1. Trout Fishing Tasmania—One
Fly Fishing!
By: Bob McKinley
Have you ever wondered just how many good fly
patterns trout fishers in Tasmania will carry around just
in case they are needed? I can tell you it’s usually a hell
of a lot.
As a guide I am guilty of this as well, however over the
last two years I have experimented with a single fly

2. pattern in all sorts of bug hatches and had considerable
success with a Parachute mayfly emerger pattern.
One of the most spectacular fishing days I have had last
season using this emerger, was when I was guiding David
a long term friend and client from Brisbane.
David was looking for some late season sight fishing
using a dry fly to our Tasmanian brown trout, so with a
fantastic forecast I opted to fish Arthur’s Lake.
Arriving early we found conditions as good as we could
wish, with fine, sunny, calm conditions. We immediately
set up the boat and headed for a section of lake that
usually produces the best midge hatches and surface
feeding trout. It was shortly after that when we came
across a good looking wind lane with a small quantity of
mixed midge hatch on the water and soon after we
spotted the tiny tell tale signs of fish feeding up wind
towards us.
These trout, even big fish of 2 to 4lbs will sip down midge
so softly it is often hard to see the takes and mostly you
will need to be looking directly at the fish to see anything

3. at all, so spotting fish immediately meant we were in for
a good day.
David was using his 6wt 9ft Sage ZAXIS and the parachute
mayfly emerger which I had supplied him. His first few
casts were a bit erratic and missed them all, which is not
surprising as David had not been trout fishing for the last
6 months and these fish were coming up the wind lane
faster than usual allowing for one cast per fish at best.
Our conversation is usually like this:
Me - There’s a fish at 10 o’clock and 15 meters can you
see it?
D - Nooo
Me - Can you see the nervous water?
D - Nooo, maybe
Me - Don’t worry just cast anyhow.
D- Was that close?
Me - No but there’s another one coming up right behind
it, can you see it?
D- Nooo, perhaps yes I think I see that one.

4. However after a few more near misses he finally
managed to put the fly in front of a tiny rise and it was
promptly taken by what turned out to be a solid 2 lb plus
brown.
Several more fish followed all in the magic 2 to 3lb range
with all fish released to be caught again another day. We
moved to another wind lane and caught several more
midge feeders all with the same emerger fly we had
started with. Lunch time saw us drifting the same wind
lane, eating and casting at passing fish. After drifting this
wind lane 5 or 6 times we headed off to look for some
different action.
By now David had landed and released at least 10 good
fish, dropped several and sighted scores more, and the
day was not over yet. With a light North wind we headed
over to one of the sheltered shores and immediately
found a flying ant fall in progress with trout picking them
off as fast as they could feed.
It was about this time when David declared this fly is
“stuffed” do you have an ant pattern? I gave him another
of the same emerger pattern.

5. David replied, but it’s an ant hatch, don’t we want to
match the hatch? No, just try it and see what happens.
Well after several more good fish landed on the same
emerger pattern David conceded it was not really
necessary to match the hatch every time. We finished
the day with David landing more than a dozen good
browns, dropping at least 6 and casting to a hundred or
more – all round a great day out and all on just 2 dry flies
of one pattern which did not imitate anything the trout
were feeding on that day.