BIG Brown trout are the target of all serious freshwater anglers and they don’t get much bigger or better than the one Luke Woolley caught in the Huon River last weekend.

The Huon has a reputation for giving up big trout, mostly during the earlier months of the season but when conditions are right it can happen at any time of the year. Luke, who lives within sight of the river, in my opinion, has caught one of the trout of the season with a beast weighing around 7.4kg or 16.5lb.

The big resident male was caught on a perch imitation lure and the catch was made better by Luke landing it without a net, risking getting hooks in his hands by grabbing the fish under the throat/gills. One of the best times to go fishing is said to be before a weather change or storm and this is an example with thunder cloud rolling in Saturday afternoon before Luke said he caught the big fish. There’s been a few other occasions recently where I’ve witnessed fish come on the bite as stormy weather has come through as well.

THE Dave Gasson Memorial Trout Fishing competition was held at Wayatinah Lagoon last weekend in warm and muggy conditions. The popular event attracts lots of anglers and those that have not trout-fished before were also allowed to wet a line with no inland fishing license required just for the event.

Members from the New Norfolk Licensed Anglers Association and Lake Pedder Anglers Club competed along with many anglers young and old and as usual everyone had a great weekend. Four tagged Atlantic Salmon were released into the lagoon prior to competition which were sourced from Saltas and if a lucky entrant caught one they won a prize. Shayne Langford managed to do that landing one which weighed 2.88kg cleaned which won him a $400 voucher.

This was said to be the first tagged Atlantic Salmon caught in competition time which was specifically released for the event. Overall there were 87 trout weighed in with a total weight of 43.090kg and an average weight of .495kg. Amazingly there were also 451 European Perch/Redfin caught and counted as well.

The biggest fish of the weekend was caught by Senior angler Thomas Triffett with a cracker male weighing 2.040kg. Darren Butler was next best on 1.110 kg, then myself with one at 1.050 kg. For the Juniors, Addie Bailey won the heaviest trout award with a nice fish weighing .700kg, Ewan Dillon was next with .610kg and Luca Bailey Harrison third with one at .530 kg.

The fish off between the NNLAA and LPAC ended with the NNLAA taking the win with a five-fish total weight of 4.1kg with LPAC not far behind on 3.560kg. Darren Butler won the secret weight for the seniors and Brandi Sokolski the juniors with Laurie Harrison winning the most perch caught prize for Seniors and Ewan Dillon the juniors. Thanks must go to the work that the Wayatinah Social Club put in for this competition with their volunteers putting together another great feed and event loaded with quality prizes.

The NNLAA’s next competition is at Lake Leake on the weekend of March 3-5.

Tight Lines until next week.