Meander River mayfly feeder

 RiverFly guide Patrick Horan with 3.5lbs of wild mayfly-feeding trout: today’s location scouting was certainly a success, with three 2.5lb+ trout landed during an early morning caenid mayfly hatch!

 In May 09, the Treasury Department were the focus of a media leak, detailing the department’s own hesitations about these ‘economically unsustainable’ projects: this opinion piece from the Mercury Newpaper has all the details. And now, on the ABC’s Stateline program, the chief architect of the Food Bowl Master Plan, Jonathan West, has expressed his own major concerns with the viability of the proposed Midlands Irrigation Scheme: the full transcript of the interview is available here. 

Who is left in support of the projects? The last men standing are the Premier and the Minister, looking for a golden egg six months out from an election; i’d suggest that egg is more rotten than gold.

Tasmanian fly fishing - mayfly hookup

Ronald from Belgium, setting the hook on another Tasmanian mayfly feeder. Spring has sprung, the mayfly are on, and the fisheries are firing. My picks for spring are the South Esk, St Patricks and Upper Macquarie rivers, but the Meander is also producing some great fishing, along with the Mersey and Brumbys Creek.

Without knowing a lot about the theme or quality of the project, the DVD looks set to revolve around the sea-trout of New River Lagoon, South West Tasmania. For those who don’t know, the run of sea-trout in New River Lagoon was made famous by a Greg French/FlyLife article almost a decade ago, but the 14-hour hike to get there has kept this run of fish unattainable and all but a dream to most.

On the sea-runner front this season, reports of sea-trout from the West Coast rivers have been dissapointing this season. The North West by contrast has featured some good runs, particularily in the Mersey with fish to 8lbs landed, while the smaller North East estuaries have featured the best runs in a couple years. All in all though, the Derwent Estuary stands at the top of the pile, with sea-run and resident ’slob’ fish up to 10lbs being caught and released last week.

That’s all for now, and remember, you heard it here first! Enjoy the teaser

Wild trout, Upper Macquarie River

  Hatches are starting on Brumbys Creek, Four Springs and Brushy Lagoon, while frog feeders remain active at Lake Leake and the Western Lakes. The Whitebait and sea-run trout are also running on the north coast, with fish up to 8lbs landed so far.

Have your say or lose the South Esk River:

G’day fellow anglers / angling club representatives, 

A quick and very important note in regards to the South Esk River, one of Tasmania’s most visited river fisheries. The State Government has just released a Draft Management Plan which will govern future use and management of the river, and there is a period for public comment open until the 11 December 2009. 

Of importance to anglers are the recommended minimum environmental flows. When the river reaches these levels from December to April, irrigation takes will cease. Two purposes of these minimum flows are to protect the environment, and recreational (social) values of the river. 

The scientists commissioned to recommend the environmental flow rates (also known as ‘cease to take flows’), recommended 100-160ML/Day flow rates. These levels would preserve the environment, and maintain minimum levels for anglers and other recreational users. My own detailed fishing records from the past eight years also show that the river is fishable down to a flow of 100ML/Day, but any lower and the flow all but stops, the river temperatures get too high, and the trout and bug life enter into survival mode. 

Despite the recommendations from the government-commissioned scientists, the Draft Management Plan is recommending environmental flows of 40ML/Day – less than half the recommended flows. This will mean that the river is un-fishable for large periods of time during the season, and that fish and bug life will be under stress for months at a time. The South Esk fishery would be impacted upon heavily, if not destroyed, given that the Draft Plan will also be encouraging and permitting increased levels of irrigation directly from the river. The Draft Plan has this to say of its own 40ML/Day environmental flows: 

‘this Plan maintains baseflows in the South Esk River up to 40 ML/day during the December – April period… During the December – April period, the cease to take flow threshold is considerably less than the recommended minimum environmental flow thresholds (100 – 160 ML/day), and hence there is a higher level of risk to the environment as a result…Whilst it would be preferable to set cease to take flow thresholds as recommended, the potential impact on irrigation water supply would have been significant.’ 

The Draft Plan recognises that an environmental flow rate of 40ML/Day will risk environmental damage to the river. In risking damage to the environment, and by recommending flow rates of less than 100-160ML/Day as advised by the scientists, the Draft Plan fails to meet its own listed Environmental Objectives (2.2.1 (a), (b), (d)) and Social Objectives (2.2.3 (a), (b), (c)) (from page 9). The Draft Management Plan also fails to meet its requirement to ‘ensure that environmental water receives a greater level of security than consumptive water’ (from page 34). 

In a nutshell, one of Tasmania’s most fished rivers will be destroyed by the Plan in its current draft state. Anglers need to demand that the environmental flows are set to the recommended 100-160ML/Day. This will allow for planned irrigation development, but will also protect the environment and angling. The time to act is now. I ask that any concerned anglers or clubs view the Draft Management Plan here  and have your say by making a submission to:

Contact: Water Management Planning Officer

Henry Maxwell
Water Management Planning Officer
1 Franklin Wharf HOBART TAS 7000
Phone: 03 6233 4807
Fax: 03 6224 4977
Email: Henry.Maxwell@dpipwe.tas.gov.au

 Feel free to use the information above. The deadline for written representations is 11 December 2009, and there are two public forums being held at Fingal and Longford on the 21 October (full details on the website).

