Tasmania

I thought I would arrive in Australia in January to sun and heat, because it is the height of summer here. I packed only a single fleece jumper. Big mistake. The first ten days of my camping trip in Tasmania could have been spent back in the UK or any other European country gripped by winter at the moment for all I know. It was cold and wet and the wind blew a gale and always annoyingly downstream when I was out on a river. Even the headline of a local newspaper cried “Where has our summer gone?” 

I had little experience of camping before this trip. My ultra-light sleeping bag, supposedly meant to keep its occupant warm and alive at a minimum temperature of -2°C, proved no match for single digit degrees. I discovered this on the first wet night, camping in the woods several hours north of Hobart. I was committed by then and had to suffer the cold until I reached Launceston on the north of the island some days later. There is quite simply nothing in between the two towns but lakes and rolling hills covered in grey-green eucalyptus forest or pasture. It is the proverbial land that time forgot. When I did arrive at the urban oasis of Launceston, earlier than planned, I hit the shops and splurged on thermals and warm clothing. Being under prepared for the weather almost put a dampener on the novelty of exploring a new state in Australia. It almost ruined the unbridled thrill of having boundless, untamed trout fishing at my disposal, of camping in the trees with a roaring log fire (when it wasn't too wet to contemplate making a fire of course) and of falling asleep to the gurgling sounds of a nearby trout stream. Just as I leave Tasmania, after spending two weeks in the state, the weather has improved dramatically and temperatures are anticipated to rise to the 30°s this week. Typical. 

This isn’t intended as a pity plea but rather a reminder to anyone visiting Tasmania to pack warm clothing no matter the time of year. The old adage ‘four seasons in one day’ is very apt in this part of the world. It’s also a good idea not to plan your itinerary inflexibly and to be prepared to adapt your plans to the weather conditions.

Camping in better weather at Myrtle Bank

Despite the inclement weather I was able to pick up fish in every river I stepped into bar one, so the trip has been a fantastic success (trout eluded me on possibly the most renowned of them all, Brumby's Creek, but I couldn't devote much time to it because a gale force wind was blowing). I even caught one particular river (the Mersey) on a hot still day at the end of my trip when the fishing was exceptional, one of those blue ribbon days when the trout were looking up, hungry for dry flies.

The Florentine River

Tasmania is of course best known for its exceptional wilderness lake fishing where sight fishing for large brown trout is the norm. It had been my plan to spend most of this trip fishing the lakes. One cold morning I even got as far as the end of the 2WD dirt track at Lake Ada, the springboard for a hike into the wilderness to fish the innumerable lakes and lagoons of the region. I had a rucksack fully packed and was ready to go but the weather was just too foul and the wind too strong. The hike and fishing would have been uncomfortable and I would have had no price polaroiding fish with no sun and choppy surface water. I brewed a cup of coffee in the parking lot, hoping for a break in the weather, but instead the rain only strengthened. I decided to push on north to fish the rivers near Launceston, which I hoped would at least be a little more shielded from the winds. At the back of my mind I felt that if the weather improved and time permitted I would make my way back to the central plateau to fish the lakes, but in the end I never got round to it. I was having too much fun exploring the rivers of the north east and north west. So I guess this is a report a little unusual for Tasmania, with no lake fishing to speak of.

The Styx River

I started my trip in Hobart and was glad when I eventually got on the road in my hire car and out of the stuffy hostel dorm room. I headed in a north west direction towards the Styx, Florentine and Tyenna rivers. On the way I stopped in at the Salmon Ponds Hatchery on the Plenty River which is the first place where trout ova were reared in the southern hemisphere. I paid $2 for a tub of pellets and had fun throwing them at the trout and ugly looking salmon. 

