Strath Bridge to the South Esk

Water and habitat

Twenty-nine kilometres of mainstem from Strath Bridge at a hundred and forty-two metres to the South Esk junction at Hadspen at a hundred and twenty-eight, the gentlest gradient on the river. Pipers Lagoon Creek joins three kilometres below the bridge, Murfetts Creek at ten, and the Liffey River, the largest tributary on the stretch, at twenty-five, just above Carrick. A rapid at the very end marks the drop into the South Esk at Hadspen. The Strathbridge gauge sits at the head of the stretch.

Broadwaters, high banks, backwaters, and a corridor the bank survey on the whole-river page reads as crop and open woodland, with the willows that once lined it thinned by the removal work IFS notes between Strath Bridge and Hadspen. Slow, deep, and open to the bank in more places than it used to be.

Fish and forage

Brown trout, wild, in a river IFS manages as a wild trout fishery, and in the deep slow water of the lower river the bigger fish the Meander holds. River blackfish and redfin perch live in these lower sections, IFS says; the redfin and the tench in the system are pests, and any caught should be killed and disposed of.

Slow water grows mayfly, and the duns and spinners over the broadwaters from October into summer are the stretch's hatch. Grasshoppers off the pasture from late summer, and in the extended season of May the fish take whatever the cooling water still carries, which is why a wet fished slow does so well then.

When to fish it

Read the Conditions card on this page, and allow a day: the lower river is the last to clear. High and coloured from June to September, with the Deloraine record on the whole-river page showing the shape of that. From October the mayfly are on the slow water and the bank fishing begins. Summer is bank fishing early and late, the broadwaters warm by day. Autumn is the hoppers, and then the month this stretch is for: May, with the rest of the river closed, cool water, and browns feeding up.

How to fish it

Slow-water bank fishing from the opened shore. A five or six weight, a floating line, a long leader. A Klinkhammer or a parachute Adams to the sippers in the backwaters and along the banks, a hopper tight to the grass in autumn, and a Woolly Bugger fished slow and deep along the banks when nothing shows, which in May is most of the time and works anyway. An intermediate line earns its place here in the deep water of the extended season.

Walk the opened banks, look into the backwaters before you cast, and treat any fish you see as the only one. Below Carrick the river is nearly still, and the fish are as wary as lake fish.

Access and safety

Selbourne Road at Strath Bridge at the top, the road bridges across the farmland, Carrick, and the Meander Valley Road at Hadspen at the bottom, where the river meets the South Esk. IFS notes that willow removal between Strath Bridge and Hadspen has opened the bank to shore fishing. Between the bridges the river is on private ground; foot access is by the goodwill of landowners and is a privilege, not a right. Where access is not signed you must ask, or you are trespassing.

Poppy crops along the lower river are licensed areas under strict enforcement: walk their perimeter, never through them. Leave gates as you find them, stay off the fences and out of the paddocks. The water is deep and slow with soft high banks; fish from the bank, and in May remember the days are short and the water cold.

Regulations

This stretch lies below Strath Bridge, so it carries the extended-season rules Inland Fisheries Service states for the lower Meander: a minimum size, a small daily bag, all methods permitted, and a season from the first Saturday in August to the end of May. IFS lists this water among the extended-season waters with the lower Macquarie, the lower Brumbys and the South Esk. 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 river before you fish. They move, and this page does not carry them.