Lake Techniques — Casey Pfeiffer

A solid brown trout from Four Springs caught on an unweighted nymph. Lake Techniques for a New Season

By Casey Pfeiffer

Tasmania seems to have almost an unending list of spectacular lakes to explore, so with a whole new trout season ahead of us now is the time to get out on the water and enjoy the early season fishing. Although hatches and surface action can be slower during this colder part of the season, there is still some seriously good fishing to be had using a range of techniques if you are willing to look below the surface. In this article I will cover my favourite, and most effective early season lake tactics.

There are so many lakes to choose from that fish well in the early season. On the lowlands I love to visit Four Springs Lagoon, Lake Huntsman and Lake Leake. In the Highlands both Penstock Lagoon and Arthurs Lake are consistent producers, however extreme weather conditions in the Central Highlands means you need to be very aware as the forecast changes very quickly. In fact it pays not to make plans until the day of, because forecasts even the evening before can be way off. But no matter the weather, there will always be somewhere exceptional to fish and the fish are usually very hungry.

Setting a drift

While I have spent time fly fishing from the banks, fishing from a boat ‘loch style’ is my preferred way to target trout. Loch style is simply fishing from a boat, drifting with the wind, with the boat controlled by a drogue set from the port side of the boat. When

it comes to drifting the lakes, a drogue is the most important piece of equipment to have. It allows you to not only slow the speed of the boat, but also steer, meaning you don’t have to use your petrol motor as much and in turn disturbing the water far less. Using a drogue, you can silently fish into the banks focusing on the shallows, or you can drift away from the banks targeting the deeper water. Although there are several types of drogues, my personal preference is a PVC drogue, with a little chain on the bottom to help it sink to depth quickly, and pool noddle floats at the top. I also like my drogue to be connected to the boat using a rope in one continuous loop threaded through the side railings. This allows me to pull the drogue easily in either direction from my seat, with no need to stop fishing! www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

For my boat based trout fishing I only use one type of rod, being a 10ft 6wt. A 6wt rod is light enough to cast all day long, but heavy enough to land any fish that Tasmania may throw my way. Length is an important aspect for this type of fishing, and the 10 foot rod not only gives me better control when fighting a fish from the boat, it also makes it easier to hang flies at the end of the retrieve and makes it far easier to net my fish than a shorter rod would. To me, reel selection is less important, as long at the reel has a smooth drag, and it is easy to change spools, it should do the job just fine.

Pulling Woolly Buggers

Pulling woolly buggers on sinking lines is an incredibly effective trout fishing technique. It makes it very easy to cover large areas of water in a short period of time, which is particularly helpful when fishing a new body of water. Although there are about a dozen different sinking lines that you could arm yourself with, for Tasmanian waters an intermediate and a Di3 line will cover most of your needs to start with. Which line to fish when is dependant on two main factors, being the depth of the water you are fishing, and the speed you want to retrieve. For example, when fishing into a shallow bank using a slow retrieve, a fast sinking line is likely to get caught up on the bottom every cast, making the intermediate line a far better choice.

When pulling woolly buggers you can fish one, two or three flies at a time. While I mainly fish with three flies, sometimes in very windy conditions I will drop a fly or two. My leader set up is very simple for pulling. I tie my tippet directly onto the braided loop, with approximately five feet between the loop and my first fly, and five feet between each of the other flies. The weight of the flies themselves help the leader turn over, so there is no need for a taper. On the odd occasion that I fish two flies, I will generally lengthen the distance to my first fly, and between my flies to six feet or more, but this is something you can really play around with and work out what best suits you. Fly selection to me is less important than retrieve, but I think it is important to cover a few bases. I would always have in my lake box damsel patterns, small and large black buggers, blobs, and a range of flashy options. Matching the hatch is not always the answer! Most of my pulling patterns tend to be size 14 to 16, but occasionally a larger or smaller patterns may be required so its great to have all your bases covered. To cover the water effectively it is important to fan your casts, as well as changing up your retrieves regularly until you find what is working on any given day. A feisty rainbow caught on and orange bead head nymph.

Nymphing

Nymphing on floating or slow sinking lines has been a favourite technique throughout the UK for quite some time, but it is generally a technique still unique to competition anglers in Australia, which is a shame given how effective it is! Flies used for nymphing are often unweighted, or very lightly weighted, and tend to be smaller in size than your traditional lake wets. Stick caddis, dabblers, blobs, and diawl bachs are a must have on Tasmanian Lakes, and I rarely fish without at least one pattern in claret, it is just too good for those trout to resist. A standard set up for me is top and middle dropper with two smaller nymphs, and either a claret dabbler or UV blob on the point when fishing static, but when I use faster retrieves I will often move either of these flies to the top dropper. My leader is not too dissimilar to my pulling set up, but with a slightly longer tippet length to my first fly. This is particularly important when fishing slow because the fish have more time to check out your offering and can get cagey if the fly line is too close by.

Contact is the most important aspect of fishing nymphs, so as soon as your line hits the water it pays to make a couple of quick strips of your line to get in contact with your flies as soon as possible. Often the fish will hit the flies just as they start to sink and if you are slow off the mark you will miss the strike. Because the boat is drifting towards your line, even if you are fishing your flies completely static, you still need to take up the slack in the line. The most common way to do this is using a figure of eight pattern with your retrieving hand. This method is very smooth and consistent. The aim is to keep a slight curve in the line between your rod tip and the water. As with all types of loch style fishing, changing the retrieve can also pay off. Often when you see fish boiling at the surface but cannot get them to commit to a dry fly, nymphing on a floating line will get the eat. Those fish are sometimes not eating off the surface, but just below, so having your fly in the meniscus means you are fishing at the right level. If you cant see any movement (fish or insect) there may still be nymphs hatching subsurface, just not emerging. In these instances a slow intermediate

or intermediate line will put your flies in a better position. Takes can be violent explosions, or very slight ticks that may not be felt but seen in the curve of the fly line so concentration is key, as is a strip strike.

Plonking

Plonking is another method that has made its way to Australia via the competition fishing scene. Using a floating line, you can hang either one or two small nymphs under an indicator dry fly. Occasionally fish will be drawn to such a large offering on the surface and attempt to eat the dry so be prepared, it happens surprisingly often on Four Springs early season. You want the dry fly to be easy to see, because this will act as your strike indicator so patterns like Chernobyl ants and those with high vis or fluoro coloured posts are ideal. I recommend using small, usually 2.5 mm tungsten bead on your nymphs. Tungsten beads make them sink to depth quicker than brass, meaning your nymphs are reaching depth faster and you are fishing for longer. I also believe that using a weighted nymph gives better contact between the nymphs and the dry fly, making takes easier to see. This is a great technique on extremely windy days when casting is difficult, because you don’t need to cast long, and you won’t need to cast anywhere near as often as you would using other techniques. It is also a great technique for those that are new to fly fishing for the same reasons.

These three basic techniques are tried and true, and don’t require any specific hatch conditions, making ideal to use during the cooler months of the trout season. Tasmania is lucky to be home so some of the most spectacular wild trout lakes in the world, and although we all love to see a big brown slurp a fly off the surface, we are missing out on a lot of what this incredible fishery has to offer if we don’t sometimes look below the surface. Jumping brown trout makes braving the cold worth while.