Ask a fly fishing enthusiast the best place in the world to catch trout and the most common responses would probably be: (i) New Zealand; (ii) Tasmania; and (iii) go away, I’m trying to sleep. Having been lucky enough to fish New Zealand on several occasions, I can vouch for its well-deserved reputation as a top angling destination. However, for some reason I had never made it to Tassie.

That was until last summer, when the offer of some local guiding convinced me to pull out the thermal underwear and hop on a flight to Hobart . After landing there, the plan was to head north. (Not that heading south was actually an option, unless they’ve recently built a trout farm at the Mawson Antarctic station.)

My destination was the Central Highlands, where the fishing is reputed to be world class. Of course, this hasn’t always been the case. Trout didn’t even exist in Tasmania until the 1860s, when homesick English settlers formed “acclimatization societies” in an attempt to make the place a little more like the Old Country. To this end they set about importing everything from rabbits and blackberries to trade union officials and trout, the latter surviving the four-month sea journey from England (in ova form), packed in beds of chopped ice and moss.

Since their epic voyage of 1864, trout have done extremely well in Tasmanian waters and today just about every river and lake contains a large population of healthy wild rainbows and browns. My first chance to make a dent in this population came the day after my arrival on the Apple Isle, when we braved a biting wind to fish the shores of St Clair Lagoon.

It’s a remote, pristine body of water surrounded by dense forest on the edge of the world-famous Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. In fact, the only other people we saw that day were bushwalkers trudging along the lakeshore. They were unshaven and caked in mud – and these folks were just starting their hike.

I’d be lying if I said the fishing was “explosive”; in fact, by midday we were yet to even see a fish. Of course, according to my ever-optimistic guide, it was due to go ballistic any minute, just as soon as “the duns started hatching”.

Duns, for those unfamiliar with entomology, are bugs that spend most of their life living under rocks at the bottom of the lake. With the arrival of the right conditions, they float to the surface and either a) immediately get eaten by a trout, or b) mate with other, like-minded duns, fall back on the water in a post-coital daze and then get eaten by a trout. Either way, the sight of “duns hatching” is a much-anticipated event in Tasmania . Sure enough, around mid-afternoon the trout in St Clair Lagoon started feeding voraciously.

When this happens all you’ve got to do is cast something that looks vaguely like an insect on heat in the general direction of the feeding fish and you’re in business. It certainly worked for us, and by the end of play I’d caught and released well over 20 fish, making my first foray into Tasmanian trout waters one to remember.

At this point someone not totally enamoured of the whole fly fishing thing may well wonder how a day spent wading in a windswept lake in rubber trousers and a silly hat could ever be described as “one to remember”. Trust me, chasing trout in places like Tasmania (or, for that matter, New Zealand) can be turned into a luxurious experience if you stay in one of the many specialist fishing lodges dotted throughout this part of the world. Sort of like boutique country hotels, they provide the traveling angler (and, more importantly, the partners thereof) with such magnificent food and hospitality that leaving the place to go fishing can almost be seen as a negative.

One of the most recently built places is Blue Lake Lodge, a funky little guesthouse perched amid native bushland along the southern shore of Arthurs Lake. If the word “lodge” conjures up images of cigar smoke-filled rooms and ruddy cheeked men eating overcooked roast beef and singing God Save The Queen, relax. Light, bright and laid-back, Blue Lake offers meals like “brown trout tartare and ceviche served with a salad of purple and golden beetroot, followed by chocolate tart with espresso syrup and King Island cream”.

The fishing on Arthurs Lake is from boats, and an experienced local guide will take you to wherever the fish are feeding, select the appropriate fly and, if necessary, even cast it for you. You could – technically - just stay at the lodge enjoying that chocolate tart, except there’d be no-one to pose for you in the photos. Though, come to think of it, the guide could always bring one or two three-pounders back to the lodge and you could do the snaps there.

