Tasmanian summers are often very warm, hot even, and blue-sky days provide some of the very best fishing on offer in Australia.

This must surely be the most exciting fishing available anywhere. By using polaroid glasses anglers can see into the water and spot fish, even those which are not rising. Most Tasmanians spot from the banks or wade out over flats employing techniques like those used by saltwater enthusiasts to find tropical bonefish. Fishing from a properly equipped drifting boat makes polaroiding easier still - you have the advantage of height and the ability to cover lots of water very quickly. Our boats are properly rigged as casting platforms and are kitted out with efficient drogues and silent electric outboards.
Rhythmic waves (as opposed to scatty riffle) open up the water and give a better view of the trout. You must always be on the look-out for moving shadows and stationary anomalies but often enough the fish are clearly visible. They will cruise within a few rod lengths of the boat so that you can often see every spot. On top of all this they are usually keen to take the dry fly so you get to see spectacular takes.

Loch-style fishing is really a synonym for active fly fishing from a drifting boat. Since the English master John Horsey visited Tasmania early in 1999 such fishing in Tasmania generally and on Arthurs Lake and Great Lake in particular has undergone a revolution. Strange as it may seem at first, English techniques work on our wild browns just as well as they do on rainbow 'stockies'.
The technique is usually employed when the trout are difficult to polaroid but it is unlike conventional blind fishing. We use a team of dry flies and you usually notice the fish as soon as it moves towards the fly. You get to see all the action from the ascent to the inspection and take.

Wind lanes are current effects that appear either as strips of froth or slicks of calm over an otherwise rippled surface. Since they serve to concentrate both surface and sub-surface food, they are noted hot spots for trout. Trout cruise along these lanes rising regularly, their tails and dorsals cutting through the surface like sharks. This style of fishing is especially common on Lake Burbury (the West Coast) but also occurs on most highland lakes including Great Lake and Arthurs Lake.

Some of the very best afternoon/evening rises are caused by mudeyes, the larvae of dragonflies. The lakes on the West Coast (such as Lake Burbury) are strongholds for dragonflies and in warm, settled weather the mudeye migrations have to be experienced to be believed. The insects look for any protruding structure on which to crawl out and hatch. Drowned sticks and emergent anglers are favoured. On really good evenings mudeyes crawl about your face, down your neck, up your nostrils - and all the time the trout - browns and rainbows - are out there feeding noisily away. The action usually starts in earnest late in the afternoon and can keep going all night.

Hot weather in summer makes fishing on most of the meadows streams relatively difficult but not so on the lower Macquarie River which is fed by cool tailrace water and provides excellent fishing. At this time of year the surrounding paddocks are commonly parched brown so grasshoppers converge along the lush edges eager for green pick. Many bumble into the water triggering savage rises. The essence of the rafting experience is the same as in spring but the fishing is more frantic and sight-based than ever.