 Please have your say, and pass this message on.

 Thanks for your time.

A favourite dry fly stream

Back on July 7th I posted a blog entry outlining a number of concerns about the various proposed Tasmanian irrigation schemes, and the effects that some of these schemes could have on Tasmania’s $60M recreational fishing industry. To date, none of the concerns have been put to bed.

One of the glaring initial concerns from my first post was a lack of transparency in regards to the processes involved in considering schemes such as the South Esk or Arthurs Lake schemes. The Tasmanian Irrigation Development Board (TIDB) website was intended to be the point of reference for the general public seeking information on the proposals, but this was pulled off-line more than six months ago. You can still call the TIDB, but as stated previously, how can you ask them an informed question without having the background knowledge? Despite personal assertations from the TIDB (in early July) that a new website would be up and running asap, the TIDB website is still offline. In the meantime, the proposed irrigations schemes are moving forwards, and anglers are being left in the dark.

Anglers Alliance Tasmania (AAT) are doing their best at representing anglers on the issue. This representation is being made via a board, with a representative from IFS (Inland Fisheries Service) going in to bat for anglers. It is great that through AAT and the IFS, our $60M industry has a voice, and I congratulate them. But ultimately IFS employees have to answer to the same Minister as responsible for the proposals themselves; surely this puts our voice between a rock and a hard place? Further compounding the problem for anglers in general has been the continuing lack of communication between the stakeholder group AAT, and its stakeholders (the angling public). The single exception to this has been a press-release in regards to Crescent and Sorrell water levels. I do believe that AAT and the IFS angler representative are making good progress, but please, can you keep us informed?

More than a fortnight ago (using the contact email given to the general public), I E-mailed the TIDB for an update on any changes or progress being made in relation to the South Esk scheme, a scheme being considered for the St Patricks, and any other details that I might find useful since my first and only other contact in early July. To date, no response has been received. Again, the process is certainly proving to be more opaque than transparent.

I am not the only one raising concerns about these proposed schemes. Earlier in the year, the Hobart  Mercury newspaper raised concerns in regards to subsidies, equity and fairness in the manner in which the irrigation schemes are being offered. You can read a full version of this article here.

Ultimately, I am not against irrigation schemes as a whole. I do believe that many of the schemes relient on off-stream storages of winter flows will be beneficial for everybody. I do however think that on-stream dams such as those being mooted for tributaries of the South Esk (the St Pauls and/or Ben Lomond Rivulet) could spell disaster for the streams themselves, and the South Esk that they flow into. Likewise, a dam on the headwaters of the St Patricks river as alluded to more than a year ago by the government would spell the end to one of Tasmania’s top river fisheries, not to mention the rare giant crayfish that anglers have found in the area.

In closing, I would like to highlight that both the TIDB and the Minister have been on the public record as stating that for any proposal to go ahead, it must have a social licence from the people of Tasmania. Well I’m here to say that tens-of-thousands of Tasmanian anglers certainly haven’t been given the opportunity or information to ‘licence’ these proposals on their merits, one way or the other.

Tasmanian trout, polaroided and landed by RiverFly guests August 2009

 Earlier in the month I wrote a blog (online diary) entry titled ‘fishing like its 1959’. Back when Australian fly fishing author David Scholes’ was fishing the Tasmanian streams, early-season flood fishing was the first event of the year, followed by the classic mayfly hatches of spring Show Day. Well, for the first time in my 8 year guiding career, we’ve started the season with classic Scholes-esque flood water feeders, gorging on drowned worms and grubs, and it looks like the best mayfly season in decades is about to hatch.

 About 6 years ago, myself and my friend Aarron fished our first major hatch on the upper Macquarie River. This river, and its mayfly hatches, were made famous by the writings of David Scholes earlier in the 50’s and 60’s. The day of our first hatch was magical–morning ceanid mayflies greeted us, large red spinner duns hatched at lunch, and giant red spinners fell on evening. We landed 22 fish, 8 over two pounds, and lost the biggest few fish of the day, perhaps up to 5lbs in weight. All of this took place on a section of river less than a cast wide, with lovely grassy undercuts sheltering the wild browns as they sipped mayfly from the current seams, and weedy runnels. These hatches continued through until late November, when water levels dropped, and we moved on to the larger rivers and their later pre-Christmas hatches.

 The following year I again fished the upper Macquarie, found some good hatches over two weeks or so, but didn’t achieve any once-in-a-lifetime red-letter days. A further season on and I managed to fish one solitary hatch during the making of In Season Tasmania, but by that November water levels were too low, the paddocks were parched, and the only thing cruising were starving tiger snakes and the odd redfin perch. The frogs were quiet, the mayflies in remission, and the water had turned an algal brown. Five years of drought had taken its toll, and the fishery was on life-support.

