Fly fishing Tasmania's Central Highlands

The lake country on the Central Plateau that Inland Fisheries calls its Central region (yingina / Great Lake, Arthurs Lake, Little Pine and Penstock lagoons, Woods Lake and the road to the Western Lakes), with wild browns, highland duns from November to March, tailing fish in spring, and weather that decides the water each day.

Waters

Arthurs Lake

Stillwater · Tasmania

Brown

Southern Shortfin Eel

Bronte Lagoon

Stillwater · Tasmania

Brown

Rainbow

Dee Lagoon

Stillwater · Tasmania

Rainbow

Yingina / Great Lake

Stillwater · Tasmania

Stillwater · Tasmania

Lake Crescent

Stillwater · Tasmania

Brown

Rainbow

Lake King William

Stillwater · Tasmania

Little Pine Lagoon

Stillwater · Tasmania

Brown

Penstock Lagoon

Stillwater · Tasmania

Brown

Rainbow

Pine Tier Lagoon

Stillwater · Tasmania

There is a morning on the Central Plateau that every Tasmanian trout angler is trying to have again. Dull sky, a humid stillness after a cold change, a lagoon the colour of weak tea, and in the middle of the day the first highland duns come up through the film and sit on the water with their wings up like small grey sails, and the browns that were nowhere an hour ago are suddenly everywhere, tipping and sipping in lanes you could follow with a pencil. That is what people drive up the Lake Highway for. Inland Fisheries Service calls this country its Central region, and anglers call it the Highlands: the lakes of the plateau, yingina / Great Lake at the centre of it, Arthurs Lake as the dependable numbers water, Little Pine Lagoon as the jewel and Penstock Lagoon beside it, Woods Lake for a rough day in our experience, and the road west into the Western Lakes. The fish are wild browns on most of these waters, 0.75 to 1.5 kg on Great Lake and 0.5 to 1.5 kg on Little Pine, with rainbows about a tenth of the catch on Great Lake and stocked rainbows alongside the browns in Penstock. Bring polaroids, a five weight, a box of duns and beetles, and clothes for weather the forecast did not mention.

The country

The Central Plateau is a high shelf holding lakes from the size of a paddock to Great Lake, the main ones dammed or diverted at some point for hydro-electricity. Miena is the base: the formal camping ground for Great Lake is there, Little Pine Lagoon sits about ten kilometres west of it on the B11, and Arthurs Lake is reached on the B51, from the A5 in the south or from Poatina in the north. IFS warns that Great Lake and Arthurs Lake are both exposed to extreme changes in weather and can become very rough, with hazardous conditions possible at any time of year and with little warning. The Western Lakes are the next region west.

The fishing

Lake fishing, and four kinds of it. Polaroiding on bright days: walk the leeward side of the big points and bays on Great Lake with the sun behind you and look before you cast. Duns on dull days: the mayflies hatch on Arthurs and Penstock from November and on Little Pine from December, in our experience mostly through the middle of the day, and the fish rise to them freely; a nymph or emerger before the hatch commits, an upright dun once it does. Tailers in spring: on Little Pine from September to November, with the water moderately high, browns feed in the margins with their tails out, and a nymph fished dead still in front of one is the whole game. Wet flies when nothing shows: a team of wets from a drifting boat or along a windward shore, which in our experience is a good bet on Arthurs and Great Lake on most days.

Yingina / Great Lake is the anchor: enormous, with browns and a share of rainbows, ramps in five bays, and wind lanes on a relatively still morning from a boat. Arthurs Lake is the confidence lake, brown trout only and in our experience the most dependable mayfly water on the plateau, with Cowpaddock Bay the shore-angler’s venue. Little Pine Lagoon is shallow, weedy and famous, and in our experience technically the hardest of them. Penstock Lagoon is shallow too, stocked with browns and rainbows, with weedy margins and prolific mayfly and caddis hatches from November. Woods Lake is, in our experience, the fall-back when the wind is up.

Where to start

Start on Arthurs if you want to catch fish, on Little Pine if you want to learn, and on Great Lake if the day is bright and you have polaroids. Let the weather choose: dull and humid sends you to the mayfly lagoons, bright and blue to a shore you can see into, a howling westerly to Woods Lake or a lee bay on Great Lake, and heat to the deeper water, because Little Pine averages about a metre deep and in our experience its fishing fades as it warms. For the fish, the national brown trout page carries the biology and the mayflies page the hatch.

Through the year

August and September are cold, high and slow in our experience, with the first tailers on Little Pine from September. October and November belong to the tailers, with the first highland duns arriving during November. December to February is the broad, high-quality window: duns on Arthurs through February and on Little Pine from December into March, and on bright days, in our experience, beetle fishing on Great Lake. March is often, in our experience, the most settled month of all, with fewer people. April thins the hatches but not the quality.

Rules and access

Seasons, methods, limits and licence requirements differ from lake to lake and change; check the current Tasmanian Inland Fishing Code and each water’s page in the IFS A to Z before you fish. A lagoon on the map is not a way across a paddock: use the public foot access IFS describes around Little Pine Lagoon and along Penstock’s eastern shore, and obey gates and signs.