THE time has arrived with the start of the 2023-24 Tasmanian Brown Trout fishing season this Saturday morning at 12am.

As usual damaging winds and rain hit us this week with more showers forecast for tomorrow and temperatures have risen but they’ll be dropping again for the weekend.

No matter what the weather does anglers will be out in force on opening morning whether it be up the lakes or fishing local rivers and streams.

The Derwent and Huon Rivers always fish well early in a season and that trend looks set to continue.

Rain leading into opening weekend will trigger more sea trout to move through both systems and as long as both rivers don’t suffer major flooding anglers will definitely catch fish.

Tributaries flowing into both the Huon and Derwent rivers should also fish well with the Tyenna, Plenty, Styx and Lachlan rivers the Derwent’s best and the Weld, Russell, Little Denison and Mountain Rivers popular on the Huon.

Of the Lakes, stocked waters will be popular and Brady’s Lake, Lake Binney and Tungatinah Lagoon should fire after Brady’s lake received a good amount of fish over the off season.

Anglers soaking baits like worms and wattle grubs will do well as will lure anglers both spinning and trolling.

Bronte Lagoon’s water level has dropped through July but I expect it to rise again soon and like last season the lagoon should fish well and Lake Echo would be on my radar too with its water level higher than it was at the same time year.

The same can be said for Arthurs Lake and Wood’s Lake’s water level is a little higher than last season and it should continue to rise but I’m not sure how it will fish after algae issues late last season.

Lake Crescent was a standout last year although it was a little quiet early in the season but with temperatures mild through July maybe it will fire earlier as well.

Lake Sorell is also tipped to fish better and it will be interesting to see results from here and I’ll be also interested to see how Lake Leake and Toom’s Lake fish with both waters not firing much last year.

Closer to home our hydro catchments in Wayatinah Lagoon, Lake Catagunyah, Lake Repulse and Cluny Lagoon have had a good flushing while work was done to Lake Meadowbank recently and they’ll be worth a run.

Keep in mind Lake Pedder, Lake King William and also Lake Gordon with water levels at all three lakes higher than they were at this time last season as well.

Our Northern Rivers offer opportunity for big resident and sea trout early in a season and many make the effort for big rewards fishing iconic runs of the Arthur, Gordon, Pieman and Henty Rivers.

Other Northern rivers like the Forth, Mersey, Meander, Macquarie, Leven, St Patricks, North and South Esk also fish well early in a season and there are many more lakes full of trout worth exploring as well.

The IFS continued stocking waters in the lead up to opening weekend with Rainbow Trout the target, specifically triploids sourced from the Milly Brook Hatchery.

Craigbourne Dam got a top up taking 380 fish and both Lake Kara and Brushy Lagoon also took the same amount with the average weight sitting at around .525kg.

Lake Dulverton also received 190 Rainbows weighing the same last Friday.

As usual, Tasmania’s weather will challenge us for the opening of the new season and wherever you choose to fish be safe on and around the water. A reminder that the Inland Fisheries Service will be out and about over opening weekend so make sure you’re doing the right thing and that you’ve got your licenses and safety equipment sorted. THE New Norfolk Licensed Anglers Association is holding its first competition of the new season this weekend on the mighty Derwent River.

Fishing starts at 12am Saturday with competition boundaries from the Lawitta Pump Station to the Tasman Bridge.

Anglers will finish up with a barbecue and weigh in at the Rotunda on the New Norfolk Esplanade from 3pm-3.30pm on Sunday.

Those looking to compete need to be financial members of the club before the start on Saturday morning. To purchase memberships pop into Williams Outdoors in High Street, New Norfolk, or contact the NNLAA committee. NNLAA Heaviest Trout awards for Senior and Junior are available plus average and mystery weights.

Tight lines until next week.

THE picking is done now and the bottling well under way.

Next will come the filtering, and best of all, the tasting.

It’s time to make olive oil at Shelley Triffett’s place in Hamilton, and it’s her favourite time of year.

Shelley’s been doing this for nearly 10 years, beginning with a moment when a neighbour suggested she put to use a few surplus acres at his place near her home.

She located 100 trees in New South Wales, semi-mature Frantoio and Picual olives, and quickly reestablished them. Another 150 went into the ground in 2018.

“We picked these two varieties because they’re prolific oil producers,” she says. Frantoio is from the southeast of Italy and Picual from Spain.

“Now, with some help from local soil and water, bees and other pollinators, they’re fully mature and good producers.’’

She singles out Ashbolt Olives in the Derwent Valley for their advice “They’re our go-to people,” she said.

The just-picked olives that came out of the paddocks at Hamilton in the past few weeks are green-black to black in colour.

