Meppstas

not sure if footage has been taken down or not but no footage on this link mate??

I don't know what's happening at your end hoopsy, but it worked when I just went onto it,,,  

I had this youtube site sent to me last night to checkout the footage taken from a drone in several areas in the North of Tassie, Mersey Forest Rd, Merseylea, Kimberley etc.

well worth watching..

cheers

Adrian

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCauCVemWS2FdMidOVqiwb6A

Headed on over to Weegena where another bridge has been washed away on the Mersey River, a lot of damage here as well and it's going to take some time to fix this lot too..

 Where Dylan's Bridge once stood..

 What's left of it today..

Looking across the river to see another section of the bridge against the river bank..

River banks severely damaged by flood waters..

Massive washout well inland and around 6 meters above the normal river level..

Flood debris some 7 meters above the river..

And more flood debris..

Good thing was I did spot a nice solid brown in the shallows on the road to recovery..

Same fish, was that tired it didn't even dart off when I got so close to it.. I even managed to put my hand under it & rubbed it's belly..

cheers

Adrian

Finally we've had a few nice days of sun and only a light breeze, here's the scene at Merseylea at week later, great to see the river levels a lot lower too, Now it's the big cleanup...

Hard to believe that the water was right back to those trees in the distance..

Here's the other half of the Merseylea Bridge..

And here's the other half that's still standing..

cheers

Adrian

Still got my old set of hornes. With the heavy duty boot. Have been awesome and never leaked. Hopefully I can still fit in them, hahaha. Haven't worn them in a while. hahaha

They're still a great wader for sure and perfect for beach fishing etc, Hornes made mine to order as I had them reinforced similar to what they use at the oyster farms, they were perfect for when I had to bush bash to get to a river and blackberry bushes didn't damage them at all. But for the amount fishing I do in the rivers they were really just not good enough in the end due to there weight & lack of grip on the river bottom. I still have them hanging up in the shed as a spare pair for visitors who want to have a session in a river..    

cheers

Adrian

Here's a few pic's of some decent size redfin perch...

 A Bullen Merri monster..

 48 cm redfin

 Solid redfin..

cheers

Adrian

Most metal  blade spinners ( Vibrax, Celtas & Mepps ) work well on them as do small hard body lures... Here's one that I caught in the Mersey River a couple of seasons ago on a F-3 Rapala rainbow pattern, This river never had Redfin in it before, found out it had come from a farm dam that someone had put the redfin into. Thankfully I haven't caught one in the Mersey River since..

Redfin Perch taken on a Rapala F-3, Mersey River at Merseylea back in 2014

cheers

Adrian

I'm using the light weight breathable waders now days and have done for the past four years, the ones I use are Redington Pro Sonic with the stocking foot. I also have the Korkers wading boots with the interchangeable soles which are great.

Both the waders & wading boots are light weight and since getting them I've been able to cover a lot more distance on the rivers. I wore the heavy PVC Hornes waders with the rubber Blundstone boots for 10 years, they were very good but just so hot & heavy plus there wasn't any grip on a slippery rocky river bottom.. I can now cover around three kilometers of river in a four hour spin session as whereas before I could only cover around 1.5 kms max with the heavy PVS waders. Then there was the walk back to the car as well after fishing..The breathable wader I use weren't cheap but by hell they were well worth spending the extra $$ to buy them. I now have 2 pairs of each as a spare pair is essential when trout fishing the rivers 4-5 days a week during the open season. But I'm just going on river fishing here in Tasmania, not beach or boat fishing as many of you guys do, so you wouldn't need to go for this set up..

cheers

Adrian

Redington Pro Sonic waders..

Korkers wading boots.

I have the felt studded & rubber studded soles as well as plain felt & rubber soles, the latter come with the boots when purchased.

Tough day on the Meander River.. much better with the light weight wading gear that's for sure..

Here's a handy item to carry with you when wading too, it's a UV glue that's will dry instantly in the sun, so if you get a small hole or a seam starts to leak, just put some onto the leaking area and it will dry in a matter of a minute in the sun.. 

