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February 2005 a team of 4 members of the
Illawarra Fly Fishers Club were invited to compete in the Tasmanian One
Fly Competition held at Bronte Lagoon. The
team consisted of Eddie Melinz (who initiated the invite), Stephen
Chatterton, Ron Williams and Leo Harding. To our amazement we won the
teams event of this
competition and we all agreed that we had to front up again in 2006 to
defend the title.
Well, that what we all said to our prospective wives to justify a
return trip.
The same awesome foursome made the return trip in 2006 and we were
again very welcomed by Paul Burrows (Rabbit) and Graham Blight the
organizers of
the event. In fact, Rabbit made space in his burrow at Bronte Lagoon
for us to bunk
down for time of our stay. Many thanks to Rabbit and Val (partner) for
their generosity
and hospitality.
We arrived in Hobart mid morning in time to pick up a hire car, drive
to the city to pick up some food, one or two drinks and a fishing
licenses, before we made
the two and a half hour drive to Bronte Lagoon. We had one full day
fishing before
the competition commenced to test what fly to use in the competition.
Stephen managed
to catch 6 fish prior to the competition and the rest of us were still
hoping for our
first strike, so that made the fly choice a little difficult for most
of us.
Day one and we all agreed that no much action was evident on the
surface and the weather was cool to cold, overcast with the occasional
shower, we all
opted to use woolly buggers or nymphs. Rabbit and his neighbor provided
us with two 12 foot
aluminum boats with 2.5 and 3hp motors and this put us on even par with
most
other contestants as fishing from a boat is the general rule.
The competition consisted of 3 sessions on Saturday and one on Sunday
morning. We all fished lock style from the boat using a drogue to slow
down the drift
of the boat. The competition was based on a points system on the length
of fish and at
the end of the third session the IFF Team was just in the lead. At this
stage, Graham Blight
made a plea to all Tasmanians competitors and it went something like
this. “Come on you
Tasmanian, the
NSW team are back to defend the title and they are doing a bloody good
job of that as they are currently in the lead”. The last session for us
was really a
non event and we all came home with a duck except Stephen. The weather
conditions improved
and the locals seemed to fish well in these conditions. In fact, I
suggest the locals
only generally fish in good conditions and have difficulty fishing the
poor conditions. I was
really hoping for the weather to remain the same – unpleasant for
people and pleasant for
fish. The IFF team came second in the team’s event and we were all
pleased with this
result. I caught the second most number of fish overall in the
competition caught just
one less than Leo albeit that overall his fish were bigger.
Rabbits place was not only the meeting point for all competitors but it
was the social venue where competitors enjoyed a meal or two (included
in the
competition fee) and beer or three. Saturday afternoon there was a
casting competition where
Steve Chatterton came second and on Saturday night there were various
auctions of fly
fishing tackle from donations from sponsors etc.
After the competition we all stayed on to fish Bronte Lagoon, Little
Pine Lagoon and Double Lake (western lakes system) where we caught a
dozen or so nice
fish. One day we fished Little Pine and Double Lake and the weather was
just
excellent. You get only a handful of good days each year at these
places and it was fantastic to
be there on such good day. Rabbit caught a 3lb brown on an emerger at
Little Pine and
Steve caught a 2lb brown polaroiding at Double Lake. We saw 6 or 7
large trout in a
shallow land locked backwater but they were spooky. Here we thought we
were in some
isolated part of New Zealand.
Ron and I stayed on two extra days so we went to St Helens on the north
east cost and fished for bream on fly. I had a fantastic time
polaroiding bream using
a BMS fly and long leaders to catch around 8 bream to 37cm. I must have
pricked or
had an early release on another 10 or so as timing the strike was
critical and I should have
used the strip strike more often to improve the hook up rate.
Leo
Harding
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Leo with a better
than average Bronte brown.
Ron with a typical
Bronte brown
The runners up with
gifts of single malt from lark Distillery. Stephen had already
given his gift to the team from Qld.
Eddy at Little Pine
Stephen with a golden
brown polaroided at Double Lagoon.
Leo with a St. Helens
bream.
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