G'day, fishos. Firstly, I'd like to say "Happy Freedom Day" to all Victorians, particularly any Melbournites who might happen to have come up our way to enjoy their hard-earned getaway.
My hat goes off to you for enduring such long lockdowns, and I wish you all the luck in the world if you're up here trying to extract a fish or two from one of our local waterways.
Hope some of the tips below might help you out.
Dartmouth (82.4 per cent): continues to fish well. We've had heaps of great reports from Dart, and most are still revolving around flatlining Tassies or maybe using lead line to get them down a little during the day. There's been a bit of success on downriggers but there just doesn't seem to be the necessity to have to go that deep ... yet.
We've been getting the normal spring mixed bag of weather, hot days, cool days, wet days, etc. and once we start getting that more consistent warm stuff, there's no doubt downriggers will come into their own.
A variety of colours are taking fish but the K - 9 series Tassies seem to be catching plenty, particularly the yellow winged "Golden Lab".
Streams: really started to pick up in quite a few areas last week. How much rain each individual valley got this week will determine if that will continue though.
Fly fishos will be enjoying these warm spring days because they usually result in all sorts of insect hatches, which usually result in lots of trout rising to the surface. A warm, muggy, still day at this time of year generally results in a massive termite hatch (flying ants) and trout just love it.
Brown and black ant imitations are a must in every fly fisho's box for the next few weeks because once those trout are focused on those ants, they get very selective and often refuse anything that doesn't resemble them.
Hume Dam (97.6 per cent): just read all the reports for the past 12 months; they're nearly all the same. Hume continues to produce fish of all varieties.
Ok, so it's nearly November; you'd really expect the trout to slow down a little over the next few weeks, the yellas and cod are just about to really fire up, and the reddies really haven't stopped.
Trout numbers were down a little this week, although there were still some belters landed.
Those K-9 Tassies are still as good as any out there and, as the weather warms up, maybe you'll want to drag them around on a lead line to just get them down that bit more.
Reddies are still chewing their little noggins off, and interestingly, it looks like they've virtually finished spawning.
Ducked out for a couple of hours late Tuesday arvo and kept 38, of which only two had eggs. That's versus the 30, of which 14 had eggs two weeks ago. Might also explain why they weren't in fantastic condition.
You'd expect that to change over the next month or so.
Yellowbelly and cod numbers jumped considerably this week. We had one customer troll up 14 yellas in a session, along with some reasonable redfin. He had the kids in the boat too, and I'll bet they haven't stopped talking about it.
Matt Mildren actually picked up two cod on Wednesday evening, one of about 400mm and a much smaller one, which is also fantastic to see.
Murray: above Hume is shaping up beautifully for cod opening.
There's an occasional yella being caught up that way, but cod fishos that enjoy the river up there are getting super excited about this year's prospects. It's been a couple of tough years, on and off the water up that way, caused by issues after those devastating fires.
Jingellic and Walwa both offer accommodation on, and close to, the river, so I'd be getting in soon if you need some.
Blowering (97.4 per cent): just keeps on improving. Some nice yellas and reddies are getting caught around the edges on lure and bait, along with a couple of decent cod.
It's been improving for the last week or three now and we're getting more positive reports all the time.
Snowy Lakes: are ok without being brilliant. Euc at 41.6 per cent is still rising and looking sensational, I believe. It's hard to imagine it won't fish well this summer.
Let's hope you can get out somewhere this weekend.
