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Plenty of info this week with several good reports emailed in to me.  Fly fishing in Eucumbene has been good to excellent depending on location and weather on the day.  A couple of good reports from trollers this week.  Some cooler temps and a little rain over late Tuesday should see the great lake fishing continue for some time. 

Brogo Bass Bash competitor Dave Maurier with a couple of the seventeen he caught on the weekend. 

Dave won the fly section with the largest and most bass caught for the two day competition.

Summer Season Store Trading Hours

Mon-Thursday  9am - 5:30pm

Friday       9am - 7pm

Saturday  7am - 5.30pm

Sunday     8am - 4:30pm

FISHING LICENCES These are available online and you can purchase them directly from the NSW fisheries website with a credit card.  Click on this link below.

https://www.licence.nsw.gov.au/gls_eservice/renewals/Application.aspx 

Note: We do not have licences available through the store with Cash or EFT.  We can do them online with a MasterCard or Visa only. 

Flyfishing

Rivers:-  Have continued to fish well with plenty of fish and insects about for them to eat.  Dry fly fishing has been great in most of the mountain streams and the evening rises have been great when conditions allow.

Reports over the weekend have been good though many reported only getting smaller fish in the Eucumbene. 

There are a myriad of smaller streams that have been fishing well of late and certainly dries have been very effective.  Light rods, light tippets and small flies are the go for some good fun in these waters.

Caddis and Mayflies have been hatching in many streams so patterns representing these are good options at present.

There have been many productive patterns worth using of late.  Try Wullfs, Humpys, klinkhamers, parachute adams, elk hair caddis, blue wing olive, greenwells glory, black epoxied foam beetles and parachute caddis.

The Moonbah, Murrumbidgee, Gungarlin, Eucumbene, Thredbo are all great rivers to have a look at over the next few weeks.

Lake Eucumbene:-  Fly reports have been consisant and there are plenty of fish on the go.  For some areas daybreak and early mornings have been best, while in others the evenings have produced good rises.

If you can jag a day without too much wind and good cloud cover the fishing should really fire.  If the day is bright then you may need to fish deep till their is shadow on the water.  If there are numbers of midge over the water, theses are good areas to start looking for moving fish. 

It can take several trips to work out where and what the fish are up to, so it pays to keep trying.  If you are lucky and the weather conditions are favourable some great fishing can be had.

*Fished Sunday night for thirteen hookups and nine landed between myself and my brother in law Jose.   The fish didn't move till the north west wind dropped a little and the sun dissapeared behind the hill at around 7.45pm.  Size 14 black midge pupa worked well and then the midge ball was the pick as the light dissapeared.

Jose with an average rainbow taken on a ball.

*Report regular Kieran O'Shannassy has been spending plenty of time on the lake over the past week and has not missed out catching a fish yet.

A nice brown was landed then released on a recent sojourn to the lake.

*Hi Tom,

As promised, here is a brief summary from the weekends fishing with my two
boys Niki and Tomi. We fished the Seven Gates/Frying Pan area of lake
Eucumbene on Saturday after lunch and managed to hook 2 nice fish from the
boat loch style fishing within the first 10 minutes of hitting the water.
After a bit more searching and after losing another couple at the net, we
decided to try fishing off the bank as the sun started to set behind the
hills. The bays that contained drowned thistles were the most productive as
they were absolutely full of midge. The midge were so thick in places that
I was finding them the next day at home in my fridge and camera case!

The fish started to rise just on sunset and some very close to shore taking
balling midge off the surface. My eldest son Niki (10 yrs) managed to hook
two fish on the dry fly (midge ball) pictures attached. I also caught
several on both midge ball patterns and blood worm pupa. I bumped into my
mates from Tumut Geoff Naylor and Mick Green who also caught fish in the
same bay that evening. We had the better of the action as we were on the
eastern shore which concentrated the food in the westerly breeze.  The
following morning we tried the same area and hooked some more just on sun
rise. All fish took the midge pupa over the ball and a couple of them were
really good rainbows that gave a great account of themselves in shallow
water amongst the thistles. The trick was to keep the line tight and move
the fly ever so slightly. The fish did the rest. Although the water level
has dropped a little, there are still some good fish to be found. The boys
are hooked and are nagging me to go back again this weekend!