Good news, one of the wooden bridges as reported by the ABC that was said to have had been washed away is still standing.. I went for a drive this morning and drove around the road closed sign and continued on for 8 kms to find the bridge still there across the Mersey River. It was the Union Bridge near Mole Creek that was reported to have been washed away. I must admit it must have been very close to going after seeing how much damage there was to the river bank on both sides of the river. The water had flowed over the bridge as the bitumen surface had been washed from the bridge. I reckon they will assess how bad the damage to the bridge is once the river drops to a safe level so it can be inspected more closely.. The river was so high the it took a shortcut across the paddocks that were once full of hardwood plantations.  Here's a few pic's from there today..

cheers

Adrian

 Looking downstream from the middle of the bridge..

A lot of the river bank is gone as the river flooded across the paddocks. 

 Good to see at least there's one of the wooden bridges left, for now any way..

Hydro Tasmania is run by a pack of idiots, this isn't the first time it's happened either. As for Mr Groom the so called Energy Minister, well he's no better either as he's got a lot to answer for too over the running of Hydro Tasmania..

It costs $100,000 each time they cloud seed an area.. 

Here's the timber bridges that are no gone for ever, will more than likely be replaced with concrete ones I would think.. Glad I've taken photos of them too, always good to look back on.

Merseylea bridge at Merseylea.

Barretts Bridge, Meander River.

Lower Beaulah Bridge, Minnow River..

Dylans Bridge, Mersey River at Weegena.

Liena Bridge, Mersey River at Liena.

Taylors Flats Bridge, Leven River at Loongana.

Union Bridge, Mersey River at Mole Creek.

cheers

Adrian

The Kentish Council (Sheffield)  Lord Mayor (an ex- Sth Aussie) Don Thwaites was on ABC radio this morning and said the costs will be in the millions, each of the Mersey River bridges will cost around a million dollars to replace for starters then there the roads etc..that need repairing & replacing. There's also small bridges that have been washed away on the Dasher & Minnow rivers too.. will take 12 months to replace all these bridges I reckon. Hope there's no more floods for some time either, thing is we're just into the start of Winter too so nothing will get done to replacing them during this time. 

The pollies will promise the world with the elections not that far off I suppose.. they're all full of pi#* & wind too..

Most fish prefer structure in rivers & dams, even trout... I pick up plenty of browns close to dead wood in the rivers here in Tassie..

The dark shape next to the branch is a large brown trout..

I just found out that 5 of 8 bridges on the Mersey River have been washed away, one more may also have gone too and that's the wooden bridge up at Liena. It was under water the other day but can't get access to the area at the moment due to severe road damage. The Hoggs Bridge which was below the wooden Merseylea Bridge was a solid concrete bridge too.. Most of my access areas to the Mersey River have been washed out.. going to be a very tough trout season ahead that's for sure..

This is what Hoggs Bridge looked like early this year.. 

cheers

Adrian

Here's Trevallyn Dam spilling over today  followed by Cataract Gorge then the Tamar River...

 2,300 tons of water per second going over the dam wall...

Great day for white water kayaking or rafting in a rubber ducky...

Not a good day for the boaties..

cheers

Adrian

Here's Lake Cethana spilling over, it's 20kms from Sheffield, flows down into Lake Barrington... This is nothing to the water that's going over the Trevallyn Dam at Launceston then into Cataract Gorge. 

They said on the radio this morning that there was 2,300 tons of water going over the dam wall every one second.. Now that's a lot of water..

cheers

Adrian

This was where I took the top two photos of Weegena from.. quite some distance from the river.. But you can see how far inland the water spread..

Headed off back to the Mersey River again this afternoon, checked out Merseylea, Kimberley & also Weegena. Weegena is some 20 kms further up from Kimberley. Once i was within three kilometers of Weegena there was a road closed sign on the road. Still enough room to one side to drive through as the locals still had to get through & so did I. I drove down to within 700 meters of the bridge, didn't want to go down too far as there was a lot of mud etc down the bottom end. Use the zoom lens on the camera. Looks to me that this wooden bridge has also been washed away from what I could see. From where i had parked one can normally see the white guard rails on the bride. I could only spot a small section of them on the LHS, nothing on the right, that ute was on the opposite side of the river. It's the second time this bridge has been washed away, the last one went in the 1970 floods. When i was at Kimberley I noticed that the railway line had been washed away as well, that's going to take a while to replace, I could also see the main structure over the river had collapsed as well. good thing is that the river has dropped by some 10 feet, there is more rain forecast over the next few days but nowhere what we've just experienced..

