Four Springs Lagoon

Mayfly feedering trout - and how to catch them

Logan Reid

Like many Launcestonians, Four Springs lake is a favourite early-season water that I like to fish in the first few months of the Tasmanian trout season. I fish this lake early because the water is going to warm up faster with the lake’s lower altitude. Warmer water makes the fish and insect life more active. So if numbers of fish are what you’re after then the lowland lakes will offer the best sport. The lake was built for anglers, not water storage, nor irrigation and was opened to the public in 1999. Early season fishing consists of mainly pulling wets like Magoos or Shreks, but it doesn’t take long and only a few days of 16-20 degrees before the water is warmed up enough to start getting the mayflies moving. This time of year is my favourite on Four Springs. Great hatches of duns will take place on overcast windy days and good sport can occur when you present nymphs or dries to fish.

This lake can be a tricky place to work out. The fish are pressured and educated, and often just leave us puzzled and shaking our heads. You can picture those wily brown trout looking at us and smiling as we fall short of tricking one into taking our fly. In this article, I will be covering the three main stages that fish will prey on mayflies, and how I go about targeting those fish that are feeding on them to help you enjoy the lake as much as I do. The three stages of mayflies are the nymph stage, the dun stage and the adult spinner stage.

Fish a team of nymphs

Often the best way to catch fish when the duns are about is to fish a team of two or three nymphs on a floating line. You have to imagine that if you’re seeing 10 or 20 duns floating on the surface of the water there must be ten times the number of nymphs under the surface of the lake. You might see a few duns floating on top of the water, which for the trout are easy prey to feed on. Using a team of nymphs is a very fun way to fish! For the leader setup for nymphing on a lake, I usually go with a level leader of about 18 feet (about 5.5 metres) double the length of a 9-foot fly rod and I like to use a three or four-kilogram tippet. My favourite nymphs I like to use are an orange beaded claret nymph on the point (the last fly on your tippet furthest away from your fly line) an unweighted claret nymph on the middle dropper and something a bit different on the top dropper. Something like a stick caddis or something with a bit of flash in it. To fish this method with a floating line you will need to put out a cast of about 20 metres, do a couple of long strips back in to get a straight line and have proper contact with your flies. The retrieve is a slow figure eight just fast enough to keep up with the drifting boat. You want to be almost fishing the nymphs static to mimic the actual speed of the real mayfly nymphs.

Something else that will help you catch more fish on a day whilst nymphing is a drogue to slow your drift on a windier day. A pointer that will help you detect more takes is to retrieve your cast with the rod tip about a foot above the water and watch the fly line going from the rod tip down onto the water. What this does is show you as soon as a fish has taken your fly. The bit of line between the water and your rod tip will dart forward or jump from one side to the other well before you will feel any take. You will need to be reactive and strike as soon as you see any little bit of movement in that line from the rod tip to the water. A strip strike usually has a better hook-up with nymphs, the same as wet flies, rather than a lifting strike.

Fishing a team of dries

A team of dry flies on a floating line can be an effective way to catch fish on certain days and as many people say there’s nothing more exciting than seeing a trout rolling over a dry fly. The leader setup for dry flies is the same as it is for nymphing, I like a level leader of about 18 feet (about 5.5 metres) double the length of a 9-foot fly rod. Again, I like to use three or four-kilogram tippets and I tie my dries off of droppers. With this setup you want to fish relatively close to the boat to have the most control and best line connection, only casting about 15 to 20 metres from the boat. If you’re casting too far out, the belly of the line will put too much pressure on your tippet and flies which in turn will lose you some fish. Make sure you keep an eye on your dries otherwise you’ll be sure to get a take and not know about it until it’s too late. Another reason to keep an eye on your flies is to get a better hook-up rate. If you see a fish moving from left to right then striking to the left will give you a better hook-up rate because you’re bringing the fly back into the fish’s mouth instead of out of its mouth. And the opposite is true when a fish is feeding in a right-to-left motion, in this case, you will need to set the hook to the right to set the hook back into the fish’s mouth. If a fish is moving away from you this is the easiest fish to hook a firm lift straight up will embed the hook into the fish’s nose. Now the hardest fish to set a hook into is a fish that has taken the fly moving towards you, for this hook set you will have to hold your nerve and not strike too early otherwise that fly is most likely going to come straight out of the fish’s mouth. You may need to have a two or three-second pause before setting the hook so that the fish will turn its head down enough to allow you to set the hook, this will take some practice to work it out but you can do it!

Single dry to spinner feeders

After a mayfly nymph swims to the surface of the water and emerges as a dun, this dun will take to the wing and find a spot in the grass on the edge of the lake or up in a tree for a day or two to moult for the last time and to go through its last transformation, the adult mayfly spinner. Spinner feeders can be awesome fun, they often will jump out of the water to inhale a spinner flying above the water. To sight a fish feeding on them and tracking where its beat is (the beat is the area in where a fish will feed from) and then presenting a single dry fly, is something pretty rewarding. The reason I use a single dry is to allow me to get a better presentation to the fish. I have found in the past if you have two flies on especially if they’re too close together a fish will take one fly and the second fly will skate across the surface of the water in turn spooking the fish and you will get a big explosion from the fish but not a hookup. When working with dry flies I use a floating line. To the floating line, I add a tapered leader of about three metres down to three kilograms to a tippet ring and then I will add about another metre and a half of a three-kilogram tippet. At the end of my tippet, I then tie on my dry. On Four Springs the duns will turn into the red spinner adult mayfly so I’ll tie on either a palmered spinner if there is a bit of wind and chop on the water to allow both myself and the fish to more easily see my fly. The palmered hackle fly will float better in windier conditions. If the water is still on a calmer day I’ll go with a normal hackled spinner just to have something that looks more realistic for a trout feeding in the glass. Again for this technique with dry flies, you will want to cast relatively short to get a better connection with your fly to get a better hook set when a fish takes your fly.

Gearing for mayfly feeders

For all of these methods, I’m using the same rod, the same reel and the same line. I use a fast action five weight rod. A fast action rod will help you punch into the wind if needed but is still gentle enough to not smash your fly line on the water. Many lake fishers like to use a six weight fly rod to manage the bigger fish you find in lakes and also give you a farther cast as you will sometimes need it on the lakes.

I like to use a five-weight rod because I like to be a little bit more sporty. My line holder is the Orvis Clearwater reel. It has a smooth drag and its weight, paired with the five-weight rod balances well. The fly line I’m using at the moment is the Orvis clear water floating line in five weight. I don’t overload my line weight because I believe that the lines are put together really well these days and the Orvis clear water lines are half a weight heavier than they say.

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