# TAS - Scamander River and Tassie Trip



## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

Ok bit late but the first chance I have had to do a trip report since last weekend and nobody else seem to start a thread.

Arrived friday morning and jumped in the Hyundai Getz we hired that had magically turned itself into an XR6 :twisted: I notice as Kev got in the traction control was switched off ;-) we leave Launceston bound for Little Swanport and an arvo of bream fishing. Greg L has already found a launch site for us and has the trailer with our yaks waiting for us. 8)










So we hit the river with a very low tide and getting lower.










The river looked very promising and we had heard rumours of massive 2-3kg bream in this system. But for us today it wasn't to be. I started off working some hard body minnows out of the racks and got a few hits then some Salmon Trout "eh bro" and as we headed up the system we hit an awesome looking flats area. Had the tide been on the rise I reckon these flats would have fired big time as it was we had to fight our way through with the yaks.

I switched over to a devil fish blade and the flatties started to flow, in the end I lost count of how many flathead I caught. The huge bream were in there, several times we were over the schools of bream our lures twitching in the middle of them, but they seemed to be laughing in our faces :?









_Hobiesports, thefishy1, Greg L_

As we worked our way back to the racks, I noticed some nice eddies coming off the back of some racks and through the vibe in, first retrieve a flatty. But i'm getting constant hits, I slow the next retrieve down and whack a good fish, and he was doing his best to get back into the cover of the racks. Luckily for him I wasn't a local after dinner so after a couple happy snaps he went back in to fight another day.


















_some of the racks with a big arse seagull in it_

Little Swanport done we head for Scamander and a nice pizza feed washed down with a amber beverage or two ;-)

The next morning and bacon and egg rolls all round as the rain pelts down. We get the yaks and rods ready between showers. The rain fades away to leave a beautiful morning for fishing on the river










With the amount of bugs that hit the windscreen on the way up I thought the surface would have to work, So I through on the hopper popper to pretend it was a bug fallen out of the trees, it took all of three seconds to work.










Lots of bream fell to the hopper popper that arvo, but this river is chocka block full of 150mm bream ten to twenty were hitting the lure on every cast within four foot of the bank. I got up the back of the river to were I believe its called the trout stream breaks off and a nice flats section there with lots of nipper holes. Salmon trout are scooting everywhere so I don a sugarpen 70 and tried to mimic the trout. A few casts in and i see that all too familiar bow wave charging at my lure, I keep working the lure like a fish trying to escape and boom the fish stikes, water erupts on the surface and the reel starts zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, another nice bream this was going to be a good comp I thought to myself.


















_nice bream off the snags_

The day finished off much the same as the day before, Pizza, beers and a bit of tom foolery.

Comp day and it had been blowing its arse off all night, and to my detriment i decide to still head up the river were i found fish the day before. First few snags and I have these two in the well.



















And that was my comp done really, I should have stayed down the bottom of the river but thats comp fishing. Couldn't catch anything over 20cm from then on

Had a great time anyway an will be back again next year for sure.

Cheers Dave


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## willowonfire (Sep 18, 2008)

good report mate and top pics... Looks like a great system to spend some time time on.


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## LoboLoco (Feb 1, 2008)

An excellent spot and a good report, well done on the bream

Cheers


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## Duane (Oct 20, 2007)

Looks like a great spot. 
I've driven up the east coast literally 100's of times, but never been into Little Swanport. Might fix that this weekend

Were the flatties a decent size ?


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

Some of the flatties were legal up here 36cm but only just, not sure what a decent flathead is down there but none got what i'd keep up here. There where lots of them but :lol: and plenty of salmon trout.

Diggerrob I would do it mate, there was so much good looking water that we didn't have time to fish. I would have loved to chase some trout from the yak too. Maybe next time

Thanks for the comments Guys

Cheers Dave


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## mrwalker (Feb 23, 2009)

Great report and sounds like a lot of fun in a beautiful place, cheers, Dave.


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## ohagas (Dec 4, 2006)

Looks like a mighty fine spot Dave. Great to see you thinking like a fish...


justcrusin said:


> With the amount of bugs that hit the windscreen on the way up I thought the surface would have to work.


