Presented from Issue 105, August 2013
Christopher Bassano fishes over 250 days a year. This interview was recorded just before he headed off to fish for Australia in the World Fly Fishing Championships in Norway 14-17 August 2013.
I live on a small stream and at the start of the season I like to go off on a bit of a discovery mission and fish the headwaters of the creeks and rivers I feel an affinity with.
These small rivers include the St Pats, Meander, Forester, Little Forester and others. The further up you go on these rivers the clearer and lower the levels. They are often less affected by the rain and runoff and you get some good opportunities. Get as close to the source as you can and you will find some good dry fly fishing. Don’t limit yourself to those I have mentioned. Most headwaters will hold trout.
Read more ...I just love this time of year with it's cool nights & mornings that slowly turn into beautiful still mild Autumn days. It's also a great time of the trout season for chasing trout in the rivers for me as well. It was another cool morning when I arrived at the Meander River for another spin session with the river still flowing at a nice wading height. I started the session off with the lure that has done well on the trout over a few trips and that was the copper Aglia Mouche Noire spinner. The water temperature has now dropped to a cool ten degrees, I'm hoping for more good results like I had in this river on my last trip when I caught & released 15 browns. I was in the river by 7:20 am and it wasn't too long before I had my first trout take the spinner which was good, it was a nice 280 gram brown.
Given it was a beautiful cool & frosty morning I decided to head off for an early spin session to see if I could catch three more trout to reach the 400 mark for this season. It's been a tough one for me so far and being around 120 or more trout down for the same time last season, reaching the 400 mark will make up for my poor season.
Seeing as we had a Angling Club fishing day at Huntsman Lake at Meander I thought I'd get a few hours of fishing the Meander River in before heading to the lake. I was still dark when I arrived & headed off through the paddocks on a 1.5 km walk to where I was starting the spin session in the river.
By the time I reached the river it was light enough to hop in and start fishing where I had a couple of follows from a solid brown at the tail end of a long slow flowing run. I tried several different lures but that fish just wasn't in an aggressive mood. The next stretch of river gave up nothing and it wasn't until I reached a nice narrow medium/fast flowing run when I had my first take. A small (280 gm) brown took the Mepps Aglia brown spinner from a cast & drift under the willows close to the river bank, I had my first trout of the morning.
Mild overcast morning saw me heading off to the Meander River for a spin session in a 1.5km stretch of river I haven't fished since before the 2016 June floods. When I last fished this area I averaged 15 plus trout each trip and most trout were all in the 450 gram range with many larger ones taken as well. I wasn't expecting much today, I just felt it was time to see if the trout are back in this stretch of river. The rest of the river is slowly coming back with trout but they're mainly all small fish this season with the odd few reasonable fish taken from time to time. I hit the river at 8:05 am and had my first trout on within the first three casts up and across the fast water.
Took another trip over to the Meander River again to day to see if there was to be any improvement in the trout fishing. The forecast was good with light winds & a temp of around 21 degrees, I was in the river by 7:00 am & the air was damn cold as was the water temp. It was also running at 70 cms which is on the high side for wading but still safe enough when you know the river. I started off with the lure that's been working the best in the rivers & that was the Mepps #1 Aglia Furia. I had a trout take it in the first five minutes and I thought I was in for a good day.
Well for the first time this season I was in the Meander River by 5:00 am this morning in what was a beautiful cool morning with plenty of water flowing down the river. The day was supposed to reach 27 degrees, that's the reason for the early start. I was hoping the trout fishing would be better early morning than the later starts I have had on this river. I do prefer the early morning starts on the rivers as it is the best time to be on the water, the trout fishing is usually at it's best then, especially in the Summer months. This river hasn't fished all that well this season and this is another reason I wanted to have the early start on it. There was only one thing I wasn't happy with and that was the water level, the river was running at 70 cms which is a little on the high side where I'm fishing.
Read more: On the water by 5:00 am, trout still few and far between 7/12/2018
Another overcast and windless morning saw me in the Meander River by 7:20 am when I started casting the Mepps Aglia Furia up & across the river. Using the cast & drift method it was on the second cast that I had a follow from a medium size brown. Even though it didn't take the s[inner it was a good sign seeing a trout so early into the spin session. The river height was running at 62 cms which was fine for where I was fishing at this stage, though I would have preferred it to have been five to ten centimetres lower.
Read more: Great start on the trout, before it slowed to a crawl - 19-11-18
It's been a week since my last spin session so today I thought I would give the Meander River another chance of giving up a few trout. The weather when I left was quite reasonable with N/NWesterly breeze at around 15 kph and there was quite a bit of cloud cover too which is how I like it. We had reasonable few showers of rain a few days ago so if the river doesn't give up any fish I new I could always fish Western Creek. I was at the river edge by 9:50 am and it was at the ideal wading height and running very clear, my lure of choice was the Aglia Furia.
As I entered the river I spooked a medium size brown which gave me some confidence there may finally be a few trout around today. It took me thirty five minutes before I had my first solid hit but the fish missed taking the spinner. I fished on upstream for at well over four hundred through some beautiful looking trout water without having a single follow. So far the spin session has been a real low for me with having just the one hit and miss over an hour in the river. I had made my mind up to fish two more stretches of river before heading back to the car going to Western Creek. I felt I had to try something different with the lures so I changed the larger #1 Furia for a small gold #00 Aglia spinner, one that I had placed a black fury sticker on the spinner blade. This is when the spin session turned around for the better, the following stretch of river gave up four medium size browns in nine casts.
I don't know what the odds are but just over two years ago I lost a small Atomic shad40 lure in the Meander River when for some reason the line parted & the lure kept going and lobbed in the middle of the medium flowing river. It was a slow sinking lure & I did go and have a look for it all to no avail, it had more than likely disappeared between the rocks on the river bottom. A week later I was back in the river and while fishing the same stretch of water and decided I'd have another look for the little ghost gill brown lure. I roughly stood in the same area from where I had cast the lure a week earlier and sort of had an idea of where the lure had landed. I then had a guess of where in may have drifted to as it slowly sank. Good thing was that the sun was out this time where as the day I lost it it was a dull overcast day. Any way I headed out to where I thought it may have drifted to.
Read more: Two years apart, what's the odds of it happening again - 30/10/2018
After checking the BOM river heights I saw that the Meander River had dropped 50mms since my last disastrous trip there with just the one trout being caught. I thought with it being lower plus the air and water temp on the rise it was worth another visit. My only worry was the East/North/East winds that were forecast for most of the week, not a good wind direction for fishing. It's okay if it's just a very light breeze but once it picks up one may as well head for home. Today's weather conditions were ideal with it being a dull cool to mild overcast day & the lightest of an Easterly breeze. Being so overcast I didn't hit the river until around 10:00 am and commenced casting the Mepps Aglia Furia around in the clear cool flowing water. It was quite nice to finally be fishing the river at the perfect wading height for a change..
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Presented from Issue 105, August 2013
Bob is a professional fishing guide and guides for trout and estuary species. Check him out at www.fishwildtasmania.com
There are several things we look for in our early season trout waters. It is still winter and cold, so some of the things to consider are: Altitude as this dictates the water temperature and therefore feeding activity. Food for the fish. Availability of trout food is generally dictated by the quantity and quality of weed beds.
Quantity of fish.
Three waters which I believe fit all three requirements are:
Read more ...