Fly fishing Tasmania's North West and West Coast

The Mersey starts on the Central Plateau south of Lake Rowallan. Its upper valley holds two hydro storages, Rowallan and then Parangana, and below them the river runs through country IFS describes in stages: fast water down to Dynans Bridge, about 2 km through the Mole Creek Karst National Park at Croesus Cave, rural flats at Kimberley and Merseylea, then the estuary at Latrobe. The very top, above Pine Hut Plain, is myrtle-shaded water with trailing weed and half-sunk logs.

Talbots Lagoon sits at around 700 metres off the Ridgley Highway. You park off Guildford Road and walk about 200 m to the water. It is on private land, IFS warns of logging traffic on the private roads, and it calls the lagoon remote and very exposed, with patchy mobile coverage and weather that can turn at any time of year.

The West Coast is the other half of the page. The A10 crosses the middle of Lake Burbury, and the southern ramp is reached from Queenstown down the Mt Jukes Road. The lake rises and falls with the hydro, and IFS says it can get very rough with little warning. Its West region also takes in the Rosebery and Mackintosh lakes around Tullah, the Pieman, the Henty with its sea-run trout, and Lake Plimsoll, a brook trout water. None of those are on Castabout yet.

The Mersey River is one of the best river fisheries in the state, in IFS’s words. Browns dominate, rainbows are common in the middle reaches, and above Fergusson Falls the river is described as rainbow-only. IFS puts the average trout at around 400 g, with some over a kilogram. The forage is what makes it. From the last weeks of August whitebait run into the lower river and trout hunt them in the willow shade, and a dark streamer such as a Woolly Bugger is the fly. Through the mornings before Christmas, trout sip caenid duns in the slow water off the riffles and turn to black spinners in the afternoon (mayflies). After a good April rain, a downstream run of jollytails (galaxias) can put fish on the riffles again. Be warned that catch rates fell sharply in 2024/25 after about 25 years near the top of the state’s rivers.

Talbots Lagoon is a wild fishery kept up by natural recruitment, with an unusual number of bigger-than-average fish. The browns in the shallow bays typically run 1 to 2 kg, and rainbows are more common out deeper. Red spinners hatch heavily in late spring and early summer and again in autumn, and there are damselflies and dragonflies through the warm months. IFS says the lagoon is shallow and good for wading, but snags and soft mud are everywhere underfoot.

Lake Burbury is a premium wild trout fishery to IFS. It was stocked heavily with browns and rainbows before it filled, and the many spawning streams keep it going now. Most fish run 500 g to 2 kg. For the fly angler the lake is about midges: after a big overnight hatch, from first light to about an hour after sunrise, browns and rainbows work the wind lanes and take a small wet drawn past them, or a large dry such as a Chernobyl Ant that stands out from the naturals. On calm, warm summer evenings a mudeye migration can start.

For a first trip, fish the Mersey’s middle river between Liena and Kimberley on a spring morning, looking for caenid rises in the slow edges. Two anglers can reportedly cover that stretch in a day, with short drives between spots. Save the lower river for whitebait time in spring, and the upper river for a day you want to wade for small fish.

Go to Talbots in late spring or summer for the dry fly. Wade carefully, or carry a kayak or canoe the 200 m from the car park. Burbury rewards a boat. Without one, wait for low water, which opens up more of the shore, and work the edges with a wet fly on a quiet morning.

Spring belongs to the Mersey: whitebait from late August, caenid mornings until Christmas. Talbots has frog feeders in the margins in late September and early October, then its hatches from late spring into early autumn. Burbury’s midge mornings run from January through April, with mudeye evenings in high summer. Calm, mild winter mornings can bring midge on Burbury too.

Seasons, methods, limits and licence requirements differ from water to water, and on the Mersey from section to section, and they change; check the current IFS listings and the Tasmanian Inland Fishing Code before you fish.

Talbots Lagoon is on private property, and IFS says access there is by the owners’ goodwill, a privilege rather than a right. A line on the map is not access permission: on the Mersey, use the signed angler access points and step-overs, and ask the landowner where access is not signed. Check, clean and dry your gear before moving between waters.

The plateau lakes are on Tasmania’s Central Highlands and Western Lakes pages, and the Midlands rivers on the Northern Rivers page.