2022-23 Tasmanian Fly Fishing Season - the Importance of The Great Lake

Here in the middle of winter, your basic Tasmanian fly fishing guide spends a lot of time (too much time) in front of his or her computer, trying to plan the coming season.

For 2022-23, my focus is, for the first time in a couple of years, is NOT on COVID (although it’s presence will lurk constantly in the background). No, in the off season my focus has been on planning for a good season, reflecting on the last one, watching what’s happening in our waterways and making sure that gear is ready to go when the season officially starts.

One of the winter highlights has been the chance to watch what fish are still doing, regardless of our ability to fish for them. Tasmania’s Great Lake in the Central Highlands is probably Tasmania’s most prolific spawning lake, providing not only a healthy head of fish for its own waters, but also being used by Tasmania’s Inland Fisheries Service as the source of wild fish to supplement the existing fish populations in waters that don’t naturally recruit.

The stocking program is one of the great by products of your fishing licence fees - they can resource their stocking process because of the money raised through licence sales. It’s just another good reason why you should always fish with the appropriate fishing licence.

The added bonus of the Great Lake spawning season is your ability to visit the lake’s spawning streams and watch the fish battle to find those places in which eggs can be laid and fertilised.

Photo Courtesy of Inland Fisheries Service

Of course mother nature has to help - particularly by making sure that the spawning streams are flowing. Our good friends at the Hydro intervene to some extent in the Great Lake - as they control flows out of Lake Augusta down the Liawenee Canal. But other, smaller feeder streams don’t enjoy that level of intervention and so we keep our fingers crossed for good flows.

The attached video features one of those small feeder streams.

watch video