Equally luxurious, though a few decades older, is London Lakes Lodge, a world-famous fly fishing establishment sitting beside its own private lake. Here too you can fish from boats, although many guests enjoy wading the lake edges at dawn in search of trout feeding in the shallows. Personally, I find the words “wading”, “enjoy” and “at dawn” don’t really gel, so during my brief stay I preferred to fish the evening rise, an event which routinely takes place at about half-past-single-malt-whisky.

Of course, such decadence doesn’t come cheap. If you’re after a modest fishing experience in Tassie, head north towards Launceston and stop at a small town called Cressy. On a nearby farm you can stay at a self-contained cottage called The Broadwater on the banks of the Macquarie River : a wide, gently flowing waterway well stocked with both brown and rainbow trout.

The Macquarie can easily be fished by walking along its banks, but a more decadent approach is to do what’s known as a “float trip”. This involves sitting in the back of a boat like minor royalty while an oarsman-cum-guide rows frantically to get you within reach of feeding fish. (Remember the footage of Prince Albert of Monaco at the recent Winter Olympics? Two or three strides into the four-man bobsled inrun, he hopped into the cockpit while his three crew sprinted madly on. Well, it’s kind of like that, only colder.) Provided you rug up it’s a great way to fish, especially if you’re a beginner or not up to walking miles along rough riverbanks. And having an experienced guide on hand to select the right fly and pass goat’s cheese sandwiches really adds to the overall experience.

Of course, spending a mere week in Tassie hardly qualifies me as a local expert but, from what I saw, the place really lives up to its reputation as a world-class trout fishery. And when you combine the fishing with spectacular scenery, fine food and luxury lodges it’s easy to see why so many people make the trip each year. My only advice? Enlist the services of a good guide, even for just a couple of days, and pack a decent jumper unless you’re going in summer. In which case I’d pack two.

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SNAILS, TAILS  & THONGS

From FlyLife Issue 14, pages 30-32

When it comes to fishing weedy shallows and the trout refuse a surface fly, Brett Wolf has found a snail pattern that works a treat.

When hooked, these fish will often head for the safety of deeper water, which is sometimes more than a fly line distance away, and because the water is so shallow, the battle with a hooked tailing fish is often very visual with lots of jumps and big splashes.

Needless to say, hooking these trout can be a real challenge, and fly selection is of critical importance. I have always enjoyed the gentle take when a big Western Lakes brownie snips down a Red Tag-and, believe me, many a tailing fish has fallen victim to a well placed dry fly. Sometimes, however, particularly early in the season, tailing fish are not looking up and a dry fly may be completely ignored. The next challenge is to use a wet fly that does not sink into the weedy margins before a trout manages to find it. The Rabbit Fur Fly often solves this problem, but sometimes when an inert presentation is ignored, a slight twitch results in the fly snagging up in the weeds.

A few seasons ago, in Paul Marriner's contribution to The World's Best Trout Flies, I read about the 'Thong' and thought it sounded like a good fly. The pattern incorporates a bulbous foam thorax and the fly is balanced so that it only just sinks- when it touches the bottom or weed, it rests on its tail of hackle fibres instead of sinking out of sight.

 But you know how these things work out- time is limited and you don't want to waste an opportunity by experimenting with an unknown new fly. And so it wasn't until I fished with Tasmanian fly-tier, Lyndon Taylor, who swore by the Thong, that I was convinced.

It was early season in the Western Lakes, the water levels were high and big brown trout were in the shallow weedy margins feeding vigorously all day. To add to this almost perfect situation, it was a great polaroiding day with full sun and a light northerly breeze.

Having caught a fish or two on Red Tags, but at the same time suffering numerous refusals, we walked to a favourite little backwater (now known to us as the 'Thong Pond'). Here we polaroided several more fish but our dries were again refused. It was then that Lyndon decided a change of fly was in order, and out came the mighty Thong.

