# Upper Huon



## Scott (Aug 29, 2005)

Hi guys, did something a bit different last thursday so thought I would post a report. This is a long post so be warned. I hooked up with Col and we decided to leave on of the cars up past Judbury and drive the other one up further into the upper reaches and fish back to the first car. Neither of us had fished this stretch before but Col had spoken to a white water yakker who said we would be OK as the rapids were pretty tame in this stretch of river. Anyway we loaded the yaks onto Col's car, left mine a few kms upstream and off we went.










We launched and paddled down to the first set of rapids. The first part of these were to shallow to paddle through so we let the yaks go down themselves with rope tied to the front of them.










Col had some casts before we relaunched the yaks and paddled through the rest of the rapid.










I was pleasantly surprised how well the adventure handled the rapids. I managed to keep it straight with different paddle stokes down all of the rapids although I figured that if I lost it sideways which threatened to happen a few times I would have eaten rock in a major way. I didn't removing the mirage drive from the tankwell all day as due to time constraints we either drifted down the middle casting to shore or trolled the pools.



















Fishing was disappointingly slow. I think we both ended up with four fish each and dropped maybe half a dozen more. Col got his fish all on small spoons and I got my first on a small spoon before up sizing to 9cm and 11cm floating rebel minnows in both jointed and non jointed in an effort to pull one of the monsters the area is known for.

My first small fish, low 300mm range on a spoon










I paddled through the first set of the next rapids and decided to pull out halfway through to check the best run for the next bit as there appeared to be a decent size drop into the next pool. I was glad i did as when i scouted this run on foot, i saw a large log across the rapids sticking far enough out for me to have wedged the front of the yak under and get seriously stuck. It was also around a 5-6 drop, bigger than any we had faced that day.










We carried the yaks across the rocks to avoid this and continued on our way.










I got snotted by what I think was a good fish on a 11cm floating jointed rebel below this pool while trolling to the next rapids. Time was getting on by this stage so I kept on trolling through the bigger pools and only casting to the top and bottom sections of each rapid. I got another 3 fish through here on the larger lures but nothing of any considerable size with the fish ranging from low to mid 400's. This did give me confidence on using bigger lures on trout and will likely start using 15cm rebels in my efforts for a huon trophy size brown. These photos are pretty crappy as I had soiled the lens of the camera at this stage without noticing.




























All in all it was a top day out, my adventure has a heap of new battle scars from the rapids but that is why we own plastic boats after all. I learnt a heap more stream tactics from Col the trout guru and will put these to good use in the future.

Scott


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Looks quite an adventure - how remote is the river ( I have little idea of Tas ) - are the trout native or were they stocked many moons ago........... 15cm that sounds like a big lure... whats the max size the trout grow to ??

Cheers

Woppie


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## bazzoo (Oct 17, 2006)

Top report Scott with some lovely photos , gee i am impressed that the adventure managed those rapids, and you left the mirage drive in :?: :shock: some of those rapids look a bit interesting especially the one with the log across it where you soiled the camera lens , mate had i gone down that and had an interview with that log , the camera lens wouldnt be the only thing i soiled , very impressive Scott , well done mate


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## suehobieadventure (Feb 17, 2009)

Nice to see some interesting photos from Tassie. I love Australia we have such a diverse range of places to go. Keep up the good work.

Regards Sue


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## mrwalker (Feb 23, 2009)

Beaut country, and lovely markings on those trout, good stuff.Dave


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## jimmy34 (Apr 20, 2007)

Excellent session Scott and Col, inspirational. Have been meaning to cover that water for a long time and good to see some action. Lovely pics too.
Cheers from James


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## paddlepop (May 12, 2007)

well done scott. i've seen the river at judbury and it's mighty shallow there so kudo's for going further upstream

was that my old w20 you took the great images with?

pete


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Some real tiger country there Scott and enjoyed the yarn and pics


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## Mustang (Jun 6, 2008)

Hi Scott,
Great to see the pics, i am from Tassie originally and brought back some great memories.
Is such beautiful country and untouched in a lot of places, well done on the trout, mmmm miss the tannin water and big trout.

