Meppstas

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 shal

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

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 kil

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 th

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

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.

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 f

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. Merseylea bridge half gone.. Road damage near the bridge. A lone survivor makes it's way back to the dairy.. All green again.. Still plenty coming down.. Land ahoy at last as

I heard one of the dairy farmers on the radio this morning and he said that they've recovered around 100 of the 300 dairy cows now. Also they have found quite a few more in paddocks further downstream but not sure who they belong to until they are scanned. Another farmer lost 50 beef cattle as well. all up I think there were some 500 dairy cows & cattle swept away. Won't really know the full amount of loss as most areas are still inaccessible. The photo of the two cows where the bridge is under water, well that bridge is now gone. The problem with the dairy cows that are stranded is that t

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 thou