It gets very technical and the hatches only happen at certain times of the day. It’s very important to know when to change from a streamer to a wet and then to a dry fly and the Australians had really practiced and knew exactly when to switch.
and you can see the bottom over most of the lake. The depth and weed are what makes the mayfly hatches so prolific. It’s a renowned wild brown fishery. During preparation we expected a lot of wet fly fishing, stripping dabblers, snatchers and crunchers. They’re all medium mayfly imitations in sizes ten, twelve and fourteen that are fished under the surface. Where we found a hatch where we would change to a dry fly. With the conditions changing as they did we had to adapt our plans really quickly.
With the conditions changing from a summer to arctic condition it levelled the playing fields for the international competitors. The fish weren’t where the Australians thought they would be and they were actually at a disadvantage because they kept on going back to what they knew. The international guys who didn’t know what to expect adapted to conditions a lot more quickly and this is evident in the results from sessions one, two and three.
I was on the lake with an English team member, Tony Baldwin. We had a really good guide, Stewie Dickson, in our preparation and we had a very good idea of where to fish, but the sections of the lake to fish were really dependant on reading the wind on the day.
Little Pine Lagoon is a big body of water that doesn’t have much cover and is completely exposed to the weather from all directions. It’s not a very deep lake with a maximum depth of four metres and because it’s so shallow it is full of weed. Most Tasmanian lakes aren’t deep at all
Especially in the start of a competition your first few drifts are the most important because the fish have gone for a couple of weeks without seeing an angler.
© Trevor Hawkins
www.saflyfishingmag.co.za www.saflyfishingmag.co.za
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