The Nineteen
Lagoons

Rob Sloane takes stock of the fly fishing on offer in the most accessible region of Tasmania's Western Lakes.

Brian Chambers will never forget a day trip into the area with guide Brett Wolf last summer - it's not every day you land a 5 kilo trout on a size 12 Black Spinner!

When researching the history of Tasmania’s Western Lakes region during preparation of a draft trout fishery management plan in 1991, Greg French and I noticed the description ‘Nineteen Lagoons’ in early maps and historical documents and subsequently made an effort to reinvent the name in the popular literature. At the time, fishing the more accessible lakes around Augusta and Ada was referred to as fishing ‘the Western Lakes’, ‘the back lakes’, or simply fishing ‘out the back’. The latter phrase has sent more than one overseas visitor wandering through the bush behind the Great Lake Hotel looking for the secret lake!

Stock routes and cart tracks had extended from Great Lake into the Nineteen Lagoons by 1840 when J. E. Calder surveyed the first grazing leases. Scant references to trout and fishing in these waters date back to the 1920s, and in the early 1930s W. J. Savigny reputedly became the first person to take a ‘vehicle with an engine’ beyond the end of the Liawenee Canal road as far as First Lagoon.

It was not until the Hydro Electric Commission opened road access to the Augusta dam site in the early 1950s that the Nineteen Lagoons started to become a popular fishery. Rough tracks to waters beyond Lake Augusta proliferated after that time, until 1978 when ‘proper’ roads were extended to Ada, Kay and Double Lagoon. Even today, infrequent road maintenance can make the trip an ordeal in the family car.

Having lived and worked at Great Lake in the late 70s and early 80s, I was fortunate to fish this region at a time when access was greatly improved but fishing pressure was still low. It was on these waters that my 8-weight fly rod became a 6-weight, then a five. It was here that I learnt to polaroid in the bright and windy weather I once cursed, and here too that I tested the flies and formulated many of the strategies that launched my first book The Truth About Trout (1983) and early fly fishing articles.

The Great Lake did not have any commercial accommodation at that time and the few permanent residents worked for Fisheries, Lands and the HEC. Nowadays with a significant resident population, hotel, lodge and fishing guides, the popularity of the region has increased dramatically and our old policy of avoiding other anglers by moving to nearby waters would mean failing to wet a line at all these days, especially during the summer months.

A common approach is to fish larger wet flies blind along the edges, and to cover tailing fish where evident in the shallows. The rougher the weather the better for this type of fishing and the early months of the season are best. It was the then newly appointed Lands Department warden Val Dell whose footsteps I followed—at times literally, through the snow! He was a Woolly Worm man, and he loved the early season wet fly fishing. He took me to secret lagoons and hidden back-waters that even now are too precious to identify.

Living on the spot had its advantages and I soon cottoned on to the fact that ‘polaroiding’ on bright days could account for just as many fish, and in far more pleasant circumstances. Smaller wets, nymphs and beetles were then more effective and often the fish could be persuaded to rise to a floating nymph or a dry Red Tag or Black Spinner.

In short time it was not the stormy rain clouds of spring which we looked forward too, but the blue sky days in between. Even wind became a blessing as our polaroiding skills developed and we had fish take dry flies right beneath the rod tip on days when most people stayed at home.

Increased angling pressure has now diminished the appeal of the region from a personal point of view but the fishing on offer has in fact changed very little. Bigger fish are still available in more isolated waters including Dudley, Tin Hut, Chipman, Little Blue, East Rocky and First Lagoon, all fisheries with little if any natural recruitment where trout grow rapidly if given a chance. These waters are stocked with juvenile trout from time to time, while the transfer of adult browns from Liawenee Canal provides stocks for the more accessible waters including Carters, Rocky and Botsford.

The feature waters in the system, including Ada, Augusta, Kay and Double Lagoon have natural stream connections and thus are truly wild fisheries. For the most part they support excellent browns in the 1 to 2 kg class, occasionally bigger. However, these systems do cycle quite dramatically with trout varying in abundance and quality from year to year. Ada fish for example were in excellent condition last season and quite commonly up to 2 kg in size.

I have seen similar changes from year to year in other waters including Flora and O’Dells, Baillie, Chipman and Double Lagoon, where fish of between 2 and 3 kilos in prime condition have featured in good years, reverting to poor slabby specimens in leaner times. This is all part of the natural dynamics of things, reflecting winter spawning success, natural recruitment, food supply and water levels.