Cheers Brett


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## AndyC (Feb 29, 2008)

Just loved your report and Pics Scott. What an awesome looking place. I've never gotten to fish it beyond a few K's upstream from Huonville. I'd just love to experience the upper reaches.

Woppie, there are no native trout in Tasmania (or Australia). They were all introduced in (I think) the 1860's and later.

The Huon does hold some wonderful trout and they are all either resident wildfish (not artificially bred) or sea-runners. The use of larger lures makes plenty of sense, if you are targtting the bigger ones. I caught a ten pound plus Brownie out of there earlier this season. The only things I found in his stomach were a 125mm gum leaf and a half-digested eel that was 300mm long!










James, if you get a yen to have a go at this, I'd love to go along. Maybe we can twist Scott's arm for directions 

Finally, for those of you who know me, I just HAVE to have a brag. My elder daugter was married on Friday. She was the most beautiful bride I have ever seen!! (unbiased assessment too  ) Very proud Dad.










Cheers Guys,

AndyC


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## Junglefisher (Jun 2, 2008)

Such an awesome looking place, I'd love to be able to hit an area like that in my SIK, think I'd give it a miss in the Revo though.
What kind of gear do you use? Small spin rods with 10lb ish line? I've never fished for trout (except the coral variety  )


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## kanganoe (Apr 30, 2008)

Looks like a great adventure.You got back in one piece with a beautifull report.


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## jimmy34 (Apr 20, 2007)

Andy, wow on the 10 pounder and lovely bride daughter too. You polished up alright mate. Would be keen to hit the Huon later in the month as I am off to NSW for 8 days over easter. The car switch is def the way to go. Perhaps a good venue for the next GTG. Cheers.


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## joejoe (Sep 28, 2008)

A great report and what a wonderful part of the world i love tas and have been there 3 times and cant wait to go back again joe


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## wrasseman (Jul 28, 2006)

A thoroughly enjoyable trip, just a pity we didn't have more time, you could probably do an overnighter just through the bits we fished and still have to rush a few sections particularly if you wanted to indulge in side trips on the tributaries (wading) and there's several other access points further up. Pity the fishing was slow but them's the breaks, there's always next time. I'll chuck up a few pics if I can find the camera tomorrow.



Junglefisher said:


> Such an awesome looking place, I'd love to be able to hit an area like that in my SIK, think I'd give it a miss in the Revo though.
> What kind of gear do you use? Small spin rods with 10lb ish line? I've never fished for trout (except the coral variety  )


Yeah just small spin rods I started with the ultralight stuff (2lb) but ended up using my heavier (6lb) spare after drowning my light outfit on the first rapid and the reel started playing up. Very lucky not to lose it as I stupidly didn't have it tethered and as I was attempting to fish whilst running the rapid I dropped the rod in the process. It was just luck it tangled in the paddle tether as (I dropped the paddle too) still I got it back and all fixed now.

Andy, that's a nice fish, much more what we were after than the 30-40cm fish we were seeing. You'd have to expect a few more like that to move up in the next few weeks, hopefully I'll get a chance to get up there again before the season closes.

Scott: Did you make your ferry?
cheers
col.


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## Scott (Aug 29, 2005)

Woopie, mate trout in this river can reach over 12kg.

Bazz, mate I actually didn't install my mirage drive, it was in the rear tank well all day.

Paddlepop, mate some were with your old camera I bought off you and some were with my Canon EOS, which I kept in the front hatch most of the time.

Junglefisher, mate I used 2kg soft flurocarbon all the way through, it was my fist time doing this and I think I am over fire line to be honest. It was nice not to have to worry about tying wind ons and the stuff is really slippery, has reasonable abrasion resistance, low diameter and minimum stretch.

Andy, top trout mate, just what I was looking for.

Col, mate i missed the last ferry by about 5 minutes. I did Huonville to Kettering in 30 minutes but it wasn't good enough. Rather than stay in a hotel room I bought a slab and slept in the car and got the first ferry in the morning. I was too paranoid to leave my car with all of the gear in it and the yak on the roof parked outside a hotel room.

Scott


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## wrasseman (Jul 28, 2006)

Geez shoulda come back this way we could have put you up.


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