing with four to hand a ‘best of the day’ dropped and renewed enthusiasm for a return bout.

Kyle enjoyed this 23″ wild brown trout while recently fly fishing a lowlands high flow stream in central Tasmania. It was the best brown Kyle has landed to date.

Although hoping for an early hatch to bring the fish up, Kyle had to settle for picking this guy up in the shallow backwaters on a wet. Gave the #4wt a bit of a work out.

We had our first workshop of the new season the other day and to look at the weather you would not believe it is supposed to be winter down here (only a couple more weeks).

Although the wild browns in the river didn’t know they were supposed to be the stars of the day, Bill and Dan had a great day with some action on our private fishery, one nice plump rainbow to hand and some near misses and dropped chances.

Three excellent results from the day:

1. Bill and Dan enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot.
2. Rainbow to hand was in top nick for so early in the season
3. The amount of mayfly nymph in the water was astonishing considering the water is only two years old.

It looks great for a very rewarding and enjoyable teaching and learning experience for future Red Tag workshop attendees.

Richard is soon onto his first wild brown and his smile says it all.

Meanwhile, in quiet, secluded locations all kinds of locals turn up to say hello!

This magnificent approx 100mm long ‘praying mantis’ thought he would take up residence on the lunch box!

Then after lunch the wild trout fishing continued.

Ross, father, (seen here onto a nice wild brown) and his two sons, Michael and Andrew had a great Tasmanian fly fishing trip with different rivers each day on their three day tour with us.

The idea was to not only fish a variety of waters, but to improve their collective knowledge of upstream dry fly and small nymph fishing. This went very well with all getting rewards across the board from the slow, gentle runs to the tight small stream waters.

Michael releases another nice small stream wild brown, taken on a dry with his lightweight outfit.

Andrew is justifiable happy (and guide delighted) with this effort on a tight section, after his first ever use on a #3wt.

Ross summarised his thoughts here on a most successful trip.

First timer with Red Tag, Angus just had the one day with us but achieved two firsts for himself:

His biggest wild brown trout on the fly yet, shown being brought to hand above.

His first ever ‘brookie’ on the fly. One of a number of brook trout, below, brought to hand during the day.

With double figures of fish to hand he was very satisfied with a good day’s fly fishing in Tasmania.

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.

Day 1 saw some good fish to hand on a #14 brass bead-head nymph. Although we release the vast majority of fish, this one of Ben’s supplied a nice entree that night.

Day 2 belonged to Peter, with the only single day trifecta of the season – one on the wet, one on the nymph and one on the dry.

This is Peter with his hands full on the dry fly take. Result was a beautiful wild brown trout around the 1.5lb mark, an excellent small stream fish.