Opening Day - 2023-24 Fly Fishing Season, Tasmania

The first day of the 2023-24 Trout Fishing season in Tasmania saw me head out onto Penstock Lagoon. One of the many things that trout fishers have in common is they like traditions. Whether it be a favourite fly, a favourite technique on particular days or a favourite venue on Opening Day.

In recent years, while Penstock has proved to be an extremely fickle fishery, its reliability on Opening Day has been high. It’s as if the wily residents of the lake have forgotten all the fears that built up during the previous season and are blind to the dangers of chasing the strange looking water creatures that all of a sudden return to their environment.

That’s not to say the fish are easy on Opening Day, as Tasmanian trout are never easy, but persistence and good technique is more likely to be rewarded than on similar days later in the season.

And that was the case this season. The fish weren’t plentiful, but they were cooperative, turning up in pockets here and there, rather than being prevalent everywhere.

Even though Penstock, like some other Central Highland Lakes, is only a shallow lake, roughly 1.8m at its deepest point, an intermediate sinking line is still the go, to make sure you are down where the fish are. Having completed their spawning, and with zero likelihood of insect hatches, the fish will be feeding near the bottom and that’s where you need to put your fly – or flies.

At this time of the year loch-style wet fly fishing is the go. Some fishers will tie on three flies. I prefer fishing with two, working on the expectation that it’s the point fly that is the most likely to attract the take, but that a suitable dropper about 1.5m above the point fly will just heighten the likelihood of getting a trout interested.

On the day the point fly remained unchanged. A predominantly black magoo, with a pink bead head and a bit of pink in the body and pink flash in the tail. The dropper was at times sparkly, at times olive, at times brown and it was finally an olive version that seemed to match best with the point fly, producing the most activity.

This is the story of wet fly fishing. Rarely do you know what you are actually trying to imitate and so experimentation is the order of the day. If you have multiple fishers on board then, at least until you are confident of a combination, you fish different combinations to maximise the likelihood of getting it right. Of course just because a fly works with one fish, does not guarantees that it will work with the next, but it certainly helps with your own confidence, and I strongly believe in fishing with flies that you are confident in.

Opening Day this year also reminded me that wet fly fishing is not a casual vocation. While some see it as boring and repetitive, that is a dangerous way to tackle it, as that attitude affects your concentration and attention to detail. I believe I have already lost what was likely to be the biggest fish of the season by virtue of my own poor attention to detail. A decision to cast upwind from the boat saw me hook up with a monster that took off, frantically circling the boat before tearing off on a run that ceased abruptly when the fly line became tangled in my boots. Rookie error, but perhaps one more likely to occur on the first day of the season, while you are still getting your head back into practice.

So, at the start of the 2023-24 season, Penstock reassured me that Opening Day is a tradition that I will hang onto, even if the success of the day does not stand as a model of what to expect for the rest of the season. No doubt I’ll find myself chatting with others about the frustration of “Painstock” later in the season, but, for now, it gave me a great first day.