Here's a few more pic's from today...

 First close up at Weegena, the river would have to risen by at least 20 ft to flood through the paddocks & across the road...

  Zoom shot from 700 meters.

Looking back towards Kimberley & Merseylea on way back from Weegena.

 Railway line washed out at Kimberley, no freight for a while now..

Looking downstream from the bridge at Kimberley..

 Upstream from the Kimberley bridge..

River level has receded to what it was..

 Flood damage, bridge at Merseylea.

  River level has dropped.. 

Thanks guys, the good thing is that we haven't had any more rain since and the river levels  (in our area) have dropped very quickly which happens with the shorter rivers. So that's a good thing for all concerned.

I'll head back again later today to check both the Mersey & Dasher rivers out too see how much more they've dropped. Launceston further to the East is coping the floods now as the Sth Esk river peaks, it one of the longest rivers here I Tassie and it's taken quite some time to reach there. Several small towns ( Perth & Longford) along it have all been flooded over the past few days as it peaked on it's way down to the Tamar Valley Gorge & Estuary. There's around 4,000 homes & businesses at risk at this stage.. Good thing is that it's hitting the estuary on a low tide.. May be a problem when the tide starts to run in, high tide is at 3.00pm.

cheers

Adrian

Season opens on the 6th August, will be a tough season too as I'm sure this flood will have wiped out quite a lot of the fish stocks in the rivers.. Larger fish will probably survive but the smaller ones will get washed away.. just have to wait and see I suppose.. Here's few photos from this morning when I went back to see how much the river had dropped overnight, good to see it was down by a couple of meters.

Here's a few photos that  took this morning from a few places where I could get to the Mersey & Dasher Rivers. One dairy farmer who I know very well had 300 dairy cows swept from his property early this morning when the river rose well above what was predicted. He had moved them to higher ground too, but in the end it just wasn't high enough. I was hard seeing them struggling in the flooded water, with most of them not making it. I did see several that had made it out, these were scattered in several paddocks some two kilometers down stream. I reckon he may have lost at least 250 head though which was a shame. It's something I hope not to see again at all, very distressing that's for sure. We were cut off at both ends of Sheffield early this morning from farm dams over flowing big time. A few roads and bridges were also washed away, 216 mms of rain in 9 hours.

 I have put a few photos of the same areas to compare the difference from normal river flow to major flooding.

From this .. Dasher River.

To this..

Dasher River on a normal day..

Dasher River today..

To think I normally wade up through here, but usually when it's 3.0 meters lower.

The Dasher on another normal day..

 Much different today..

The Mersey River at Merseylea, this was taken early August, the river is still a meter or so higher than normal..

The same area today..

The new bridge well under water, the last bridge was washed away three years ago when they said it was a 100 yr flood, they're saying the same again today.. 

Does this mean we get a 100 yr flood every three yrs now???

This road is where I go and fish above the old wooden bridge at Merseylea.. can't get near it today.

I zoomed in to where the bridge is supposed to be and spotted two survivors which was good to see, they should be okay where they are hopefully.

Note the bridge handrail on the RHS, that's all what's above the water..

 Wattle tree down on the bridge over the Dasher River..

 Pump shed under water as is the farm house on the RHS just out of picture, the owner was with me and I didn't want to take a photo while he was there. 

He was very distressed, poor bugger has had this property on the market for three years now, will be tough selling it after this..

 Mersey River spills into farmland, crops all under water.

My doctor & his wife ) both Russians)  go out picking all different varieties of mushrooms, he bought photos of them up on google and showed me what they pick. Some looked like toadstools, he said you have to know what you're looking for and if you're unsure then don't pick it.. 

I have no idea what happened when i edited the top reply, as when I added some more photos from today's trip it said I didn't have permission to edit it, So I tried it again and it came up with the same thing. Now when I went back to it all the photos are there twice.????   Any way these are from today's trip and also a photo of Mt.Roland close to home, making the most of the beautiful days we've had over the past four days..

cheers

Adrian

You two are rock'in today...