I've been in Cairns for 15 years now and mainly do estuary fishing for mangrove jack, barra etc and fish from the Daintree River to south of Cairns. I'll be moving to Launceston in Tasmania in a few months, so I'm looking forward to fishing the Tamar River and the lakes in the highlands

Hi Neil

Welcome to the forum. Quite a big move from Cairns to Tasmania.
You'll probably be freezing your ass off the first couple of weeks

But I think the fishing there will be fantastic.
Will be interesting to hear how you'll get on down there.

cheers

We're going to put major insulation in the house and great heating systems and good position for the sun etc overlooking Swan Bay but we will have to go outside, especially to do fishing. The worst of winter will be over by the time we get there. It's a long way to take the boat, so I'm selling my boat here and buying a new one in Launceston - a bit bigger to allow some sea based fishing and those lakes in the highlands are big.

Sounds good. I think you'll love it down there once you get acclimated.
I traveled around Tasmania in Summer 2006 and had a blast.
We did lot's of bushwalking. The overland track of course, the South Coast Track and a few shorter ones.
Was fantastic. Probably my favourite place in Australia

Unfortunately I didn't have my fishing gear with me back then.
But I've actually seen lots of big trouts in the rivers

Apparently the Tamar is full of flathead but many are undersized but always some keepers. Since flathead is one of my favourite fish, that is good news. Also I read reports of big snapper near the Sidmouth Bridge and of course some good Australian salmon etc down at the sea at Low Head. My wife and I have travelled around the East Coast as well, and there's some great fishing spots there. Some of the photos of huge brown trout caught on lures in the lakes make me think that it will be worth getting the boat up there and learning how they catch them. They catch squid in the Tamar and I haven't really tried to catch them but it would be worth learning about it once I'm there.