Tasmanian lake no coral lagoon, but fish are fish

Kiribati's fly fishing team captain Nareau, left, and team member Eketi Tekaibo on Arthur's Lake in Central Tasmania with Kiribati team manager Malcolm Crosse ahead of next week's Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships. Picture: Chris Crera

Sue Neales writing for The Australian looks at the first timers arriving to the Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships from the tiny island nation of Kiribati who have never seen a trout let alone fished for one.

Source: The Australian by Sue Neales

NAREAU Bataeru had never seen a rippling river, let alone a glistening brown trout, until this week.

But next Thursday the fishing guide from the tiny Pacific Island nation of Kiribati will be casting for his country when the Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships are held on the cold lakes and fast-flowing mountain streams of highland Tasmania.

It's also the first time Bataeru, whose coral-and-lagoon homeland lies just 2m above sea level, has glimpsed a tree that is not a coconut palm, fished under misty mountains or drifted his line through waters that are not warm and salty.

Yet a smiling Bataeru, the captain of the first team from Kiribati ever to enter an international freshwater fishing competition, is optimistic he and his four fellow fishermen can win the competition against more favoured teams from Scotland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

 ..."It might be our first time catching this fish -- there's no trout and no rivers in Kiribati -- but I've seen pictures before," Bataeru says as he practises his casting from a small wooden boat on Tasmania's Arthurs Lake.

"And we all have grown up fly fishing for bonefish in our coral lagoons, although this is different. The trout are a little harder to catch, they're on the surface, and you use dry flies, so we do have a bit to learn."

But Craig Coltman, president of Fly Fish Australia and one of Australia's two team captains at next week's competition, says the other 16 competing teams will underestimate newcomer Kiribati at their peril.

"These guys were literally born fishing," Coltman says, as he shows off his secret collection of favourite flies with alluring names such as Royal Wolf, Rat-faced McDougall, Shaving Brush and Mrs Simpson.

"They'll do well. They are completely switched into fish and fish behaviour, are very fast and visual casters and have remarkable eyes -- they can see fish that even I can't."

It's been a group effort to bring the five-man team from Kiribati to Tasmania. None of the men had flown before and had no specialist trout fishing rods, flies, reels or tackle. Waders, thermals and cold weather clothes were another necessary novelty.

But Malcolm Crosse, a former Australian fly fishing champion who got to know Bataeru and his fishing guide mates when installing an FM radio tower on the small coral atoll, has spent much of the past year raising funds for the Kiribati campaign.

Crosse has hosted the Kiribati men at his highland shack by Penstock Lagoon for the past week, teaching them the intricacies of tying dry trout flies, taking them out in his little wooden boat on the three competition lakes looking for mayflies and caddis rises, and demonstrating how to fish the fast-flowing rapids and still pools of the Meander and South Esk rivers.

Crosse, also head of the event's organising committee, says the embracing of the Kiribati fund-raising effort by rival teams and fishing sponsors says much about the lack of snobbery and camaraderie that underpins top-level fly fishing worldwide.

"There's always people who like to think fly fishing is still about tartan hats, the aristocracy and having lots of money, but that just doesn't stack up any more," Crosse says. "You could be a fitter and turner or an ex-PM but that doesn't mean anything just as long as you love fly fishing."

The make-up of the two Australian teams bears out Crosse's words. There's the policeman from Longford, at the foot of Tasmania's towering Western Tiers. There's a printing mechanic from Victoria, an electrician from the Barossa Valley in South Australia, a Launceston construction engineer, a retired Canberra economist and a Melbourne plastic surgeon.

Craig Carey is another local determined to defend Australia's position as defending Commonwealth champion back on his home waters. A Tasmanian car smash repairer, Carey, 46, fished for Australia at last year's world titles and is ranked as the second-best fly fisherman in the nation.

But the fierce competitor says the image of fly fishing as a relaxing, contemplative activity is a complete myth when it comes to the highest levels of the sport.

Practising takes up to six weeks a year full-time -- and Carey fishes early every morning as well if he can -- to keep his eye in and to make sure he doesn't "misfish".

"It's a numbers game and it's stressful; just like cricket and golf you have to be practising non-stop to keep your eye in," Carey explains, as he dawn casts into the silky South Esk river.