 But now there is great news. For the first time in many, many years, I’ll be fishing the spring mayfly hatches on rivers such as the upper Macquarie. The drought has been broken by the third biggest wet in a century, with the east coast of Tasmania receiving more than 700mm of rain over winter. The rivers have been flushed, the headwater soaks and springs replenished, and the mayfly are ready to go. As harsh as the past seasons have been on some of the midland’s rivers, these insects will go into reproductive overdrive, shortening their breeding-cycles to booster populations. The trout that have spent the past few seasons on a maintenance diets have added fat to their lengthy frames, with worms, cockchafer beetles and grubs providing the early season fodder. It’s a time to re-visit the fisheries of old, and fish like its 1959. See you on the river.

 If you’d like to book some time fly fishing the spring mayfly hatches with RiverFly Tasmania, send us an enquiry now. We have spaces available in October for the start of the hatches, and very limited spaces in November and December.

• Fishing report for August and early September

Trout fishing a Tasmanian rainforest creek

For a rundown of the fishing to mid-August, read our blog (online diary) here.

 The rains continued into September, with flood-feeders still the primary target until late last week. RiverFly guide Patrick Horan’s earthworm fly was the outstanding fly pattern of the period, with lake and river fish finding it irresistible. The headwater creeks offered the most consistent fishing, much of it polaroiding, though well timed trips to the South Esk, Macquarie, and St Patricks rivers resulted in great flood fishing for lucky anglers.

 An interesting by-product of the big-wet has been prolific midge hatches on the lakes. Nearly every lake in Tasmania is now full (with the exception of Lake Gordon, Great Lake and Lake Echo). This has meant that kilometres of previously dry shorelines are again underwater. As the flooded vegetation (grasses etc) rot, they provide food for invertebrate populations, and the midges have been the first to explode in numbers. This has led to dry fly fishing opportunities on Lake Huntsman in particular. Other lakes that have fished well in the past couple of weeks have been Lake Echo (with access now available to the marshes at the top end), Great Lake and the Bronte Chain.

 My last trip to the Western Lakes was opening day, with all the lakes from Augusta right out to the back lakes full and overflowing. Since then, persistent highland rain and snow has kept the road access closed while Lake Augusta spills. I’m anticipating a visit to the Western Lakes later in the month, so stay tuned to our blog for a report.

•   New Project from the ‘In Season Tasmania’ Team

For fans of the book In Season Tasmania – A Year of Fly Fishing Highlights, you’ll be interested to read that I have just embarked on my next ‘artistic’ endeavour. I’m keeping cagey on the details for now, but all will come to light on the RiverFly blog over the next month, as a winter of planning turns into a season of action. Super-photographer, FlyLife Magazine staffer, and In Season co-author Brad Harris will be one of a cast who’ll be joining me on parts of the next project, providing inspiring images along the way.

• Product Reviews

·        Whiting Eurohackle

Whiting Rooster

Relatively new to Australia are Whiting Eurohackles, available from the Essential Fly Fisher in Launceston. These are dry-fly saddles in the traditional sense, but this breed of rooster caters for a range of larger than normal sizes. For a long time now, size 8-10 dry fly hackles, or over-sized hackles for parachute flies have been hard to come by. The Eurohackle fills this void, with saddles catering for 8’s, 10’s or 12’s, depending on the individual saddle selected. I’ve been using them on size 10 and 12 parachute duns, and give them two thumbs up!

 ·        New Sage 99 fly rod

Sage have just released a new model rod called the 99. These are 9’ 9’’ inch rods, specifically designed for European style nymphing. My first impressions from casting this rod are that it will be awesome for its specific job. The length is ideal, the sensitive and slow tapered tip will be well suited for casting and ‘feeling’ the nymphs as they fish, and the low-down power will offer plenty of oomph for pulling rainbows out of white-water pockets. If you’re trying to picture what the rod feels like in action and balance, think of a rod built with a graphite bottom half, and fibreglass tip. This rod will be a hit among the competition fishing scene, and those wanting to fish this effective style of fishing.

•  Quamby Estate – RiverFly lodge accommodation

Quamby Estate, RiverFly’s lodge accommodation partner, has been receiving some great reviews of late. To read more about the charms of the estate, follow these links to recent reviews: Luxury Travel Magazine , the Sydney Morning Herald, or pick up a copy of the latest FlyLife Magazine, Spring 2009.

Quamby Estate Homestead

 Guests booking our 3 Rivers Package with lodge accommodation receive free airport transfers from Launceston to Quamby Estate.

 That’s all for now. Thank you for your loyal business which has led to record pre-season bookings for season 09/10. We look forward to showing you some of our new river venues this season, or perhaps leading you on a Western Lakes wilderness campout. For more information visit our website at www.riverfly.com.au

 Thank you from the RiverFly team: Daniel, Simone and Patrick.

More on the story here