Annual harvesting of eggs from spawning wild brown trout has begun already
By Sarah Graham, IFS | As the weather cools and water temperatures begin to drop, the activities of Inland Fisheries hatchery staff are hotting up! Hatchery work of fish feeding and grading has increased over recent weeks, along with fish transfers to allocated waters, and the job of harvesting eggs from spawning wild brown trout in the Central Plateau, has come earlier than in recent years.
A first batch of approximately 720,000 wild brown trout ova was collected from Liawenee Canal, Great Lake in April.
About 560,000 of these eggs are now being incubated at the New Norfolk hatchery while a smaller number of 160,000 are being incubated at the Salmon Ponds as added security against loss at the main hatchery.
Adult transfers of wild brown trout have also commenced in association with ova collection from fish captured in the Liawenee trap. Approximately 2,100 of these wild brown trout spawners were transferred from Great Lake into Bradys Lake in late April.
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Patrick Sullivan with one of Team Spirit of Tasmania’s 21 fish winning tally.
By NEIL GROSE | The first round of the 2009 Spirit of Tasmania Trout Classic was held on Great Lake in terrible conditions, with wind averaging 25knots and gust exceeding 40 knots.
However the wind was from a reasonably favourable direction, allowing all teams to find productive water in safety.
All 18 teams were on the water early, so by 6:50am there were rooster tails heading out of Swan Bay below the Great Lake Hotel and out into the main body of the lake.
Team Bigfin Sportsfishing with one of their 12 fish
All teams managed to find the fish early as the trout were obviously looking to feed hard before the brunt of the expected cold front hit.
Sure enough, most teams struggled to land fish after 10:30am with the exception of Team Spirit of Tasmania and fourth placed Team Juicy Isle.
Team Juicy Isle stayed in Swan Bay owing to their small boat size, and managed to tally up 10 trout totalling 514cm.
Third placed Bigfin Sportsfishing used the rough water capacity of their large boat to head north into Elizabeth Bay, which delivered them 10 fish before retreating to the shelter of Swan Bay where they notched another 2 nice trout.
Team BridgesBros fished the windswept shores to finish in second place.
Second placed team Bridges Brothers also erred on the side of caution, and after an initial foray around the Bee Hives decided to head back into relative calm water inside Swan Bay, where they completed their 12 fish haul.
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Oatland’s Lake Dulverton is finally transformed — flooded for the first time since 1990 — and teeming with more than 6300 brook and rainbow trout.
And, each afternoon, the local schoolchildren try and haul them in. For the majority it is has been their first opportunity to fish.
Organised by local angler Kerry Mancey, below, the lake has been stocked with 6000 yearling rainbows (about 200mm) released by the Inland Fisheries Service and supplied by Springfield Hatcheries in north-east Tasmania, who had them surplus to their needs.
And on October 20-21 two more lots of adult fish, mainly brooks, were released by the Australian Maritime College. The 300-odd fish were also surplus to their research needs.
By Neil Grose | Tasmania, rightly or wrongly, has an international reputation for very large trout. Most locals, however, would recognise that big trout are very much a rarity.
By big trout, I really mean anything over 8 pounds. Big fish, of course, are relative. A 2 pounder in the St Patrick’s River is a giant, a 5 pounder in Lake Crescent is perhaps only average!
In the heydays of Lake Pedder, 10 pounds was considered well below par and Great Lake in 1870 saw plenty of double figure fish!
Much of the ‘big fish’ reputation was gained on the back of numerous new Hydro impoundments that caused an acceleration of trout growth.
Lake Pedder is the prime example of this; the artificial raising of the water level led to a massive explosion in midges, which caused a massive explosion in mudeyes and galaxia, which ultimately led to a massive increase in the average size of the trout.
It has been quite some time since a new impoundment has created the conditions for accelerated growth, (and no more are planned), so as a result in these post Hydro growth days, we will have to work a bit harder, (or get luckier) if we are to crack the big fish bonanza.
You would be hard pushed to mention any lake in Tasmania and completely rule it out as a big fish venue. I have seen photos of 12 pound fish from Pine Tier Lagoon, 16 pounders from Arthurs Lake, 20+ pounders from the Tyenna River and quite a few 8 pound plus fish from the junction of the St Patrick’s and the North Esk River.
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The advertisement below says it all:
Take a mate fishing
By NEIL GROSE | As much as we all like to dream about shallow-water feeding trout, the reality is quite a different kettle of fish! Trout in the early months of the season, for the majority of the time at least, will be in water deeper than 2m.
More often than not, they will prefer to be 3m down, and deeper depending upon waters of course! So for the keen flyfisher, the answer isn’t so much blowing in the wind as hugging the weed!
The early season features cold water in the highlands, with most waters over 600 metres in elevation being around the 5°C mark. Often Arthurs and Great Lakes will be around 3°C!
As cold blooded creatures, trout metabolise in direct relation to the water temperature. The colder the water, the slower they digest food – the less they need to eat! It also means that their primary sources of food are down deep to escape the often extreme variations in temperature in the shallows.
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The Inland Fisheries Service has been busy adding stock to a number of trout waters.
Here’s a summary of activity in recent months:
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