World Champion’s Winning Techniques – Penstock Lagoon

from Tasmanian Fishing and Boating News Issue 142 2020 August

Winter Bream — Nathan Huizing

Howard and Stefan getting ready to fish the first session on Penstock Lagoon. Photos courtesy Norm Cibbin. My Flies — My Techniques

World Champion, Howard Croston explains his tips, flies and techniques he used to win the World Fly Fishing Championships in Tasmania 2019.

Session One: Penstock Lagoon

The 39th Fips Mouche World Fly Fishing Championships were held in Tasmania - an island state of Australia. Blessed with countless bodies of water and connecting rivers and streams, Tasmania is a wild Trout fishers paradise. The Trout in Tasmania are predominantly wild brown trout stock reared from eggs imported from England in 1864, but with a few rainbows here and there which are now also effectively wild. There is a unique combination of shallow food rich lakes, low rod pressure and active fisheries management equals one thing – simply unbelievable wild trout fishing in a unique and inspiring wildliferich landscape.

‘Team England this year comprised of myself as Captain, Manager, Competitor and chief cook and bottle washer with Tony Baldwin, Lee Bartlett, Steve Cullen and Mike Dixon fishing five sessions each and Bernie Maher as acting Captain and reserve. It would take a small novel for me to recount each day from a Team perspective so here is my 2019 championships session by session in what turned out to be the most memorable week of my fishing life to date.

Day One

‘The first draw for me was Penstock Lagoon. Penstock was the most sheltered venue and offered the best chance of the legendary ‘dun hatch’ making an appearance. As we decanted from the coach the strong wind was cold and the lake, although well fishable, was still rough with ‘lumpy’ waves crashing into the

downwind shore making it quite frankly looking a long way away from producing any kind of dun hatch in the unseasonably late spring weather that persisted for the whole event. ‘My boat partner for the session was Stefan from the Slovakian Team and, after a brief discussion in broken English we decided that as he had control of the boat for the first two hours he would fish from the bow (a decision that suited me) but I would control where we fished, as I was a more experienced boat angler. This is actually quite a common occurrence as usually the home nations have far more boat fishing experience. Visiting teams are often happy to relinquish a lot of the decision making. Our boatman was Norm Cribbin – a local angler and fly tier of some repute. www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

‘As the signal was given for us to push off we headed towards the top of the wind motoring slowly to burn some of the 15 mins of traveling time as well as to prevent chopping up the shallow lying weed that is a popular feature of this shallow, food rich lakes.

‘We set the drift on a line to cut across the lake drifting from a shallow weeded area, over the top of the slightly deeper boating channel that runs down the centre of the lake and then into a large bay to the right-hand side of ‘Crisps’ point or ‘Shack’ point as it’s also known. We had a large amount of info on Penstock both from internet research as well as first hand info from our guides and, based on the maps I had assembled for the Team as well as the wind direction on the day, it looked like the best option for me to hit a number of known marks and water depths was one long drift. Our information also pointed to the fact that Penstock was an unpredictable water with hot drifts frequently changing day to day and even hour to hour. It also tended to fish well at one end and not the other for no discernible reason.

‘As most of the boats had stayed close to the boat dock at Beginners Bay and as only four boats had headed to our end of the lake it did cross my mind if I’d made the right call. As we sat waiting for the start, I mused that as we were fishing for predominantly wild browns with a splattering of well naturalised rainbows thrown in, covering fresh water, combined with low boat pressure was probably a good thing.

‘Initially I had set up with a Di5 sweep in the carpark due to the wind strength but once on the water it looked more Di3 sweep so I quickly changed. My leader was 8lb Fluorocarbon with a copper headed damsel pattern (called a Magoo) on the point, a hares ear dabbler in the middle and a second damsel imitation in the way of a copper beaded Shrek on the top dropper. Both the damsels were slimly dressed – far slimmer than we fish in the UK. This was something that had been identified as important in practice, as well as both possessing tungsten beads to exaggerate the tail action of the fly rather than lighter brass beads. I also wondered if the impact of tungsten pulled the territorial browns to the fly better when fishing close to the weed and structure that they seemed to prefer. My research concluded I would use no brass beads at all during the event.

‘As the match started my boat partner quickly hooked and landed a fish on an intermediate, making me wonder if the Di3 had indeed been a good choice but, as Norm recorded his fish, I stroked my flies up into the hang and my first fish of the session went airborne with the top dropper firmly in its scissors.