Favourite polaroiding waters include Augusta, Kay, Double and Ada, where wading the shallows is the way to go. Smaller waters such as Botsford, Rocky, Baillie, Agnes, Flora, O’Dells, Howes and Carters can be fished from the bank or waded in places (provided you avoid the deeper silty patches).

In the early days all these waters were fished pretty much from the bank but Val Dell and his cronies had found the trout were more approachable if you got in and waded, so that is how I learnt to do things. Certainly the tussock lined banks are shaky and undercut so it’s difficult to approach without disturbing fish which like to sit and cruise right in close taking advantage of the cover and food supply. In this featureless country you stand out like the proverbial dogs’ testicles if you approach from above, so all the more reason for getting in with the fish.

As I’ve heard Jim Allen tell visitors in no uncertain fashion, if you can’t cast a reasonable line into a stiff breeze you are wasting your time in this neck of the woods. Too true. When polaroiding or casting to tailing fish, or just plonking a wet into a likely bank cavity, you have to be able to punch a short line into the wind, laying the leader out straight and dropping the fly on the right spot.

In many ways, getting to know these waters is like learning the intricacies of a river. You’ll find the same fish in the same place, or if not one of his mates, time after time. The streams here too are worth a shot. The James River between the natural and regulated Augusta holds plenty of fish and floods into some interesting drains and lagoons. The Little Pine River does likewise, between Kay and Ada Lagoon, though in high summer it can be difficult to fish and fend the snakes off at the same time!

Transient backwaters and lagoons are a feature of the flat, marshy river plains, and springtime floods and less reliable summer floods create an entirely new network of waters which trout quickly colonise. How trout end up where they do is easy to understand if you see the area in flood with Augusta spilling deeper than a 4WD bonnet—the Augusta’s join and flood Howes Lagoon spilling out across the road near the Howes signpost, and the tussock plains surrounding Lake Kay and Double Lagoon become one vast sheet of water.

Finding tailing fish out here in the middle of the day is still an early season reward. The trout still move into drains and backwaters seeking out the shrill froglets which look for all the world like little Mrs Simpsons. Trout sit close in to the bank cavities when the levels are high and will follow drains into backwaters some distance from their usual lake or stream haunts. All drains and runnels must be approached with caution and prospected carefully with a suitable wet fly. Local knowledge is important because many productive drains are well and truly hidden among the heath and pineapple grass. My most successful early season wet in these parts has always been a Black Fur Fly with orange or yellow head, but a Woolly Worm, Woolly Bugger, Mrs Simpson or Matuka will also do the job.

Being linked by the Little Pine River and its tributaries, waters in the Ada, Kay and Double Lagoon network exhibit all the features of Little Pine Lagoon itself, most notably tailing activity and summer duns and spinners. Early season tailers are generally cooperative but trout tailing on tiny snails and amphipods from late October onwards can be as untouchable as those at Little Pine. Stick caddis and isopods (green ‘shrimps’) are also staple foods, so include suitable imitations in your fly box. Kay in particular is a noted mayfly water from December through the summer months and daytime mayfly hatches can rival those on Little Pine Lagoon.

Boat fishing is largely restricted to Ada and Augusta where fish respond well to traditional loch-style fishing techniques if conditions prohibit sight fishing. John Horsey the English stillwater expert introduced his three dry fly technique (see FL#15) to the Ada residents with considerable success, though what the Ada trout see in a Carrot Fly is a mystery to me!

A five fish bag limit applies to the Western Lakes, which is probably five fish too many in most of these waters. To put this in context, surveys have generally revealed catch rates which average less than one fish per angler per day so if you are out here for a feed you are probably in the wrong place.

It is important that this area be managed correctly because it showpieces many aspects so special to Tasmanian fly fishing—wild trout, tailing fish, wadeable shallows, dun hatches and good polaroiding flats to name the obvious features. As the main gateway to the Western Lakes region it takes pressure off the true wilderness fisheries beyond and provides a Western Lakes ‘experience’ for those with limited time or fitness.

It’s bleak, exposed and often windy but in the world of fly fishing, the Nineteen Lagoons region is undoubtedly unique. The challenge is to manage and to fish these waters with enough intelligence to ensure that the value of the experience is preserved for years to come.

Having fished many hundreds of remote waters right across the vast plateau west of here, I can honestly say that there are few fisheries out there that would rival the Ada, Kay and Augusta systems at their best. You can tramp from one end of the Western Lakes to the other without seeing better water. Fewer people, yes, but better water, no.