▲TopSquidgy Tour of Tassie

In March, 2007, I was fortunate enough to be part of a 9-day tour of Australia’s beautiful island state of Tasmania. Primary purposes for the visit were to compete in a couple of ABT BREAM Tournament rounds (staged on Georges Bay at St Helens, and Hobart’s Derwent River), do some fun fishing for bream and trout, and generally wave the Shimano Australia and Squidgy flags across the Apple Isle.

Several of our Squidgy Team members, including Craig “Simmo” Simmons and Chris “Slick” Wright, bundled their boats onto the Bass Strait ferry for the trip south, while others, including myself and Bushy, flew down.

As well as experiencing some truly memorable fishing, we also staged three highly successful Squidgy Seminar Nights; in Launceston, Ulverston and Hobart, made tackle shop appearances, did press interviews and spoke to various school and club groups. All-in-all, it was very hectic week-and-a-bit!

While Tasmania’s trout fishing is widely reported and obviously world class, many mainlanders still don’t realise just how exceptional the bream fishing is down in Devil Country.

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like climbing into a time machine with your modern, highly sophisticated fishing tackle and going back 50, 100 or even 1,000 years to cast a line into waters largely untroubled by nets, pollution or angling pressure, then a trip to Tassie could well satisfy that dream and answer your questions.

While trout guides are thick on the ground down there, only a limited number of professional estuary guides are operating in Tasmania at this point, although that situation is almost sure to change in coming seasons, as the popularity of the coastal fishery expands.

On this latest trip, Bushy and I were fortunate enough to catch up once again with our friend and renowned bream and estuary guide, Michael Haley, of Gone Fishing Charters. Michael is a true pioneer amongst bream specialists and estuary guides in the Apple Isle. He’s also a great guy and a top operator — extremely professional and very switched-on — and his boat rig is ideal for keen lure and/or fly casters. It’s hardly surprising that both Rex Hunt and Andrew ‘ET’ Ettingshausen have fished and filmed with Michael for their respective TV shows over the years, nor that both speak highly of him.

Michael Haley can be contacted by phoning (03) 6376-1553 or (0419) 353-041.

On a slightly sobering note, I would offer this sage piece of advice: If you’ve thought about undertaking a bream safari to Tasmania, don’t put it off for too much longer. The time travel nature of this fishery won’t last forever. Virgin and near-virgin waters will be worked over, naïve bream populations will wise-up quickly and, sadly, too many people (especially locals) will continue to kill too many big, old bream… It’s the nature of the beast.

The high standard of breaming available on the other side of Bass Strait will no doubt survive, but its more exceptional aspects will soon be dulled and ground down towards mediocrity as this resource is “loved to death” by too many people, just like every other attractive part of our natural world. By simply writing this report, I’m playing a small part in that inevitable process, and I feel a pang of guilt at my complicity. But if I don’t tell you about it, someone else will!

The message is clear. Pack your bags and your tackle boxes now. The bream fishing time machine is waiting — and there are a limited number of tickets available.

Until next time, Tight Lines!