While this is the last month of the brown trout season, it is far from being a closed shop fishing wise.

Many anglers feel April is all about lures, big wet flies and fishing deep, but I have always found trout quite keen to feed from the surface given half reasonable conditions.

If April hangs on and we get some warmer weather then beetles are still plopping onto the surface and we always hope for a jassid or three.

Even with so apparent surface activity I will always fish the dry fly for at least a few hours a day. Wind lanes and slicks will always pull a few fish up, and those sloppy shores where the wind blows parallel to the shore will generally have a trout or two looking for a feed. A bright dry fly is unbeatable in this situation – the Orange Carrot is my personal favourite fished in tandem with a Bibio Hopper.

I am so looking forward to fishing Arthurs in April – it is just a marvellous place to be. You can taste the air on the back of your throat up there, and nothing is more ‘highlands’ than the smell of wood smoke from the highland timber on the fire of a morning.

Many fish will be looking for the bays like Hydro and Tumble Down for the start to spawning this season, but I fear there won’t be enough water unless the heavens open with some regularity. This is not all bad, as I think we could do with a few tough spawning winters to thin the numbers out a bit and increase the average size. Nature will sort it out!

While bays like Little Lake Bay and Tods Corner will be filling up with pre-spawn browns, those solid bars of rainbow trout will still be out and about as normal. On those delicious calm days the wind lane feeding trout are awesome on Great Lake, they seem to shrug off their ‘tough’ status iin April and sip pretty much everything they see of the surface.

With the lower level at the moment the best place to launch is probably the gravel ramp at Boundary Bay, and this area does get you too the best wind lane spots pretty easy.

For those travelling from Launceston should hit up the Cramps Bay area, there are some marvellous shores and slick-producing points in a northerly breeze.

It’s been a tough old year for trout out the back, and at least cooler air temperatures will be a bit easier on the fish. Lake Augusta Dam is a personal favourite, especially drifting around the prominent rocky outcrops where those boisterous brown trout rise from nowhere to slip a dry from the top.

Lake Ada is another great April water, drifting a team of three dries over the weeds in the north west corner can lift some great trout. This is also where Christys Creek joins the Pine River system, so trout will be heading there in any case.

Bright dries like Orange Carrots and Bibio Hoppers are great, as is the Peter Broomhall Bruisers Bug.

Late season trout are often the prettiest.