How do you reckon those Sugapens fare against the Sammys?


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

> How do you reckon those Sugapens fare against the Sammys?


Horses for courses sean, they are both good lures and it would depend what the bait in the area looked like. The sugarpens strips made it look like the salmon trout down there.

Cheers Dave


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## Junglefisher (Jun 2, 2008)

http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/We ... Y9A3Z?open

Do they get duskies down there at all?


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

> Do they get duskies down there at all?


I don't think so Junglefisher. I think there even rare in southern vic.

Cheers 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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## DougOut (Dec 31, 2006)

How much better can it get? 
Great suroundings, fish on the hunt, pizza and beer ..... 
Oh did I mention the Pizza and Beer?


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## Rodman (Jun 29, 2007)

justcrusin said:


> a big arse seagull


Albatross?


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## Blaen (Jul 4, 2006)

Junglefisher said:


> http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/RPIO-4Y9A3Z?open
> 
> Do they get duskies down there at all?


I have not seen one down here, but we do also get king (deep water variety) and blue-spot flathead (very similar to sandies , but large blue spots on the fins), which the DPIW site doesn't mention.


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## Parko29 (Dec 19, 2009)

Nice report and pics!!


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## vertigrator (Jul 25, 2006)

It's a Pacific Gull. Don't you guys have them on the big island?

The biggest flattie we get is the southern blue spotted (or Castelnaus ). They get to 90cm. They are mostly in the North & East. A great target on lures in shallow water.

Generally our keeper sand flatties are around 40cm.

I enjoyed the Scamander comp. My first time in a comp, so a bit of a learning experience. I was one of only 3 paddle yaks out of a field of 24. So my 15th place wasn't too shabby I supose. But I am now sold on the Hobies with their mirage drive. I'm having a lend of Blaens presently. 8)

Dan29 & I spent about 2 hours having a look at Scamander on Friday night as the sun went down. We met a few of the Hobie guys at the ramp and had a chat. We found a pile of chubby mullet that were messing with us :twisted: , & I got one undersize bream. This didn't really help us formulate a game plan.

We fished the St Helens flats on Saturday. We met John & Martin (hope I got the names right) in their Outback & PA out on the water. I got one and lost 2, while Danni got 4 or 5. Fishing in the pouring rain and thunder & lighting was a bit spooky. Even more so when we paddled either side of a 4m smooth ray and it put it's masive tail and spike out of the water pointing at me as a warning. :shock: We spent the arvo deciding what to do Sunday. Go up river, stay down, fish the flats, fish deep. Going round in circles and still no idea.

Comp day: I thought I'd just hang back a bit after the start and see where people went. A few hung back and so I left them to it and then found a few patches that no onw had fished. I worked a nice shallow mud flat and got my first keeper - 26cm. At least I'm not getting a doughnut.  I picked up a few others around 23 & 24 cm. Then skipped the flats in the lagoon (bad move) and fished a small flats section on the other side. Got a nice 31cm bream from 1 foot of water. Picked up another 6 or so from the same region, including a few that were 24.5cm. :twisted: And so the pattern went for the rest of the day. I headed up stream and ran into Danni and we both had another 6 or so fish all under 25cm for the rest of the session.

I had a great time and learnt a lot about bream fishing and tourny fishing in particular. Heaps more to learn though. I'll be doing it in a Hobie next time though. Too much time with a paddle in my hand rather than a rod. I have seen the light.

Cheers
Craig


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## vertigrator (Jul 25, 2006)

These posts should give you an idea of what size bream we get in some of our systems in Tassie. The Derwent is a good producer of big fish as are a few of the East coast spots. The Scamander appears to be the nursery system for the juveniles. Though there are big fish in there, the little ones generally get to your lure first.

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=37290
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=36566


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## Shorty (May 11, 2008)

Looking forward to seeing the next round in the Derwent hopefully,,this weekend was the boaties at that location,,so it might have put to much pressure on the place in a short time,,,,

Otherwise you boys will just have to find those big ones we know are there in the Scammy. 8)


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