It was warm and bright that first day (a Saturday) when I set up my tent in the Styx Forest on the banks of the tannin stained river of the same name. The river looked dark and foreboding, perhaps why it is named after the river in Greek mythology. I caught nine trout in a few hours of glorious evening sunshine, saw a platypus, and went to sleep content and flushed in new adventure. It was so warm that I wore only a t-shirt and sleeping shorts… but that changed at 1am when I woke up chilled to the core. It had started to rain by then and little did I know that I wouldn‘t see a completely rain free or cloudless day for another nine days. It was only a light rain at first but enough to make me move my tent to higher ground in the early hours of the morning, and worry about my 2WD sedan getting out on the short, steep and very muddy dirt track to the main forest gravel road. It all worked out fine in the end as I held my breath and skidded my way out in the car. 

I drove a short distance to the beautiful Big Tree Reserve, where the river is especially scenic, and spent a wet and blustery afternoon on the Styx. I managed to catch four trout, with the best of them 11 inches. I spotted it rise against the left bank just before a torrential downpour which lasted a couple of minutes. I stood stock still while the rain pelted down noisily on my rain jacket, all the while marking the place where I had seen the rise. When the shower passed I cast a CDC & Elk to the left bank and it was immediately snatched by the trout.

That night I was woken up at 3am by a noisy animal intent on entering my tent to get at my salami and dried banana slices. Once the initial shock passed, I was intrigued to think it was a Tasmanian Devil, but they are rare and it was more likely a possum. I shouted at the animal from within the tent and it slunk away. I learned a valuable camping lesson, and from then on all food remained locked in the car boot.

Typical colouration of a Tasmanian river trout

The Florentine was a strange river. Also stained the colour of dark roast coffee, it consisted of deep, slow moving pools which were eerily quiet. It was a hard slog, beating my way through the bush to get around the deep water and stone cliffs. When I found no riffle or wading water after some distance and toil, I beat my way back through the bush to my car a little disconsolately. Crossing the road bridge to where I had parked my car, I noticed a couple of rises downstream of the bridge. I entered the water below the rising fish, which was very different limestone-looking water, forging a multitude of currents between trailing weeds. The water here was shallow enough to wade and clear enough to spot the fish which were lying between the weeds and rising to little olive mayflies. I could have been on the Derbyshire Wye! I missed the first four rises to my olive CDC fly, but caught the next two, both trout of about 12 or 13 inches. It was fun casting to fish in such clear water and seeing them react to the fly. Most patterns were simply rejected, some after interminable scrutiny.

A trout from the North Esk

The Tyenna is probably the most popular river near Hobart and I caught it on a good day. It was mostly sunny and the water level had dropped a fraction from the day before. I accessed the river from a railway line in the vicinity of Mt Field National Park and had a great day catching sixteen fish in total. The biggest was around 14 inches but I lost a bigger fish which must have been about 16 or 17 inches long. The Tyenna is a fast flowing river, and whilst I could have landed the fish if I had a landing net, I just couldn’t retrieve the fish close enough to my hand in the strong current. When I reached down to hold the tippet with my hand, unable to move up or down the bank, the fly dislodged and the fish was off. It had been so agonisingly close! I saw four platypus that day too.

Tyenna trout

A typical Tasmanian gravel road. Is that a top hat?

I pushed on north, stopping to look at Lake Echo, Great Lake and Arthur’s Lake along the way, all big, daunting waters for a shore fisherman and, quite frankly, so big and monotonous that I’d be bored fishing them. I got to Launceston and, after buying some warm clothes, did what all modern travellers do these days - looked for a plug socket to charge my phone and find some free wifi to check my emails and send a Whatsapp message or two. Launceston felt a little more interesting and upbeat than Hobart.

The headwaters of the St Patrick's River

A trout from the Great Forester River

In the north east I camped on the banks of the St Patrick’s River and from there fished the St Patrick’s, Great Forester, North Esk and South Esk rivers. In the north west I camped on the banks of the Meander river and fished the Meander, Mersey and Leven rivers. 

