The Tamar River has slowed due to the massive amounts of flood water that has come from the North and South Esk rivers.

A local fish farm worker reports that the salinity has dropped down to 9 even as deep as 5m, which is very close to that of the freshwater. The Atlantic salmon farm is located at Long Reach which is 35km North of Launceston. To make things even worse the water temperature has dropped to a balmy 9C.

Low Head has still been fishing well despite the flood waters. Anglers have been catching some really nice Australian salmon up to 1kg. They are mainly taking soft plastics with the best lures being the new Strike Tiger 3” grubs in blue steel and whitebait pearl. They have a great action, with most of the fish striking as soon as it hits the water.

There have been a couple of reports of good catches of decent size flathead being taken out near Barren Joey.

My youngest son and I spent opening day of the 2011-2012 inland fishing season on the upper Tamar around the Launceston area. It was a quiet to start to the session and we had been there for most of the afternoon right up till dark using a wattle grub. Sam started getting a bit bored and cold so we decided to give it 10 more minutes and would then head home. Just as we were about to pack up Sam’s rod had a bite then it took off at a rate of knots. Sam grabbed his rod and set the hook. His rod loaded up and his reel started to lose line. After a short dogged fight Sam landed a Tamar River 1.6kg sea trout. His biggest trout ever!

The season has started off well with some great catches of brown and rainbows. The brownies have weighed mainly around the 1-2.5kg with a few stories of the big ones getting away and the rainbows weighing up to 1.5kg.

Spinning and bait fishing have been the most productive methods. Wattle Grubs and worms have been the best on the brownies. Best hardbody lures have been Tasmanian Devils in the new 107 colour with the old faithful being numbers 43, 51 and 80.

Strike Pro Bass-X minnows in the colour code #154RG has been dynamite on a lot of the bigger fish. The Squidgies in black and gold have been great as well as the new Strike Tiger in princess and homebrew colours.