Following a few days on the big water, it was interesting and challenging to revisit a favourite creek, a creek never more than two rod lengths wide. Here, we found plenty of fish rising and some very nice ones too. Yet they were uncommonly hard to fool for supposedly naïve trout in a little stream. Then Mark accidentally snagged a willow just above a pair of rising fish. As he tugged to free the fly, tiny plops fell like raindrops from the branch and the fish went berserk, swooping all over the pool to take…of course, willow grubs! I slapped my forehead at my negligence in overlooking the obvious.

Immediately we swapped to willow grub flies and the response of the fish changed, just like that. Is there a better moment in flyfishing than when you categorically solve the riddle and a frustrating day instantly transforms to a bonanza? We crept upstream like assassins, biding our time as we waited for fish to show – and in the lee of each willow, they inevitably did. We caught 2 pounders we sighted first, and I even managed a 3 pounder that swiped at a dragging willow grub first cast, and then confidently took it on a good drift the second.

Eventually we reached the end of the beat, half an hour later than we planned. Had anyone overheard me and Mark as we skipped back to the car, they might have assumed they were listening to the excited babble of two novices who’d just discovered the joy of flyfishing. And they would have been half right.

 One thing I noticed this trip was the abundance of relatively young trout in excellent condition. It seems the fish must have had a very good winter and early spring, with lots of very chunky 4 to 6 pounders around. At this rate, I can’t imagine how these fish will be going in a couple of months – who needs mice!

Meanwhile, the lodge just goes from strength to strength. It’s never looked better or been more comfortable, and the food’s never been more delicious (thanks Ryan!) This might just be the perfect fishing trip.

Lake Plimsoll - very pretty, but some wind and grey skies would have been nice.

Eventually we ended up in the CentraL Highlands, where a blue sky day was something to celebrate. Great Lake and the Nineteen Lagoons turned on good, honest polaroiding and the world was as it should be.

I was with my good friend & guide Christopher Bassano, for whom I shall be forever grateful for getting the one net shot right with his huge landing net! Can you believe it took a single size 12 b/h PTN – Christopher’s variation which is now of course my favourite fly. It released strongly and it should be there for someone else to catch one day.

Overall it was a pretty amazing story that I’ll tell in full some other time, with lots more pics. And for obvious reasons to do with poachers etc, Christopher and I won’t be giving any more detail about where it was caught.

The first of these was on the last day of July when I fished the Great Lake. There’s something slightly mad about fishing this lake midwinter any year, let alone during the snowiest winter for decades. But it’s one of the few Tasmanian waters open in July, and although I knew the chances of good fishing were slim, there’s something about this big, bleak and yet beautiful water that draws me to it.

So Greg and I crunched through the snow and fished Green Machines and Woolly Buggers among tussocks and heath flooded by the highest water in years. As the wind picked up and waves grew, it seemed almost miraculous to pluck the first 3 pounder from water that was just 4 C. My hands were fine until I landed that trout and got them wet; by the time the second brown was brought to hand, my fingers were so numb that I only noticed the gash from its teeth when I saw blood. Greg caught a couple too, so we walked away satisfied, but without any real desire to go back. 

Next came a trip to Tullaroop with hail and lightening. Peter and I caught some nice fish, but again the cold and wet hands were a dominant feature. Then yesterday Andrew, Max and I fished the Grampians lakes. A couple of months earlier we’d beaten the forecast wind and rain with a breathless day of high cloud and midging trout. This time, ‘patchy rain’ became a gale-driven downpour on Wartook and by lunch we needed an hour to thaw out in a roadside picnic shelter before rejoining the battle at Lake Fyans. But we ended up with a dozen nice trout between us, plus a few stockies. Perhaps  the fishing gods figured we’d earned them. 

Tullaroop hailstorm