Since the Spirit of Tasmania vehicle ferry moved its mainland home from Port Melbourne to Geelong a year or so ago, numbers of South Australians travelling to the Apple Isle have definitely increased. The drive to get there and back may only be slightly shorter, but there’s much to be said for avoiding Melbourne’s inner-city gridlock!
I suspect the vast majority of keen South Australian anglers who pack a rod or two and head to Tassie — either by plane or boat — have trout very much on their minds. Fair enough, too. The Devil’s Playground is justifiably renowned for its world-class trouting: be it skinny-water sight fishing in the shallow tarns of the Western Tiers, chasing trophies in the big hydro lakes, or dropping a dry fly on the speckled head of a busily rising fish in a gorgeous lowland stream. But what if I were to tell you that Tasmania’s saltwater fishing is also in a league of its own, and well worth travelling there to experience? Trust me, it’s true! So true, in fact, that it now draws myself and my wife Jo south with our trailer boat in tow on an almost annual basis. (We’d go even more often if we could but, unfortunately, it’s a fairly expensive exercise.)