Dark side

There are 5 species of the Salmonoid family found in Australia … Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, Atlantic Salmon, Chinook Salmon are true Salmonoids and the fifth being Brock trout which are of the Char Genus of the Salmonidae family.

 
This article focuses on Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout for two reasons;

• Atlantic Salmon, Chinook Salmon and Brock trout are generally by catches and are only available in targetable numbers in relatively few Australian fisheries.
• It’s Brown Trout and Rainbow trout that are the focus of most trout fishing activities in Australia particularly if your into your competition fly fishing. That is what brought my focus to Brown and Rainbow trout particularly in the 13 years that I was at the coal face of Fly Fish Australia Inc and involved in the administration of competition fly fishing. During that same period I was also selected to represent Australia 6 times at World, Commonwealth and Oceania Fly Fishing Championships.

It’s worth noting also that some hatcheries have undertake breeding programs for other members of the Salmonidae family including tiger trout and triploids but in general those programs have not led to any commercial success.

Trout prosper best in clean cool (say 18-20 degrees) flowing water with food rich eco systems and in those environments, given the right gravel beds (reds), trout often naturally breed, providing self maintaining populations or where natural recruitment is non-existent, or not adequate, have populations created or supported by stocking from our trout hatcheries.

Browns and Bows are also found in lakes and other still waters that are deep enough to have access to water below 20 degrees throughout most of the year. Some of those fisheries have natural recruitment from feeder streams but in most cases they are either fully stocked or partially stocked from our hatcheries.

Given the limitations described above it’s not surprising that our best best trout fisheries are in our southern climes:
 

• Tasmania where the Tasmanian Government recognizes the tourist potential of trout fishing and strongly supports the trout fishing industry. As a consequence there are trout in nearly every freshwater stream and lake in Tasmania and that is well over one thousand individual fisheries in a relatively small geographic area.
• Victoria where trout are found mainly in streams and impoundments of the Great Dividing Range, the Victorian side of the Snowy Mountains and a few deeper lakes of Western Victoria. Over the last few years the Victorian Government has started to recognize the economic potential of their trout fisheries and have come on board and have introduced a lot of well received support to recreational fishing generally and trout fishing in their state.
• In New South Wales the government has in my view been very slow to realize the economic potential of trout fishing. As an example of that whilst trout fishing is NSW is something like a $80 million boost to the NSW side of the Snowy Mountains, our Federal and State government seem to have failed to adequately take that into account when they embarked on the Snowy Hydro Mark Two scheme. That has just got under way, but I and many others fear, it will ultimately lead to the introduction of Red Fin Perch to Tantangara Dam and probably other key Snowy Mountain fisheries including Lake Eucumbene which has a link to Tantangara Dam and then even Lake Jindabyne … my old stomping ground. That hasn’t evolved yet and currently the Snowy Mountain lakes and feeder rivers have a great history of good trout fishing.

 
There are also small pockets of trout fishing in:

• South Australian where trout fishing is mainly confined to freshwater river systems near Adelaide.
• In Western Australia there are a few pockets of trout fisheries in the south western districts.

 
In Tasmania in particular but also to a lesser extent Victoria and NSW, and possible SA & WA as well as populations of trout existing and in many cases thriving in the many freshwater streams and impoundments there are quite a few rivers connected to those fisheries that run to the sea and also have good seasonal sea run trout.

The term “match the hatch” comes from trout fishing using flies but applies equally to lure and bait selections. So it’s always worth knowing what food trout generally eat at different times and the following posts may help in that regard.