I still chuckle at the innocuous looking single strand of wire which crossed the Great Forester river. I had knocked on a farmer's door to seek permission to fish the river through the cattle farm. Standing thigh-deep in the river, I lifted the wire strand with my left hand above my head to step beneath it. After a second or two, I experienced an enormous and painful thunderclap of an electric shock in the centre of my chest. Even now, weeks later, my right hand which had held my rod, still suffers from pins and needles. It would have been nice of the farmer to warn me! Once I recovered from the shock, I caught a lovely trout of 15 inches and I felt like I had really earned it like no other. 

In my opinion, the best river of the lot by a country mile was the Mersey River, even though it seemed to possess the smallest average size of fish. I probably just caught it on the right day when everything, including the weather, clicked. The Mersey is a remote river, set amongst beautiful scenery. It runs crystal clear and is relatively easy to wade too. Best of all, its trout were quick to rise to a dry fly. It was from the Mersey that I caught the largest fish of the trip, a brute of 20 inches which had unusually few spots. Fishing up a shallow riffle I spotted a large snout break the surface of the water and casually sip in some hapless insect, and again after a few seconds wait. My pulse quickened at the sight of it. I cast the fly I had on at that moment, a Royal Wulff, but it elicited no response so I changed to a Parachute Adams. The very first cast saw the fly submerged in a gentle boil of water and, elated, I lifted the rod into the biggest fish I had caught that day. It was a fish of 13 inches and whilst obviously pleased I thought to myself how misleading fish can sometimes look in the water, often appearing larger than the reality. I was sure I had seen a much larger fish though, so I flicked the Parachute Adams out again, after giving it a quick dry, and this time there was no mistaking the size of the snout which broke the water’s surface to nonchalantly swallow the fly. A fish of 20 inches fights a bit differently to a fish of 13 inches, using its full weight and boring down into any deep and dark space it can find, trying to grind out a victory in a war of attrition. I prayed my tippet would hold, and when I released the fish I noticed my hook had almost bent straight.

The best fish of the trip

The Mersey

The most scenic river was the St Patrick’s, followed by the Mersey, upper Meander, Styx and upper South Esk. I’d recommend all of these rivers to anyone bound for Tasmania. I’m naturally biased towards freestone rivers though, and many people who spend a lot of time fishing in Tasmania prefer the broad, smooth flowing pastoral rivers. My most memorable catch came from a pastoral stream - the North Esk. It had been a tough day with little interest from the fish but right at the end of the day I came across what I could tell was a decent sized fish rising consistently to something. I never did work out what it was, but it was something miniscule. I must have cast about 5 or 6 different dry fly patterns to the fish over the course of about half an hour, and once or twice it came up and tracked my fly for a second or two before deciding otherwise. Eventually, in a moment of genius, I tied on a small nymph pattern, which the fish took with no apparent doubt in its mind on the first cast. It was a plump fish of 15 or 16 inches. 

Watch out for snakes!

North West Tasmania

Is Tasmania worth a separate trip especially given its proximity to New Zealand? I’d say so. Trout were abundant and I could reasonably expect and did catch good numbers of fish in the 13 to 16 inch range every outing with some sightings of even larger fish. There are plenty of rivers to choose from in a small geographic area making it easy to move from one river to the next. The wildlife is completely unique too. In some places the state is visibly trout mad, like the town of Cressy, where all the street signs are in the shape of trout. I like little things like that. And on top of it all, I didn’t even have the opportunity to try the stillwater lakes and lagoons for which Tasmania is famous. Yes, Tasmania is worth a visit, and it doesn’t deserve to be judged by its close neighbour because it offers something very different.

This was taken at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Centre, not in the wild where these things are almost impossible to see

Speaking of which, I’ve just arrived in New Zealand…

[If you'd like to read a more blow-by-blow account of my trip in Tasmania, I revisited my handwritten notes several years later and did the trip justice with a ten part series, starting here: Styx River]