Headlines: The fishing is still the best it has been for years. Lake Eucumbene has been spectacular with plenty fo good rainbows and some nice browns for all angling methods. River fishing has also been very good for those that have managed to drag themselves away from the lake.
The fishing is that good that we must remind anglers that the bag limit in lakes is five fish per day, with a ten fish possession limit.
Store Trading Hours
Mon-Thursday 9am - 5:30pm
Friday 9am - 7pm
Saturday 7am - 5pm
Sunday 8am - 4:30pm
Flyfishing
Rivers:- Mountain streams still have some reasonable water in them and there are lots of hoppers in the area.
Dry fly fishing has been good right through the day with some nice browns to be found in the Eucumbene and Thredbo. Dry flies to use at the moment are small emergers like Klinkhamers, Blue wing olive parachutes, attractors like Wullfs and Stimulators, along with beetles and hoppers.
A nymph suspended under the dry during the day is a good method to use, but a dry at dusk will have best results.
*Hey Tom,
Had a good couple of sessions over the holidays, thanks for your advice.Attached photo of Brian Senior with his first fish on the fly.
Brian took up fishing last year and has slowly been getting all geared up (with help from The Alpine Angler!) and under my non-expert guidance finally landed this nice 2 pounder. He kindly released this beauty back to the river.
One fish hooked for about 3 minutes, one fisherman hooked for a lifetime.
Cheers Dan Williams
Other rivers to fish are the Moonbah, Snowy, Gungarlin, and a few other smaller high country creeks.
Lake Eucumbene:- The lake is offically firing.
and I don't think we have spoken to an angler that has blanked for three weeks!
There are plenty of stories of the "best ever sessions" or "like it was in the eighties" being told by many seasoned anglers.
Reports of great fishing around the edges are still flooding in with literally cricket score catches. Daytime fishing has been spectacular with plenty of nice rainbows searching the edges along with a few browns. Midges and caddis have been the main insects hatching but there all sorts of food being taken by the fish. Snails, corixa, damsels, beetles, mudeyes, tadpoles, daphnia and hoppers have all been on the menu.
Hopper fishing has started to produce some nice day time fish. Berleying with live hoppers is the key and this can get some fantastic action during the hotter parts of the day.
Some areas have seen a few mudeye hatches of an evening and these should get progressively bigger as the month continues.
You need to find the areas where the fish are working. They are not everywhere. If you fish an area for more than thirty minutes without a few hits, move on. When you find some fish there are usually a few to catch before they wise up or move on. If you stand in the one spot you will catch fish. If you move around a bit you will catch many more. Shallower weedy, grassy soaks have been the best areas along with some of the deeper banks next to the soaks.
Thistles have been causing a few bust offs in some areas but most anglers are putting up with losing a few as there are plenty of fish working in these areas.
Areas to look at are Seven gates, Buckenderra, Braemar, Cobrabald, Coppermine, Collingwood, Yens, Wangrabelle, Springwood
Night fishing on the whole has been a little quiet. There has been so much good daytime fishing that the nights have been for sleeping rather than flogging away in the dark for the odd fish.
*Tom,
Some photos from the trip over the New Year. I can honestly say it was the
best Ecumbene has fished during the day even surpassing the famed 95
midge season. The lunchtime midge balls were the highlight as was Phils mastery of the trapdoor method (midge pupa dropper under the ball).
Below - Matto with a solid daytime brown.
The fishing was so consistent on the midge that we very rarely fished anything else, on the rare occasions that nothing was happening a bead head nymph was deadly.
Below - Phil 'trapdoor' Lopilato and two of the many fish landed over the weekend.
On Saturday the fish started on the hoppers and they were like tuna you could see them smashing from 200m away.
Below - A small brown that was full of hoppers.
That night there was a mudeye hatch and fish were on them as well. The
conditions (lots of thistles) called for some heavy handed techniques
and I am glad that I took my 6wt although I straighted more hooks in 4
days than I have in the last 20 years.
Dom Rogers with a typical Eucumbene rainbow.
Stuart 'gc' Sturgeon wet wading the the thistle line for another summer rainbow.
The rainbow with the two flies in the mouth is a fish that I busted off 5 minutes ealier then caught him again,
that shows you how eager they were. I think I probably caught 30% browns and 70% rainbows. The browns as with the rainbows were in very good condition and went hard. Cant wait to get back up there.
Matt Daniel
Lake Jindabyne:- The fishing in Jindabyne has still been quite good and better than expected. The lake continues to rise and there are some good fish to be caught cruising the edges during the day. Evenings and early mornings produced better fishing overall and after dark has seen some nice rainbows coming in. With the way Eucumbene is fishing at present it would be a better option on the fly.
Areas to look at are Sids Bay, Hatchery Bay, Creel Bay, Hayshed, and East Jindabyne
Lake Tantangara :- No reports.
Trolling and Spinning
We now have Sting Cobras back in stock.
Our Rapala Minnow indent has just arrived with trout patterns from 1cm to 11cm.
New Bushy's Stiffy Devilfish Vibes are in stock.
Eucumbene:- Trolling has been good with some excellent reports coming in.
Fishing in close in the shallower bays with small lures like Crickhoppers, Rapala CD1 and Strike Pro Vibes is going to get you some good rainbows. The fish are in close in these areas as it is where the food is. Holding the rod is a good idea as you can lift and drop the rod depending on the depth so the lure won't hang up ont
White rocks, Buckenderra and Cobrabald areas have been very good. Top water lures like Tassies and small shallow minnows have been the beat overall but there are some good fish being caught deeper too.
Leadcore or a downrigger has been good in some of the deeper bays or where the fish are on daphnia. Daphnia has been large part of the diet of rainbows at present. Yellow wing tassies and green tassies are usually the go in this situation.
Trout pattern minnows in Rapalas, Attacks, RMG Scorpions, Rebels, and Alex lures are great lures to try. Try some of the larger lures down deep to search out the bigger browns.
The new Stiffy Devilfish Vibes have been starting to clean up on a few fish. These lures have a very tight action at slower speeds and get reasonably deep for such a little lure. Have a look at them soon.
Spinning off the bank with Celtas, Tassies, Snowy Minnows and plastics is another method working in the lake at the moment.
*Ethan Hunt caught a nice rainbow recently near Buckenderra. The ever faithful Snowy Minnow was the lure used. Well done Ethan.
*Lads,
Just a quick email to say thanks for the great service and advice you gave us last week when we were in there. Thanks also for the quick fly casting lesson, unfortunately the wind kept us from using it, so we'll try that one next time. As you know, the fishing was awesome. Between the two of us we landed 33 fish, all on the troll, all in the Buckenderra arm. Generally in good condition, they were 30-48cm and roughly 0.5kg to 1kg, 26 Rainbows and 7 Browns. We estimate we lost another 15 or so as well, some spitting the hooks, some busting us off. The lure that did the bulk of the damage was a Rapala CD5 in Brook Trout pattern.
All up it was a great few days fishing. Special mention to Peter and Jo and Buckenderra Holiday Park for their top shelf hospitality and to your team there at the Alpine Angler for your genuine fish catching advice. See you all again in April.
Brett with a brown caught on a speckled hen tassie devil
Matthew with a brown caught on a yellow wing tassie
Matthew and Brett.
*Greg Manson caught a very nice brown of 2.7 kilos in Anglers Reach area recently. The fish took a trolled yellow wing Tassie Devil.
