Headlines Fishing options are many with great water and conditions for fishing. Jindabyne and Eucumbene have been the pick of the lakes with some good browns showing amongst numbers of rainbows.
Flyfishing
Rivers:- Are still fishing very well with water levels being excellent. Warmer weather has got terrestrials on the go with beetles and hoppers starting to show in better numbers. Mayfly hatches have been good on the Eucumbene with the Thredbo having some good caddis hatches from reports had.
Other streams worth prospecting are the Moonbah, Gungarlin, Little Thredbo, Snowy and Murrumbidgee.
Best dries have been Elk hair caddis, foam black and green beetles, stimulators, humpy, Wulffs, klinkhamer, adams parachute, red tag and deer hair beetles. Small blue dun or greenwells glory have been good for the mayfly hatches.
Nymphs that are working have been pheasant tails, gold ribbed hares ear, black and brown beadheads and blue copper johns.
*Paul McFadden and his brother Pat had a great time on the Thredbo river over the last week.
Tom,
My brother and I had a ball over a couple of days fishing on the Thredbo. The river is in top nick with lots of fish about although many needed considerable effort to catch. The conditions were hot and windy and most fish were caught on dry terrestrials. One notable exception was a huge 7 pound brownie. It was polorided in a difficult lie in the tail of a pool. The only possible cast was a roll cast from the opposite bank. It ignored all routine flys untill we threw a ' pie and sauce' sized meal at it ( a large ungainly nymph ). The fight was an explosive affair that involved a fair bit of aerial work on the part of the fish and a fair bit of terrestial work by the angler especially after it cartwheelled over a large boulder into the rapid below and bolted downstream. She was quickly subdued after that effort and safely in the net. An absolute corker of a fish for the Thredbo. My own PB.
Some of the other fish caught.
Lake Eucumbene:- Has risen to 28.1 % over the past week. With the fishing improving with the rise.
Plenty of rainbows have been caught of late with fish condition improving.
Browns have been in excellent condition and have been on yabbies in a big way. They are still taking small flies but a large streamer would be a good bet to chase these fish.
Fast stripped or slowly worked beadhead nymphs are working well during the day on rainbows, with stick caddis, midge pupa or unweighted nymphs working well during the evenings. Beetle patterns on hot days may also be worth using as a few more beetles are starting to show on the water.
In some areas fish have been on snails so they are worth having in the box along with some klinkmers if the fish are on individual midge.
Fishing is excellent in the Middilingbank and Seven Gates areas and a few reports suggest the Angler's Reach area has picked up.
*Mark Tatterson from Boisdale fished 2 days for twenty fish in the Buckenderra area with his best fish being this 1.6kg brown.
Beadhead nymphs stripped fast worked best overall.
*Meg and Mick Couvee had a fun session last week landing seven between them. Meg hooked up first with Mick also hooking up as he walked over to take pics of Meg. Go the double!
Meg with her first fish for the night.
Mick landed this nice fish on his new outfit.
He loves it so much that he even forgot to pack his fly vest on this outing. Luckily his mates helped him out with leaders, tippet and flies.
*Managed this nice rainbow on Wednesday night before the rain hit. Dropped a couple and landed one other. Now praying for a warm night when the wind is from one direction.
*John Herzog has had a great couple of weeks chasing the browns out from Buckenderra. Though the numbers were not huge the size of some has been. His best fish was a whopping 4.5kg on a muddler minnow in very windy and rough conditions. The best conditioned fish he has caught from Eucumbene in thirty years. Will endeavour to get a photo of this fish for the report.
Lake Jindabyne:- Jindabyne reports have been quiet over the past week. The one report we have had suggests tough fishing and more fish working in the morning than evenings. This may depend on the day though.
Lake Tantangara :- Has started to drop and may well help the fishing as the lake had risen perhaps to rapidly with the rain of two weeks ago. There are still numbers of midge, damsels and beetles that have had the fish on the chew. Quality of the fish has been excellent but finding some that are feeding consistantly has been hard. Best flies will be small nymphs both beadhead and unweighed, stick caddis, caddis pupa, midge pupa, black and peacock spiders and woolly worms and buggers.
Trolling and Spinning
Eucumbene:- Eucumbene trolling reports have been better with both flat lining and leadcore working well. Drifting love grass has been playing havoc with props and troll lines.
Tassies have been working very well in the early hours in close.
Most of the fish being caught have been rainbows but there is always the chance of a brown.
Small Attack minnows in pink have accounted for several fish for one group while brown trout rapalas have been great for another boat.
Browns have been on yabbies overall so a deeper bodied minnow like the Rapala Jointed Shad Rap in 5 cm will get down and is a cracker for targeting these larger aggressive fish.
*Twelve year old Luke Mayers caught these two fish spinning in the Eucmbene river while on his school holidays.
Jindabyne:- Trolling reports have suggested Sids bay and the Islands (or what is left of them) nearby has been very good with some nice fat rainbows being taken. Small minnows and tassies, lofty's or stings are the best lure stlyes to use. Downrigging tassies will produce some great fish and keep an eye out on the sounder for any daphnea blooms as these are great fish magnets and the rainbows in particular have been feeding on these blooms.
*Hi Tom,
We fished Kalkite yesterday for a nice result. Trolling from early in the morning until mid afternoon we landed nine fish between two boats: couple of smaller rainbows and salmon that went back; two browns; and three rainbows. Early we caught fish on the flat lines with small Rapalas (rainbow and brown trout patterns). Later in the day we did better on leadcore with brown, yellow, red Tassie devils (e.g. red nose brown bomber, sunset frog). The five fish we kept ranged from 41 to 46 cms good fish! When we were cleaning we noticed quite a lot of what appeared to be small shrimp in all the fish, one brown had eaten a very large Christmas beetle.
There were a number of boats out (eight at the Kalkite ramp at one point) and most appeared to be catching some fish. At least one did very well on leadcore and Tassie devils all rainbows.
Good day was had by: Tom, Andre, Josh, Nick Penders; and Peter and Frances Spurgin.
Regards
Tom
Bait Fishing
We have a large range of Powerbait and Gulp in stock with many rainbows still being caught on a range of colours. Chunky Cheese, Sherbert Burst and Lime twist and lemon twist are still the standouts.
Best baits on Euc have been the above powerbaits and scrub worms. Seven Gates has been fishing very well as has Buckenderra.
There have been a few good catches on mudeyes. We have had varying supply but are working well if you can get them.
*Jim Baker had a great start to the new year with this nice new year's day brown on a Mudeye near Buckenderra.
*Antoinette and Danielle also spent some time on the water during their holidays and landed these lovely fish again on mudeyes. Check out the condition of the fish on the right.
Jindabyne has also fished well with plenty of good fishing to be had. Curiosity rocks and Hatchery being good locations to try.
The new Gulp Crickets are now in stock and will make a great substitute for a mudeye under a bubble. They look just like a mudeye so with a few colour choices and built in scent it would be amazing if they don't account for a few feisty rainbows and browns in the lakes.
