Lure Hub OZ is the official website for one of the only
handmade lure competitions held in Australia; The Pedder 'Homebake'
is held each year in October at Lake Pedder in South West Tasmania's World
Heritage wilderness area.
This years competition will be held on Saturday 30th October, 2021
Information adapted from 'Trout Waters of Tasmania' by Greg French.
'Lake Pedder is a large hydro electric impoundment formed by the damming of two once-seperate catchments. The Scotts Peak Dam (on the Huon River) is 43m high and the Serpentine Dam (on the Serpentine River) is 30m high. The smaller Edgar Dam serves to prevent the impoundment from spilling out through the gap in the encircling hills and ranges. The impoundmnet is primarily used to to divert the Serpentine and upper Huon catchments into Lake Gordon via Mc Partlan channel.
In 1955, 23800ha of remnant land surrounding the original Lake Pedder was proclaimed National Park. The intention of the then Hydro Electric Commission to flood Lake Pedder was made public in 1967 and following public outcry and protest, further land was set aside by the Government to compensate for the drowned land and the National Park was extended to 191,625 ha and renamed the Southwest National Park. Since this time further extensions of the park have expanded the protected area to 625,000ha. Most of the original Lake Pedder National Park was flooded in 1971-2.
'Public outrage continued, and UNESCO described the event as the greatest environmental tragedy since European settlement.The incident gave birth to tadays powerful environmental lobby, a movement which has had considerable impact on Australian politics.'
The Huon system already had a population of wild brown trout, the Serpentine possibly held a population - however there were sufficient trout to populate the newly created water system and flooded margins. Liberation of 350,000 brown trout fry was undertaken in September 1972 to guarantee immediate sport fishing. By 1973, the fishing in the new Lake Pedder catchment started to reach legendary status amongst local Tasmanian and mainland anglers with fish reported to have reached 4kg - fisheries staff reported spawning trout to 4.6kg. During the years 1975-78 (the heyday of Pedder fishing) it was common to catch multiple bags of fish in the 5-8kg mark (the average weight of trout caught in these years was 4.5kg) and there many captures of fish above 10kg. Soon after this the fishery started to decline as the fish ate through the abundant galaxias as the primary food source, average size of fish started to also decline.
'However, at about the time of the collapse of the trophy fishing, there was a dramatic change in the ecology of the lake - over a single season, the galaxias practically disappeared. . . . Because of the fall on the Serpentine, the two galaxid spoecies in the natural Lake Pedder had evolved in isolation and found nowhere else in the world. The swamp galaxia (Galaxias parvus) is quite distinct from other galaxids, whereas the Pedder galaxias (G. pedderensis) is closely related to (and probably evolved from) the climbing galaxias (G. brevipinnis).
The population of galaxia minnows some became intermixed and were observed all over the lake after flooding. By 1976 climbing galaxias had also invaded the lake and were noted as being common. A dramatic decline in the population of the Pedder galaxia species was well documented by 1980-1 although the swamp galaxias still populated the shallow margins, swampy edges and the streams that still flowed into the system. Today in 2014 the Pedder galaxia is endangered and mostly due to a the transfer of some of the remnant Pedder galaxia to Lake Oberon, a fish free tarn high in the Western Arthur Range. In Feb 1997 it was announced that researchers were confident the species would survive for the future.
'In 1990 the average weight of individual trout caught by anglers was about 1.2kg. In 1993 it was 1.1kg, and in 2001 it was less than 0.7kg. Since the mid 1990's the average weight seems to have stabilised at at about 0.3-0.4kg. Specimens of around 0.8kg are still common enough, but today fish in excess of 1.2kg are rarities.'
This being said evidence from the Pedder 'Hombake' lure
fishing competition and the Back to Pedder competitions which are both
held each year at Lake Pedder, fish to 2kg are around but difficult to locate,
smaller fish predominate however there are always reports of larger
fish hooked and not landed and also larger specimans do take surface
lures like 'Fish Cakes' at night.
