‘It’s like lake fishing for bonefish’. That’s the best description I have of sight fishing Tassie’s wilderness lakes. Forget the sinking flylines and beadhead buggers, I’m talking about skinny water, wild tailing trout, and just about the most challenging sight fishing you’ll ever find.
Blessed with a plateau scraped and hollowed by glaciers, and dotted with a thousand or so shallow tarns, Tasmania is a sight fishers paradise. Located in the roaring forties, the sub-alpine setting can be harsh, but the weather on this tiny island drives the fishing. Thick foggy mornings, or daytime sessions under low ceilings of cloud are ideal for finding tails, as brown trout fossick for mayfly, scud and caddis.
If the daytime air-temp reaches the critical 16 or so degrees (centigrade), the same fog and cloud will burn off leaving some of the clearest blue skies in the world. Time to switch tactics, and hunt for cruising and leaping trout, preying on hovering black spinner mayflies and gum beetles.
I mention that the fishing is tough. So much of the fishing is counterintuitive to what trout anglers are used to, and I’ve seen some of the best in the world repeatedly fail for days on end. That’s the price of going in blind, absent of local knowledge. It’s easy to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong tactics. But local knowledge can help crack the code of micro-climates, and ensure the angler finds the food, and then the fish. Those last three elements are vital.

One of the great challenges in Tasmanian flyfishing is targeting trout tailing in the shallow margins. These trout are hunting prey, such as mayfly nymphs and crustaceans in very shallow water. They’re often quite maddening in their single-mindedness. It’s adrenaline charging though, with often entire tails, dorsals and backs thrust above the surface.




Another feature of the Tasmanian fishing experience is chasing brown trout that have locked into swarming mayfly spinners. These fish will single out individual mayfly and track them down, often finishing with a spectacular leap in an attempt to secure a meal.


The central plateau area, known as the Western Lakes, is home to some of the most strikingly marked brown trout found anywhere on the planet. Often golden in coloration with a myriad of black spots, each one is a work of art in itself.

Red Spinner Mayfly. The most majestic of the Tassie mayfly species, these brightly colored insects never fail to create excitement among the resident trout population, with fish often flinging themselves clear out of the water in attempts to secure a meal.
Tasmania’s inland waterways are home to many to different species of dragonflies and damselflies.

Giant Stonefly Often creating slight panic as the 2inch long insect crawls across your face or neck, the Giant Stonefly is a cool sight across the Tassie waterways. When alarmed, it reveals a bright red underwing to make itself look fearsome to potential predators. While not hatching in big enough concentrations to cause trout to lock in on them, a stonefly or big terrestrial imitation is always worth carrying in your central plateau fly box. Sight fishing the margins is often richly rewarded.

Trout have been on the plateau since the late 1800’s, and have been wild ever since. Containing a dozen or so catchments, the flat-top landscape is essentially a glaciated tundra, with an inverted tree-line caused by a mixture of damp maritime influence, and heavy winter frosts and snow. The bottom-of-the-catchment lakes are where you’ll find plenty of trout from 2-3lbs, and the usual shallow weedbeds full of mayfly and other classic trout food. As the catchments wind up the gradient inclines, and spawning habitat becomes reduced.
Each lake progressively contains less and less fish, but each fish is of a greater size. The headwater lakes often hang in protected circs, ringed by floating sphagnum beds and temperate rainforest of Gondwanan origins. This is where the giants lurk, territorial brown trout with double-figure girths and unlimited food supply. These are the holy grail, but as you’d expect, rare as hen’s teeth to land. I give it a one in four chance of spotting one of these lunkers for every time a headwater is visited.
While certainly not a common capture across Tasmania’s central plateau, some lakes hold robust wild populations of brook trout.

Beyond the brilliant sight fishing, Tasmania’s high country has much more for the visitor. All of the weird and wonderful animals are here: wallabies and wombats, spiky echidnas, platypus, tiger snakes and even the famed Tasmanian devil. But just a word of warning: there’s nothing those devils love more than chewing on a fishy rod grip under the cover of darkness. – Daniel Hackett

Wombat.
With its characteristic waddle and almost cuddly looking features, the wombat is perhaps the most endearing of the Tasmanian native animals. Very common across the plateau, its burrowing habit does create some issues for visiting anglers trying to negotiate the scrubby lake shores.Short Beaked Echidna. A common sight across the plateau, the echidna looks almost comical as it bumbles along seeking out ants nests to feast upon. Watching one go about its business undisturbed is always a special treat.







Contributed By
Peter Broomhall
Peter Broomhall is a born and bred Tasmanian that has been calling the myriad of waterways throughout Australia’s island state home for the better part of 5 decades. Discovering fly fishing in his early 20’s, Peter has gained an intimate knowledge of the Tasmanian trout fishing scene. A later discovery was a passion for photography, particularly fly fishing and wildlife related photography that all but ensured that any spare time is spent on the water. He can usually be found walking a stream edge or a lake shore with a fly rod in one hand and his trusty Canon DSLR over the shoulder.
In recent years Peter has been living the dream working as a full time fly fishing guide with Riverfly1864. This role fits in perfectly with the combined fly fishing and photography passions.