Soon we spotted another tailing fish and Lyndon crept in to a good casting position while I lined up the perfect photograph. The fly landed about a metre in front of the trout; the trout continued on and swirled where the fly had landed; Lyndon tightened; I got the photo and was converted to the Thong.

Lyndon generously produced half a dozen Thongs from his fly box and told me they were top secret. Well, the secret is really out now-Ken Orr's contribution in the recently published Australia's Best Trout Flies includes the Thong Nymph, a fly he credits to his fishing partner John Bessell. On reading Rob Sloane's introduction to the book, I noted his surprise at the lack of specific snail patterns included by contributors. To me, Lyndon's version of the Thong, using green dubbing for the nymph body rather than fiery brown, looked suspiciously like a juicy snail attached to a piece of grass.

TYING THE SNAIL THONG
When I first began tying the Thong, I stuck to the recipes provided in the books but struggled to get decent raffia to make a durable thorax, so I tied the black thong rubber directly to the hook. This worked just fine, and caught me a lot of fish, but after a while the rubber absorbed water and the perfect buoyancy I strived so hard to obtain at the fly vice and in my water testing tank, was lost. Instead I used closed cell foam and sealed it with black nail polish, and that was how the Snail Thong really evolved.

As those of you who regularly fish the Western Lakes (and most other lakes for that matter) are well aware, snails form a very important part of the diet of the trout in these waters, particularly the tailing trout. I am convinced that the Snail Thong resembles a snail attached to a blade of grass, even more closely than the raffia wrapped version. More importantly, tailing trout seem to engulf it with relish when they will not respond to numerous other flies. This fly will also maintain perfect buoyancy.

When tying the Snail Thong, the body is a simple nymph construction well within the capabilities of any novice fly- tier. A small cylinder of closed cell foam is then tied in at the eye of the hook so that it is pointing away from the hook bend. The cylinder of foam is then bent back over the hook shank and tied in at the lower end and whip finished. The excess foam ends are trimmed off to roughly resemble the shape of a snail.

The critical part of the tying process is achieving the correct buoyancy so that the fly only just sinks and rests upright on the tips of the tail fibres. This is done before nail polish application, which appears to have a minimal influence on buoyancy. I get the buoyancy right by adjusting the amount of foam and then fine tuning by poking small bits of lead wire into the foam. Painting the foam with black nail polish adds the finishing touch and seals in the lead wire . It is a fiddly process but you will be happy with the results.

FISHING THE SNAIL THONG
I prefer to use the Snail Thong for tailing trout, but it can be used more widely with success. Often the fish are hooked deep in the mouth, which indicates to me at least that the fly looks very edible to a trout.

I usually present the Snail Thong about a metre in front of a tailing fish, but for spookier fish (sorry again, John) the fly can be presented further in front, safe in the knowledge that it will be sitting up irresistibly when the fish swims past.

Timing the strike can be very difficult because a great deal of 'gut feeling' is involved in judging the moment when the fish has actually taken the fly. This generally means watching for a swirl on the fly, or for movement of the leader. The perfect take sees the trout approaching the fly, swirling on it, then just as it continues on its way the hook is set... but it isn't always that simple!

As a fly fishing guide I've largely overcome the problem of timing the strike for novice clients by using a Red Tag as an indicator. As soon as that Red Tag is sucked under or begins to slide across the surface, the hook of the Snail Thong is set.

Sometimes trout feeding in weedy shallows show very infrequently and their direction of travel is difficult to determine. This is when the Snail Thong really comes into its own. The fly should be tied on a long leader (normally the case anyway for tailing trout in calm conditions) and searching casts made to where the fish was last seen. Then move it small distances, very slowly, with long pauses in between. This results in the Snail Thong riding up in the water column, then sinking slowly back down without snagging in the weeds. As soon as a trout responds by making a lunge at the fly, stop the retrieve, let the fish pick up the fly, then set the hook.
A truly deadly technique.

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