Get Up Early and Sleep Through the Afternoon

I recently returned from a trip to Tasmania where four of us fly fished the wonderful Highland Waters. We were very lucky to get accomodation there and I was quite excited to be able to fish a lake that had trophy sized browns and rainbows. The lake has a strict catch and release policy so I thought we would be in for a great four days of fishing.

Nothing could be further from the truth! The fishing was really tough. There were no rises during the day and only a very sedate ten minute rise of sorts about fifteen minutes before it was too dark to see. I didn't get it at all, there were a lot of midges on the water and on the warmer of the two days a ton of other insect life as well. Do the trout wait until the insects sink to eat them? Or are they feasting under the surface. Who knows!

On the third day I lost two big fish whilst wet fly fishing during the day. This scared the crap out of me as when something leaps at your fly after hours of nothing you get the shock of your life. The first fish I lost because of a basic mistake. As I was retrieving the fly I went to cast when there was still 10 feet or so of line out. Bad move - the trout lunged at the fly and I ripped it out of his mouth

Lesson: Don't recast a wet fly until you can see the fly and whether anything is following it.

On the last day I was so depressed that I slept in whilst my mate went out on the local boat and was greeted by heavily feeding fish. He lost two and caught one.

Lesson: Always fish early, even if you are going to have a nap to recover from 9am until 1pm! It is by far the best time of the day to fish. From an hour before dawn until around two hours after dawn fish feed more intensively than at any other time of the day.