Cannabis coup

Nets out

TASMANIA’S six-week whitebait season opens tomorrow. Twelve waters are open this year, including the Derwent, Huon, Tamar, Mersey, Forth and Pieman. A licence costs $39 – or $29 if you’ve managed to reach 80 and still fancy standing beside a cold Tasmanian river with a net. The daily limit is 2kg and the seasonal limit 10kg. Fisheries officers say they’ll be patrolling, so enthusiasm should probably be accompanied by a quick read of the rules. Inland Fisheries Service Tasmania

Rich trout

THE Inland Fisheries Service has 45 tagged trout swimming around Tasmania as part of its current promotion, but one is considerably more attractive than the others. The first eligible tagged trout caught from Yingina/Great Lake and returned to IFS carries a $25,000 prize. Trout Weekend follows at Liawenee on October 10–11 and this year has moved into October to coincide with the rainbow trout spawning run.Warming up

Winter wonder

TASMANIANS wondering whether winter seemed unusually reluctant to behave normally weren’t imagining it. The Bureau says the state recorded its warmest August daytime temperatures on record, while August was also Tasmania’s seventh-driest. The outlook now favours warmer-than-average days and nights over coming months, with below-average rainfall likely in parts of the south-east.