INDIANANGLER

Hello Maruthu,

Firstly, the pictures are going to be delayed for a few days until my son has time to set them up.

My personal favorite fishing is for tailor from the shore, as these fish attack lures and poppers readily and are great fun on light tackle ... someday,I hope to put up a report on these superb sports fish.

However, I do not believe these are found as far south as Tasmania.

I forgot, these tailor are the same fish that are called bluefish in the USA.

Kingfish

Start of the trip


Travel rods


Selection of lures with Ashley spinner at bottom


Cobras, Ashley spinners and Angler Access maps


Guide's favourite Cobras


Just a selection of over 500 Cobras the Guide has


Varied Tasmanian scenery





On the way to Dove Lake

Our saviour, boat and guide


The only fish of the trip (brown trout) on board

A bit of the wildlife of Tasmania
Currawongs (crow-like birds) - these were mother and son and kept begging us for food


Pademelon (a marsupial related to the kangaroo but smaller in size)

Ok guys - it's been a long trip and I am tired, so I am going to have a couple from the bottle below and say goodbye!


Kingfish.

Wrap-up

So, what are my impressions of Tasmania?

They are varied and colored by my experiences and I pass these on to members of the forum, if they intend visiting these parts.

Firstly, Tasmania is beautiful with mountains,lakes and sea shores with almost all four seasons possible on the same day...so dress accordingly!
The roads are generally good although there are sections that are graveled but these can easily be tackled by normal two-wheel drive cars.

Plenty of wildlife on the roads at night, so you have to drive carefully so as not to run into them and cause heavy damage and injury.

The accommodation is good, suitable for any budget but some of the outlying lodges are very expensive,especially the meals as everything has to be brought in from a distance.

As for the fishing, I have mixed feelings.

Sure, the trout are there but it was one heck of a job catching them.This view was endorsed by all the anglers we met during our stay of nearly a week.The maximum success was had by those trolling with a boat, as borne out by our own experience.

The difficulties are many and I am sure if one had arranged a guide beforehand (as suggested by Scott @worldfisher) there would have been more fish in the bag.However, the best guides get booked out almost a year in advance and cost nearly $700-900 per day per person!

Secondly, the access to the rivers and lakes as marked on the Anglers Access maps provided by the Tasmanian Fisheries is very poor and we had great difficulty in finding the proper place to fish.

Thirdly, the fact that ALL snakes found in Tasmania are poisonous makes it dangerous to blindly push through tall grass,rocky terrain and bushland to gain access to places ,which other anglers avoid,in order to get better fishing.

With these factors in mind, I am sorry but for me New Zealand is a far better and safer bet for trout fishing.

Regards,
Kingfish

Through your photos I have visited the Tansmanian terrain. The place looks awesome.
Thanks for sharing the photos..

Kingfish,
That is one well written report starting from preparation for the trip.
Thanks for sharing the pictures of some beautiful landscapes of Tasmania.
For shore fishing, I have noticed while fishing for trout that it is easier to catch them in the creeks and rivers than lakes. Probably because it is easier to read a river and cast to likely fish holding spots. In a lake the fish are spread out, and you have to put in time to find structures.

Great report Kingfish.
That is one good looking trout. And the landscapes are beautiful.

Thanks for sharing and wish you many fish on your next trip.

Cheers! Maruthu

Thank you Venkat and Maruthu.

@binu

Firstly, thank you for your kind words.

I fully agree with you as I have caught plenty of trout in other destinations from the creeks and rivers.

In Tasmania, it turned out differently. The guide had a depth cum fish finder
enabling him to see the lake bottom structure and he was conversant with the areas holding fish as he has been fishing there for ages.

I personally do not like fishing with electronic gadgets.

Regards,
Kingfish

Hi Kingfish,

Great report. Very valuable to other anglers who plan to visit Tasmania. It really does look like a great country and I can tell by your photos that I would also enjoy it there!

I wanted to ask why you didn't to fish more of the rivers...Was it logistically easier to target the fish in the lakes? It's interesting that you say it was difficult to find which places were for fishing? Were the guide/leaflets out of date or were they never good in the first place?

And i'm amazed at your guides collection of cobra lures. It seems colour might be more important than some anglers believe!

I hope over the next weeks to start fishing seriously here in France so I will put up a report of how it goes!

All the best, Scott

Hello Scott,

Thank you for your appreciation of the report.

The leaflets were quite recent,I believe. They had good information with a map and details of the types of trout in that particular lake or river,as well as any applicable rules or warnings.The problem seems to be that they have marked the access on the map but not on the actual ground, making it difficult to find the tracks.Compared to this, I found the access points clearly marked in New Zealand so that one knew where one was vis-a-vis the map.

Because we could not find access, it curtailed our fishing on the rivers.

Trying to bush bash our way to a stretch of a river at an unknown distance was not feasible for us and we certainly did not find any river winding its way along the road,as in New Zealand,where one could just climb down and start fishing.

That is not to say such stretches do not exist in Tasmania, we just did not find any in the areas we were in.

The lakes,on the other hand, were very accessible and had clear shores to walk and cast from.

Good luck with your trip in France.

Kind regards,
Kingfish

Nice report Kingfish. Nice pictures , would have loved to see some more fish from the wild rivers there.

cheers,

Jeen

Hello Jeen,

Nice to hear from you and thank you for your kind words.

Unfortunately, we had access problems with the rivers ,as explained earlier,and were mostly confined to lake shore fishing.

Hope to make up for it by fishing the New Zealand rivers later.

Kind regards,
Kingfish