In case anyone thinks I have a knack for nailing good weather on fishing trips, my new book Fishing Sense should dispel that idea, not to mention my last few trips.
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
