Little Pine Lagoon is probably the best-known fly fishing water in Australia, and it is not much to look at: two square kilometres of shallow, weedy water a metre deep on the edge of the Central Plateau, made in the 1950s by a low dam across the Little Pine River so that water could be sent down the Monpeelyata Canal to Lake Echo. What it holds is wild brown trout of half a kilo to a kilo and a half, bred entirely on their own, in numbers a productive weed-bed lagoon can support, and they feed in ways you can see. From September to November, with the water moderately high, they tail in the margins within centimetres of the edge at first light and in the late afternoon, and the whole art is looking before you wade in. From December to March the duns hatch across the whole lagoon on overcast days and the fish rise to them freely, and the art is the emerger before the hatch commits and the dry once it has. IFS reserves it for fly fishing only and manages it as a wild fishery. Public foot access runs right around it, there is a shore for every wind, and the Road Shore, Untouchables Shore and Tailers Shore are the names you will hear. Because it is small and famous it is often busy, and IFS asks anglers to respect one another. It is also shallow enough to go warm in a hot spell, at which point the deeper lakes are kinder to the fish and to you.
Water and habitat
A shallow highland lagoon about ten kilometres west of Miena on the B11, at the head of the Little Pine River, made by a low dam that diverts the river's water down the Monpeelyata Canal to Lake Echo. Average depth about a metre. Weed beds across most of it, a drowned riverbed along its length, Bertrams Island in the northern half, and dark silty flats between the weed. IFS describes it as shallow, weedy and highly productive, which is the whole story of the fishery: a metre of sunlit water over weed grows an enormous amount of food. It also warms quickly. The satellite record of the lagoon's wet surface since 1987 is drawn on this page.
Fish and forage
Brown trout only, and IFS states that the population is sustained entirely by natural recruitment, most fish between half a kilo and a kilo and a half. Three native galaxias live in the Little Pine River system, the climbing and spotted galaxias probably present in low numbers in the lagoon and the Western paragalaxias never recorded here.
The forage is the mayfly, prolific across the entire lagoon from December to March, and whatever the tailing fish are rooting out of the margins in spring, which is why a nymph fished dead still in front of one works. Beetles on the wind in summer.
When to fish it
Two seasons, in effect. From September to November the water is moderately high and the fish tail in the margins in low light; IFS tells you to survey the shallow edges before you wade in, at first light and late afternoon particularly, and every shore produces, with the Road Shore, Untouchables Shore and Tailers Shore the most popular. From December to March the duns hatch across the whole lagoon in overcast weather and the trout rise freely. In a westerly the road shore often fishes best, as duns hatching off the Untouchables drift across the dam face onto the eastern shore, and the better fishing often comes late in the day as fish move into the shallows at dusk. Late in the season a team of wets from a drifting boat fills bags.
Watch the temperature. At a metre deep the lagoon warms fast, and once the water nears twenty degrees in a hot spell the fishing fades; that is the day for Arthurs or Great Lake. The season runs from the first Saturday in August to the start of May.
How to fish it
Look first. This is a lagoon where you can see most of what you are fishing to, and wading in before you have looked is how tailing fish get put down. For the tailers, an unweighted or lightly weighted nymph, a Pheasant Tail or a small wet, cast ahead of the fish and left dead still or given the slightest twitch. For the duns, start under the surface with a nymph or an emerger, a Klinkhammer hanging its body through the film, and change to an upright dry, a parachute Adams in the size of the insect, once the rises turn confident. Polaroiding the cruising fish from a boat on a bright day is effective. A team of wets on a floating or intermediate line from a drifting boat later in the season, a Woolly Bugger at the point.
A five weight, a floating line, a long leader and fine tippet. Fish the shore the wind is blowing onto, where the food collects, and cast into or across it to keep the drift natural.
Access and safety
Public foot access extends around the whole perimeter, and the lagoon sits beside the B11 about ten kilometres west of Miena, with parking beside the water on the road shore and a track from the dam wall to the far shore. Camping is restricted to the designated area in the Little Pine Lagoon Public Reserve, which Parks and Wildlife manages: no campfires, fuel stoves only, dogs under control. One boat launching area beside the Monpeelyata Canal.
Boating rules protect the weed beds the fishery depends on: no boating within a hundred metres of the Little Pine Dam, a five-knot limit over the whole lagoon, a voluntary no-petrol-motor area north and east of Bertrams Island marked by white posts, and no fishing from a boat within a hundred metres of a shore angler unless the boat is moored. A metre of water with a soft bottom is easy wading and easy to spook; the hazard here is the weather, which comes across the plateau fast.
Regulations
Inland Fisheries Service reserves Little Pine Lagoon for fly fishing only and manages it as a wild trout fishery. It states a two-tier minimum size and a bag limit that caps the number of larger fish within it, and a season from the first Saturday in August to the start of May. The Little Pine Lagoon Outlet Canal is fly only as well, with its own minimum size. Trolling is not permitted and a five-knot limit applies across the lagoon. An inland angling licence is required.
Take the numbers and the dates from the current Tasmanian Inland Fishing Code and the IFS A to Z page for the lagoon before you fish. They move, and this page does not carry them.