“The trick is to get them before that first frost comes in June,” she tells me.

“Any longer on the tree and they’ll lose weight and condition quickly.”

Now comes the blending of the Italian and the Spanish varieties until the taste-mix is just right. Then comes bottling and labelling.

She’ll sell them at a few select outlets — including the IGA in Ouse, Ravensnest in Wayatinah, the Busby Park Roadhouse — but much of the 75 litres that’ll be bottled will end up in the hands of friends.

That number keeps growing, too.

The Tasmanian Fine Food show has helped spread a word or two about her oil.

Back in 2019, she took a bronze, and another in 2021. Last year, 2022, it was two silver awards.

Her fans now include Graham Ross, the presenter of the TV show Better Homes and Gardens, who found her recently and now regularly orders a half-dozen for home consumption.

His word for her work? Exquisite!

LOCAL Federal Government MPs have addressed pharmacists directly at Bridgewater in a bid to address concerns about changes to prescriptions.

Earlier this month, Lyons Labor MHR Brian Mitchell and Franklin Labor MHR Julie Collins spoke to pharmacists from across Tasmania.

The changed policy will enable doctors to give patients a 60-day supply of medication, rather than the usual 30 days.

“This would reduce fees and charges that patients would usually need to pay monthly to the pharmacies, but the Pharmacy Guild and regional pharmacists are concerned in a drop in income that could affect their business,’’ Mr Mitchell said.

“Pharmacists have shared with me their concerns about potential impacts on their businesses, which I will forward to the Minister.

“It is important their questions are answered and that support is made available where necessary.

“A key issue that’s put to me is the dispensing fees are being used to informally cross-subsidise other services, like over the counter advice.

“Pharmacists say if the fees go down, they have no way to meet the costs of those other services.

“I’m proposing to the Minister that we introduce a schedule that addresses these issues.

“We will continue to work with the community pharmacy sector and I will ensure any unanticipated consequences are dealt with swiftly so we can ensure the ongoing health and strength of our vital rural and regional community pharmacies.”

GENERATIONS of Tasmanians hold fond childhood memories of holidays in the Central Highlands.

Summer stays in the family shack, long bushwalks, and endless hours of fishing for trout in yingina/Great Lake.

James Johns is one of these Tasmanians. He has a longstanding, heartfelt connection to the region, and is now helping a new generation of visitors create their own memories.

James is the grandson of David Johns, the founder of well-known Tasmanian car dealership DJ Motors. He enjoyed a varied and highly successful career in the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Rugby and Football Leagues, and within his family’s much-loved local business.

But in 2019, the motor vehicle franchises were sold, and Johns Group Tasmania was born. With James at the helm, the group’s first venture was the purchase and redevelopment of the Great Lake Hotel and Miena Village site.
“I’ve always been a regional person at heart,” says James. “My father and my great grandfather were fly fisherman, and I had friends who lived in the Central Highlands, so I’d spent time in the area when I was younger. The people here are fantastic. I think Tasmania’s strength is that the type of people you see in each of the regions are so different. There’s a commonality of hard work and no-nonsense, but I think the Central Highlands is that hidden gem within the whole state.”

There has been a hotel in the Central Highlands for over 100 years, sitting alongside the quiet shack town of Miena. Hunting, fishing and walking have long been popular activities for visitors, but the Central Highlands also has a complex industrial history, with farming, forestry and hydroelectric developments all providing employment opportunities.

“There are older guys here who talk about how they were effectively dropped into the forest and had to cut their way out – one person responsible for felling, dressing and sectioning trees,” says James. “A lot of people are also very proud and passionate about the hydro heritage that really made the place. You’ve got the largest freestanding dam in the southern hemisphere. People don’t always understand the importance of the Central Highlands and the contribution it has made to engineering and power advancements.”
As the new owner of Great Lake Hotel and the Miena Village Site, James has ambitious ideas that extend well beyond the refurbishments that have taken place to date. These include improved food options, additional accommodation including upgrading and expanding the caravan and camping area, and a walking and cycling trail around the lake.

James’s hope is that investment in the Great Lake Hotel and Miena will attract more people to the region, revitalise tourism in the Central Highlands, and bring an economic benefit to surrounding towns such as Deloraine, Longford, Bothwell and Cressy — at a pace and scale that is appropriate for the local community.

“There needs to be something here that fits and respects the area. We want to do an eco-tourism project that complements, not competes with, the history of this place. Our business philosophy is that we don’t want to take over the pie, we want to make the pie bigger, and by doing that we’re able to sustain more people within the community.”

