Loch-style wet fly

Three flies on a long leader, a boat drifting broadside down the wind, a cast made square across the drift and worked back with the rod rising until the top fly skips in the waves. It is the oldest way of fishing a lake and on the Tasmanian highlands it is still one of the best.

When

Early season, rough and cold weather, and any day the fish are not showing; later in the season from a boat for good bags

Where

The Tasmanian highland lakes from a drifting boat or a wind-blown shore; the Snowy Mountains lakes in the colder months

Start with

A floating or intermediate line, a four-metre leader, and three flies: a fur fly or Woolly Bugger on the point, a nymph in the middle, a bushy wet on the top dropper

Every fly fisher on the Tasmanian highland lakes fishes the wet fly at some point in the season, and most of them fish it the way the Scots taught the world to fish a loch: a team of flies on a long leader, cast across the wind from a boat drifting broadside or from a shore the wind is blowing along, and worked back with the rod lifting so the top fly dances in the surface. The Inland Fisheries Service names loch-style fishing among the main methods on lakes such as Augusta and Ada, describes boat anglers on other waters fishing a team of wet flies for good bags later in the season, and for the early season and the cold, rough days recommends wet flies and nymphs searched along undercut banks and shores when no fish are showing. At Arthurs Lake the method sits alongside polaroiding and the dun fishing as part of what the lake offers; from the bank, work windward and undercut shores for loch-style fishing.

On the mainland it is a colder-months method on the Snowy Mountains lakes. Pull a team of wets over colder water from a drifting boat or the shore; while the dry fly is the prize on those lakes, wet fly and loch-style fishing can produce in deeper water and cold weather. When a single fish rises to follow the team, lift the rod to work the top dropper in the film and provoke a take.

The idea is simple. Trout in a lake move with the wind, feeding along the lanes and the lee shores where the food collects. A boat drifting on that same wind, with three flies swimming across the face of the drift, shows the flies to every fish in the lane at the depth and speed of the food, and the top dropper skipping in the waves at the end of the retrieve is the thing no fish can leave alone.

Conditions

Wind, and enough of it to make a wave. A flat calm is the worst loch-style day; the boat does not drift and the flies look like flies. A ripple to a moderate chop is ideal, and the rougher, colder days of the early season, when nothing rises and the fish are deep and hungry after spawning, are when the Inland Fisheries Service points to wet flies as the most likely method. At Clarence Lagoon it says plainly that wet flies fished in rough, cold weather are the way to catch its brook trout. Overcast is better than bright. On the blue-sky days go polaroiding instead.

The water is the open lake and its wind lanes, the drop-offs along rocky and weedy shores, and the drowned timber and flooded margins of the early season when the lake is high. Later in the year, a drift along a timbered shore at dusk with a mudeye on the point is the same method pointed at a different meal.

The rig

A nine- to ten-foot rod for a six or seven weight line gives the lift and the reach; a five weight works on a smaller water. A floating line for the top metre of water and for skipping the top dropper; an intermediate for a bigger wave or deeper fish. A leader of about four metres of level or lightly tapered nylon with two droppers of ten to fifteen centimetres, the flies spaced a metre or more apart.

Three flies, from the end of the leader upward. The point fly, largest and heaviest, is a fur fly, a Yeti, a Woolly Bugger or a mudeye pattern in 8 to 10, the fly that fishes deepest and takes the most fish. The middle dropper is a nymph or a slim wet in 12 to 14. The top dropper is a bushy, hackled wet, a palmered pattern or a dabbler in 10 to 12, tied to sit in the surface and throw a wake when the rod lifts. Match the point fly to the season: a galaxias pattern in spring, a mudeye in summer, black in the cold.

Execution

From a boat, set the drift broadside to the wind, with a drogue if the wind is strong, and cast short and square across the drift, fifteen metres is plenty. Let the flies settle for a count, then retrieve with steady pulls at the speed of the wave, keeping in touch. As the flies come near the boat, lift the rod slowly and steadily so the top dropper breaks the surface and skips across the waves for a metre or two before you recast. Watch that top fly. Fish follow the team and take on the lift more often than anywhere else in the retrieve. From the shore, stand where the wind is blowing along the bank, cast across it and let the wind swing the flies through the lane as you retrieve.

Cover water. A drift is a search, and the boat moves you onto new fish every cast. When a fish comes and misses, cast straight back to the same spot; loch-style fish follow and come again. When a fish takes, it usually takes hard and turns away, and the rod does the striking. Keep the rod low through the retrieve and let the lift into the fish be smooth.

What goes wrong

You fished it like a streamer, stripping fast and casting long. Loch-style is short, steady and slow, and the flies are in the top metre where the wind has put the food. You forgot the lift. The last two metres of every retrieve, with the top dropper dibbling in the surface, is where the method earns its name, and an angler who lifts off early is fishing two flies and wasting the third. You anchored. A boat that is not drifting is a boat showing the flies to the same water over and over. And you went out on a calm day; that is a day for a dry fly and a long leader.

Safety

The Tasmanian highland lakes are big, cold and exposed, and a wind that makes a good drift can build a dangerous sea within an hour. Wear a life jacket, carry a means of calling for help that works where you are, watch the sky to windward and go in early. Great Lake and Arthurs Lake in particular are large enough that a boat caught on the wrong shore in a rising westerly has a long, wet way home. Know the boating rules for the water you are on and the launching points; the water pages in this guide carry what has been recorded for each.

Streamer fishing

Polaroiding

Woolly Bugger

Mudeyes and dragonflies

Galaxias and baitfish

Great Lake

Tasmania's Central Highlands