There is a moment on the Western Lakes that anglers spend the rest of the year trying to describe: standing knee-deep on the edge of a lagoon a day's walk from the car, the sun high and behind you, the wind dropped, polaroids on, and a brown trout the colour of the peat it swims over comes cruising along the shore towards you at the pace of a man walking. You have perhaps twenty seconds to put a fly where it will see it without seeing you. That is the whole fishery.
The country is the Central Plateau of Tasmania west of the Highland Lakes Road, together with the Walls of Jerusalem National Park: a thousand-metre shelf of dolerite and peat, pencil pines and cushion plants, and more lakes, lagoons and tarns than anyone has named. All of it is walk-in. Great Lake, Arthurs, Little Pine and Penstock sit on the other side of the road and fish as the Central Highlands stillwaters, with formed access. The Western Lakes are the country beyond.
The fish are wild browns, fewer and more selective than the stocked waters to the east, and they have seen a fly. This is sight-fishing and searching, not covering a famous pool. They cruise the edges and the wind lanes, tailing in the shallows in the morning and working the drop-offs when the sun is high. Bright high cloud and a light breeze beat a perfect calm, because the fish are harder to spot on glass and the wind puts food on the water. A long leader, a slow approach on the peat, the discipline to walk past empty water, and one cast ahead of a cruising fish will take you further than a full box.
The season is short and weather-bound. High summer from December is the polaroiding window, with long days and beetle falls; autumn can be excellent on settled days until the first snow shuts the plateau. Give it a full day, not an hour stolen from Great Lake, and walk in with a map and a weather window. If the plateau is closed in, fish the stillwaters east of the road and come back when you can see.
Inland Fisheries Service sets the season and gives the Western Lakes their own method key in the Inland Fishing Code, and the two reserves carry park access rules of their own. Read both before you go. A forecast you would not walk out on is the only reason not to.
The country
The Central Plateau west of the A5: a high, glaciated shelf of dolerite and peat, dotted with lakes, lagoons and tarns from the size of a paddock to the size of a small town, cushion plant and pencil pine between them, and weather that comes across from the west with nothing to slow it down. Inland Fisheries Service treats the Western Lakes as a named fishery inside its Central region, not as an eighth compass region on its A to Z of waters, and it carries its own method key in the Inland Fishing Code. The Walls of Jerusalem and the Central Plateau Conservation Area are both reserved land with park rules of their own, and everything past the road is on foot.
The fishing
Sight-fishing and searching, not covering a famous pool. The browns cruise the edges and the wind lanes, tailing in the shallows in the morning and working the drop-offs when the sun is high, and you see them or you do not. Bright, high cloud and a light breeze are worth more than a perfect calm day, because the fish are harder to spot on glass and the wind puts food on the water. When the surface is up, look for the lee shore and for the colour change where a lagoon shallows.
The fish are mostly wild brown trout, often fewer and more selective than the stocked stillwaters to the east, and they punish a heavy footfall on the peat. A dry that sits in the film, a small nymph on a long dropper, and the willingness to wait out a cruising fish and cast once, ahead of it, will take you further than changing flies. Polaroids are not optional. Nor is the map.
Where to start
Give the Western Lakes a full day, not an hour stolen from Great Lake. Walk in with a map, a weather window and a plan to reach water you can actually polaroid; if the plateau is closed in, fish the formed-access stillwaters east of the A5 and come back when you can see. The individual lagoons do not have pages here yet, and the fishery does not lend itself to them: the point is the walk and the looking. Use the current Inland Fishing Code for the method key and the park notes for access, and treat this page as orientation rather than a route card. The national brown trout page covers the fish, and the Adams and Klinkhammer pages cover the dries that sit in the film.
Through the year
The season is short and weather-bound. Early season is cold, often stained water and fish still settling after winter, and the plateau can still be under snow. High summer, from December, is the polaroiding window: long days, terrestrial falls of beetles and gum-beetle, and the best chance of seeing fish before they see you. Autumn can be excellent on settled days, with fish feeding hard before winter, until the first snow shuts the plateau down. Do not walk in on a forecast you would not walk out on.
Rules and access
Inland Fisheries Service sets the inland season, methods, bag and size limits, and the Western Lakes carry their own method key in the Inland Fishing Code. Check the current Tasmanian Inland Fishing Code before you fish. The Walls of Jerusalem and the Central Plateau Conservation Area have park access rules of their own; a lagoon on the map is not a right of way, and a track on the plateau is not always a track on the ground. Carry the licence the Code requires and obey the seasonal and method restrictions as published.