The drive to do right by the local community is one that is shared by other members of the Johns family, and although James freely admits that car dealerships were never his passion, he credits his father and grandfather with instilling in him a belief in the value of giving back.

“As a family we spent 60 years working in the automotive industry, and we focused a fair amount on supporting the local Tasmanian community – from medical research to sport to arts,” says James. “There was always a degree of cynicism, with people thinking we were only in it to sell cars, but if organisations came to us telling us what they could offer us in return, we’d say ‘we’re not interested in what you can give us – just tell us about the program and if it’s worthwhile, we’ll do it’. We never really cared about the promotional sign.”

Having made the decision in 2019 to sell the car dealerships, James and his family could easily have rested on their laurels – or as he puts it ‘we could have sat on our bums and done nothing for the rest of our lives’.

Instead, the family decided to challenge themselves with something new that had the potential to positively impact an oft-overlooked region.

Their commitment to Great Lake Hotel is not just a financial one. The whole family has taken a hands-on approach to managing the hotel and associated projects. James’s wife Andrea has switched her career as a registered nurse for a behind-the-scenes position in the hotel kitchen, and his children Truen and Kiirra have both taken on active roles in the business since finishing school.

“There have been days when Kiirra and Truen have been up here dealing with snow and snakes and lighting fires, and they’ve really grown into that,” says James. “You might get home from work at 10 at night. The fire’s gone out, you have to carry the wood in from outside, light the fire. The pipes are frozen and you’ve missed your opportunity for a shower. It’s true that living up here can be quite hard. But the other side of that is that it’s nice to get up and think you might go and fish for a couple of hours, or explore the highlands, or just drop in on someone and have a coffee.’’

There’s also the sense of satisfaction that comes from creating opportunities for others.

“With mechanisation and the pressures on agriculture and forestry in particular, there aren’t jobs in those industries anymore,” says James. “When we did a feasibility study for the adventure trail, one of the things that came out loud and clear was the erosion of community and the fear that the whole Highland social network would disappear. So while success for us is making sure that we have a solid foundation of a business, it’s also that we’ve been able to positively impact the area.”

Story courtesy of Brand Tasmania and Ruth Dawkins. Pictures: Moon Cheese Studio.

IF you want written proof that something was a good idea, Nathan Males has it on his notepad.

Derwent Valley Players, it says. Then, Concert Band Juniors, Yoga studio and Motherload.

For the owner of the former St. Pauls church in New Norfolk, his notepad is now crowded with a list of the community groups, musicians and performers already booked into the multiple performance spaces at the former Methodist church, which he’s named 9B Studios.

The building served faithfully for 184 years, closing its doors just two years ago as Covid restrictions and a declining congregation took their toll.

As the Sunday Studio, the old Sunday School is already used for yoga twice a week, and the Derwent Valley Players are rehearsing a play called ‘Harvey’ in the ballet studio. Motherload’s piece, about wrangling kids and family, is also being performed in the same space in August.

The Rotary Club has its book fair coming up, and Nathan’s big event is the Chamber Music Festival, delivered in partnership with Derwent Valley Arts, is due for October. It will be the first use of the main body of St. Pauls, which retains its pews and specially doored cubicles to seat 160.

“We’ve got a near-full roster of users for the building leading up to Christmas. Clearly, there was a pent-up demand here in the Valley, and we’re meeting that need.”

As he looks around the building on Burnett Street, Nathan Males acknowledges a core element of his thinking about buying this place earlier in 2023.

“The place was in good shape, well built and fundamentally sound,” he says. Critically, the roof and walls were intact, its kitchen and toilets operating and its necessary council permits up to date.

“Really, all it needed was a thorough cleaning, allow us to see the character of the three main spaces in the building, even the shine of the old wood floors,” he says.

“We’ve added fresh paint where needed, some sound-proofing, and for the 200-seat auditorium at the rear of the building, every bit of the black velvet that the Spotlight stores had across Tasmania.”

To complete the array of theatre equipment, Nathan is now on the hunt for a lighting rig to be mounted to face the stage.

As far as those elements of the old church that have religious significance, they’ve been returned to the Uniting Church or in the case of photographs, retained so that Nathan can draw on them as he refurbishes the walls and floors.

“We’re being respectful of the spiritual origins of building, as well as the materials used, the building fabric,” he says. That includes beautiful gothic-arched exterior windows, installed in memory of early pioneers in the Valley.

Nathan most recently picked up 200 good quality, stackable chairs for $2 a piece. Like most things, the purchase was funded out of his own back pocket.
“They’d been on various worksites and needed pressure-washing three times to get them clean, but they’re at work in the building already,” he said.

“All I have to do now is move them!”