G’DAY fishos.
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Oops! My first job this week is to apologise to those that might have got a bit excited when I moved the Victorian trout opening forward a few days.
The actual opening time is midnight this Friday, September 5, not on Monday, September 1, as I reported last week.
I’m very sorry for any confusion and getting quite a few keen trout stream fishermen’s pulses racing.
This now means we still have six sleeps to go, well, probably 5½ because you can never sleep properly the night before trout opening.
While on trout, there’s a couple of crews in the high country who have been having a bit of a crack at the Eucumbene and Jindabyne lakes.
Crew number one headed for Eucumbene a week or so ago then swapped to Jindy Monday arvo.
It seems fishing was best early in the trip, although not without some excitement, particularly in the first 24 hours.
We had reports of two separate incidents of cars backing into fellow group members’ cars, one with a driver in control and one without.
Luckily very little damage was done to any of them.
There was another lucky escape when Pat Gallagher lost a box full of “Jackals” lures over the side of the boat, while travelling only to have another member find them floating in the middle of the lake the next day.
The main incident was left to “Poddy” (world’s best concreter) — after a slight tangle in the dark it was decided to head for home (Old Adaminaby).
For those that don’t know, Poddy has got himself one of those imported American Bass boats.
This one should be named “the Exocet” and according to Poddy there’s only one speed.
Luckily his foot had only been on the floor a very short time and warp speed hadn’t yet been attained when they hit that old dead tree.
Luckily only a Minn Kota electric motor, a fish-finder and Poddy’s pride were damaged.
Oh, and Scott Mackie and Pat Gallagher also lost a rod and reel over the side.
It was apparently bumped out of a rod holder during the excitement of landing a good trout.
I suppose it’s not really lost, they know exactly where it is but just can’t get to it at the moment.
Among all this frivolity, the boys managed 60 trout at Eucumbene up to 2.7 kilograms, so I suppose you could say they’ve had a character-building trip so far.
At time of writing they had managed 35 trout up to 2.3 kilograms at Jindabyne without too much incident (not that they’ve told me about anyway).
Group number two consists of Mick Zanardo, Kelvin Smith, Mick Clancy and Adam Hunter.
These boys got to Jindy on Tuesday arvo and at the time of writing had 20 trout, also up to 2.3 kilograms. There’s a couple of photos on the Compleat Angler facebook site.
Most fish in both crews have been trolled on a mixture of eight-centimetre Nilmasters, large Rapala Minnows and Jackal TN60 and Mask Vibes.
Mick also managed a nice 1.4-kilogram brook trout on a 50-millimetre Jackal.
The Murray around Albury has jumped pretty dramatically in the past week or two, with releases going from 600 megalitres a day to over 16,000.
This has given the fish a bit of a kick in the pants, with yellas, cod and trout having a bit of a go.
Both bait and lures are working, but don’t forget cod season closes on Monday.
Haven’t heard a lot from Mulwala, but you’d hope this flush would kick it on a bit too.
The warmer weather is making a difference to Lake Hume.
The Commercial Club fishing section had a local comp and picked up some nice fish last weekend.
Ray and Wendy Law trolled some very nice redfin, the biggest being 1.1 kilograms, with nine in total.
There were also seven yellas and three cod weighed in.
Six of the yellas were angled at one tree by one boat (the biggest being 4.7 kilograms), while the cod came in from all over the place.
Lyn Muir caught an undersized one which had to go back, while club stalwart Gus also had one go back.
Since the weekend I’ve heard of another two cod from Lake Hume and a few more yellas, both angled and trolled.
Things are looking up, I suppose it’s this beautiful weather that kicked them off a little early.
The Bidgee is still fishing well, Burrinjuck has improved with a few yellas and the odd cod.
Even my young bloke Sam nailed a good one a week or two back.
He used a ruby accessorised with diamonds on white gold to catch a “fairy”.
Congratulations to Annalise Johnston and Sam Mason on your engagement.