While I have been on Paternity leave with my child for the last 3 months, I did get to spend a couple hours of an afternoon on the Styx River in Tasmania near Maydena. We had been camping out at Lake Pedder for a few days and where on our way back into Hobart.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Styx, the fish in there can be notoriously spooky as the river is “Gin” clear in parts and access almost requires a jungle machete or lumber jack boots, (the ones with spikes on it) to climb over the fallen logs.
The first time we were there on a club trip, we saw some fish but they were long gone as soon as the fly line shot overhead.
On our way in to Maydena from Pedder, I asked my wife if we could take a look at the Styx we stopped at the first bridge over the Styx. It was a very warm afternoon in late March and much to my surprise there where fish rising all over the river downstream of the bridge.
I quickly grabbed my rod and proceeded to bush bash down the edge of the Styx to quietly enter at the bottom of a long pool. There were fish rising all around me, very unusual from my past experience, they normally would have been gone like a rat up a drain pipe. I stood casting 20 mins with no avail, and the fish didn’t seem to be bothered either. With 5 fly changes later, I notice a some beetles that had been falling into the river. They were Jassid beetles that are endemic to area. they have a orange underbelly and grey tortoise shell wing case. Of course I did not have one exactly like it, but I did have the a brown deer hair beetle that was orange enough.
Then I heard the toot from the horn on the defender, my 13 month old daughter had cracked it and it was time to go.
As we passed through Maydena on the other side, I bumped into Tyenna Dave and he also confirm that small brown flies on the are the go Tyenna River, big and orange on the Styx. Generally orange Jassid beetles or orange Stonefly Nymphs will do the trick.
Brown Deer Hair Beetle:
Frederique scoping out the “rise”, also future fly fisher:
View from the first bridge over the Styx with water slightly stained with tanins from another river that branches into it slightly upstream:
Note: All members can write a post on there recent fishing ventures or anything else. You don’t have to wait for the Newsletter!
