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Amongst the best known of Australian fly fishing destinations Little Pine lagoon was created when the Little Pine River was dammed to facilitate water being diverted water down the Monpeelyata Canal to nearby Lake Echo. Little Pine lagoon is a shallow weedy fishery with self sustaining population of brown trout that has been reserved for fly fishing only.

Little pine is one of the jewels in the crown of the Tasmanian fishing scene and is closely monitored by Tasmanian Inland Fisheries Service.

How to get there

From Miena travel south West around 11.6 kilometres along the Marlborough Highway toward Bronti. From Bronte Park it's around 19.3 kilometres.

For additional information search various towns in Google Maps.

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Facilities

The only facilities at Little Pine are three launching areas accessed of the road on the lake's eastern shore. The most significant of those is near the shacks. General stores, fuel and accommodation are available at both Miena and Bronte Park.

Open season

This brown trout fishery is open from the 1st Saturday in August and closes on the Sunday closest to the end of April each year. The total bag limit is 5 brown trout per day and the minimum legal size for fish is 22 cm

Target species

Brown trout only. Dominant size is 30-40 cm.

Food chain

The shore and the bottom of the lake are largely sand / mud composite and supports prolific weed coverage. Mayflies and caddis hatches are prolific and there are also small populations of climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis) and spotted galaxias (G. truttaceus) together with terrestrials dominated by jassid beetles that fly or are blow into the lake from the surrounding harsh alpine vegetation.

	What trout eat - central Tasmania - trout activity What trout eat - central Tasmania - food sources

Techniques

Lake activity is very seasonal on Little Pine and many of the Tasmanian Central lakes and fish activity goes through a reasonably predicable cycle.

The fishing seasons opens on the 1st Saturday in August and as winter is progressively left behind the fishing is generally pretty quiet and remains that way often well into September, partly because it's just too cold to be out fishing but also because the trout are not very active because of the small amount of food available.

As spring gathers momentum you can expect the fish to start testing the lake margins looking for food. This continues through the balance of September and October and well into November. During this period, particularly early in the morning, you can often find fish mooching around the grassy edges with their tails or fins giving away their presence ... hence the term "tailing trout". During this period trout also start being more aware of terrestrial activity and the occasional mayfly hatch and start looking up more aware of surface activity.

Tailing can continue into early summer but as water temperatures increase particularly in the margins the trout progressively retreat to deeper water. The summer period of December, January and February is dominated by prolific mayfly hatches punctuated by terrestrial activity which together keep the fish cruising, albeit a little further out than when they were tailing, and good polaroiding targets particularly from drifted boats.

In high summer, looking for relief from warmer surface temperatures the fish move to deeper water and become more susceptible to wet fly, loch and bank fishing tactics.

As the open season moves through May, June and July and toward the season close on 1st Saturday in August fishing gets tougher for fisher folk not only because the fish move into winter mode but also because it can become progressively colder and increasingly longer times between hook up's. If your fishing in this period faster subsurface lines and wet flies are certainly the way to go.

A range of fly fishing techniques are typically applied in Little Pine including: both dry and wet fly loch style fly fishing; prospecting the margins from the bank or a boat; static fishing techniques; dry fly fishing with a single fly; fishing a wet under a dry or even even polaroiding.

Fly suggestions

Most lakes have a dominant colour in the fish food sources and my understanding is that for Little Pine it's olive/brown. That colour should dominate your fly selection particularly for wet flies.

Gold ribbed hares ear nymph, PTH and Fuzzy nymphs in browns and olives

Woolly buggers and variants including: Magoo, shrek, damsel bugger, gold or humungous and banded bugger.

Attractors including cormorants, dunkelds, scotch poacher, blobs and Murdoch.

Streamers such as cat fly, silver yetti and Mrs Simpsons.

Dry flies including Mayfly imitations, elk hair caddis, paradun emergers, possum emergers , shaving brush type flies and klinkhammers.

Hot spots

The whole lagoon is alive with fish. Whilst fishing into the shore with the wind at your back is always a good starting point there are a couple of areas that are better than most. These include:

1. The old river bed runs from about 1/3 of the width of the dam wall from the road side of the dam along most of the road shore. The exact distance from the shore of course depends on water depth but but if you take an angle from that 1/3 position described above to the left side of the island in front of the shacks then you will be close to the mark. Set up your drifts so that you fish the road side drop off for the best results.
2. Across the other side of the lake the area to the right of the dam wall for about the first 200 meters consistently hold fish.
3. I also like the area around the island in front of the shacks. Set up your drifts so that you work a combination of depths and structures.

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