Work commitments recently involved a trip to Hobart, where I needed to blah blah blah blah blah, yadda yadda, blah….

More importantly, this opened up an opportunity to slide in a quick fish after work and before trekking back to warmer climes (North-South rivalry anyone?). I lived down this way a few years back and found myself fishing the shores of the Derwent River in my spare time. I caught a few fish from time to time, but I have learned a shitload about the system since fishing here from a boat in ABT Bream Tournaments, and the odd social occasion.

With very little wind about (almost a rarity on the Derwent) I made a bee-line for a shore with plenty of public access and loads of room for a wayward back-cast. Especially with my casting, which deviates from the standard ‘ten and two o’clock’ method, appearing to be more like ‘a quarter to eight and twenty past four’…

The tide was out. Much more than I expected by the time knock-off came around. With the sun fading I could polaroid a little way out, noting that it was quite shallow. With this in mind I tied on a BMS variant with a bit of flash, something that I would normally throw for sea-run trout but I was happy with the slow sink rate and the intention was to hang that fly in front of a bream for as long as possible.

So there I was, hanging out with my rod on the shore, littered with cans, chip packets and the odd home-made bong when I thought I felt a tap. I paused, then gave a long and slow strip before pausing for a few seconds again…. The fish whacked it that ‘ard and pretty much hooked itself before making a run for safer water.

Certainly no behemoth by any means but it was a Derwent bream and it took my fly! Soon after, I secured another specimen but this was barely legal. This is such a gnarly location and while it remained quiet for many years as one of the best bream destinations in the country, the secret is now out with breamers from far and wide hoping to plunge themselves into these waters for some line-tearing action. For the most part it’s not a pretty water, with industry and bogans making their mark around some of the popular shores, but if you can look past the bongs you can then look into the eyes of some consistently large bream.