‘With one on the card and a long drift ahead I started to fish every cast with more and more confidence. One crucial point in practice was not to cast too far – fishing for territorial browns. It seemed most of the takes came on the first few pulls, after the initial drop of the flies or on the hang. A short fast pull retrieve with an odd stop mixed in seemed to be the best so I pulled 12-15 yards of line from my reel and turned the drag up to stop me over casting and forced myself to work the angles in front of the boat. As the drift progressed, we both The weather competition anglers endured in the World Championships was challenging. Howard’s back is covered in ice and there is plenty of snow.

These flies were kindly tied by Michael Porte. They may not be identical to those used by Howard Croston.

Croston Magoo (Point fly)

Tail: Slim olive marabou and one strand red/ green tinsel Body: Peacock herl Rib: Red wire Palmer: Dark olive Bead: Copper tungsten 2.5-3.5

Shrek (Top dropper)

Tail: Slim olive marabou and two strands soft gold tinsel Body: Green holographis tinsel Rib: Red wire Palmer: Dark olive Bead: Copper tungsten 2.5-3.5

caught a mix of browns and rainbows, keeping within a fish of each other for most of the drift. As we hit the downwind shore my boat partner quickly hit two fish to put him ahead and again made me question the Di3 as he seemed to be generating more interest than I was.

‘We pulled out wide for a second shot and I hit a fish first cast, again on the hang on the Di3 – quickly netting it in the few seconds of disorientation after hooking. This fish actually jumped out of the measuring trough before being recorded. In this instance you are awarded the average size for your session so not a disaster and, as it happened actually a blessing in disguise as the quick turnaround of a fumbled fish (much faster than carefully measuring and recording a fish) allowed me to get fishing again whilst in a good area and my last two casts on this short drift both saw fish hit the measuring trough.

‘As we motored back upwind, I looked around and could see a few boats on the move from the far end

Dabbler

This is a style of fly that can be tied many different ways. This is just an example, similar to, but not identical to Howard’s.

Tail: Bronze Mallard

Body: Dark claret seals fur

Hackle: Claret Cloak: Bronze Mallard

of the lake – a sign maybe that the far end of the lake wasn’t producing. We quickly pulled in again for a short drift in the top left-hand corner of the lake over the shallow weed beds and the lighter wind allowed me to see a long way out from the boat in the clear water. Keeping this in mind I pulled up onto the hang with much more line out to keep the flies further away from the boat and first cast a rainbow obliged again on the top dropper. The next cast quickly produced another of the same size. As we approached the end of the drift and after a period of inactivity, I checked my watch and with only 35 mins left I looked around for our next move. Almost instantly a strong gust of wind hit the boat followed by a total white out from a random snow blizzard that obscured everything in sight!

‘As we motored up towards the top right-hand side of the lake looking for our next drift whilst being pelted in the face with snow, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Not only did it stop but the wind dropped, the air temp suddenly warmed and within seconds I saw a dun hatch! By the time we had turned the boat onto the drift it had started to happen – first one or two then ten or twenty duns quickly followed by yet more and then the fish appeared and appeared in numbers, aggressively smashing at the hatching duns. I made one short cast with my Di3 over a moving fish with no response. My boat partner’s first cast produced two chances on the intermediate so as quick as I could I wound the di3 up until the top dropper hit the tip ring, changed to a slow glass and replaced the top dropper with a second dabbler. I made one decent length cast across two moving fish again with no response so with no time to make another change I halved my cast length to no more than five yards of line and started to dibble the dabblers traditional loch style across the front of the boat using the tungsten beaded damsel on the point to anchor the cast. First cast and a large dark head engulfed the top dropper, a few minutes later as Norm slipped it back, I covered another rise and again instantly dibbled the flies for a carbon copy of the first fish again a solid 3lb Brown. With that one measured Norm called ‘one minute to go’ just as my third fish in three casts again engulfed my top dropper in front of the boat. This fish didn’t cooperate, and I used almost every second of the ten minutes allowed playing time to get it to net. When it finally went over the rim the 51cm brown made fish number 11 on the score card. Thinking I had pipped my boat partner by no more than a fish or two I was shocked when he revealed I actually had a four fish margin.

‘As we motored back to the dock and the inviting warmth of the lunch tent to learn our fate, I was pleased with my 11 fish and quickly after landing was collared by another competitor who quickly told me Rene Coops of the Netherlands had won the session with 10 fish, whilst 2nd had 8 fish! My 1 minute to go last fish had secured me 1st place on Penstock ahead of Rene and a one place point finish which was later proven to be one of the two most important fish I have ever caught competitively.’

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Marine and Safety Tasmania set up a temporary pontoon for the Championships. Howard Croston