Cheers
Danny

If you have the chance now is the time to start fishing the lake and if you were ever keen to try your hand with a fly rod then now would be a great time to take the plunge.

Areas to look at are Wangrabelle,  Seven Gates, Buckenderra,  Mill's Point, Braemar, Springwood, Yens and Cobrabald.

Lake Jindabyne:-  Jindabyne has been very quiet report wise though there would be some fish around the edges on dark.  May be a good option for those looking for a quality brown.

Sids and Rushes bay, Kalkite are all worth a look as is Hatchery bay, Hayshed bay and Kangaroo bay.

Lake Tantangara :- No reports this week.

Trolling and Spinning 

Eucumbene:-  Eucumbene trolling has been pretty good for some with Tassies still taking most of the fish. 

Spinning off the shore with tassies, plastics, vibes and snowy minnows will produce some good rainbows at the moment even in the middle of the day.  Give it a try.

*Anglers fishing out of Buckenderra on Friday had a top session hooking seventeen fish on flatline tassies.  36, y82, and Y48 were the pick of the colours.  There was cloud cover during the morning and the fishing slowed when the sun came out.

Tassies, cobras and vibes on leadcore are a great option. 

Best areas to try would be Anglers Reach, Dam Wall, and Buckenderra.

*Hey Guys,  A quick report on our weeks worth of Trouting.  We didnt really make it past Eucumbene despite our plans too, the fishing was that good we decided there wasnt any point in travelling further afield.  We alternated between Middlingbank and Rushy Plains and found fish on every session.  The amount of Rainbows feeding is staggering and they were all solid fish ranging from 600g up to 1.05kg.  Most were taken on lures (Vibrax) but more than a handful fell to Red Tags in the evening rise or Woolly Buggers when the wind stopped a rise occurring.   Finding Browns was tough however but we did account for a couple, the best going 1.35kg and was taken on dusk on a Red Tag.   

We ended up with around 25 fish, not a huge number but more than enough for Dad and I.

*Hi Guys,

Had a bit of a look around a few different streams from Paddys River to Eucumbene River and although the weather was atrocious the fishing was fantastic.  Spent a fair bit of the day teaching Sam how to spin fish and he caught his first Trout ever albeit a sub 25cm Paddys Rainbow, the smile on his face was huge. 

After moving onto the Eucumbene river late in the evening, we saw a number of large trout in some of the ponds on the river but non where feeding and where easily spooked, and no matter what was thrown at then it was ignored.  I decided to try a Rainbow trout pattern Rapala xrap.  This saw a big change in attitude of the fish.  One 52CM brown decided he would take it and run a few ponds to get away where i pursued in the pouring rain. 6deg air temp and well the water was much the same if not cooler.  After untangling the net and getting it out we landed this Big river buck.

A few others where landed with one being so aggressive that the trebles made it to the back of the gills puncturing the heart, the fight came to a rapid bloody end.

After wards we found that these browns where literally stuffed to the hilt with small trout, with the larger 52cm trout having a 12cm +-2cm trout inside its stomach half dissolved.  This really proves how much of a predator the Wild Browns are.

We landed some 15 fish for the day, kept 3 between the 2 of us, a very cold wet, miserable and yet amazing fishing experience.  This cooler start to the season and plenty of Alpine Rainfall has seen the rivers staying up with the large river goers staying longer than in previous years.

Giles Doolan

Jindabyne:- Jindabyne has continued to troll well over the last week with leadcore being the pick of the methods.

*David Scarlett reports that he and Simon Freebody did very well in the Kalkite area, while using the downrigger, on the weekend Fish were between six and twelve metres and yellow winged tassies were the pick of the lures.  They caught several good rainbows.

*Rodney Kennedy caught this very nice brown at Kalkite on rainbow candy Gulp.  He also caught four trolling Tassie devils.

Trolling in the Kalkite and East Jindabyne area is a good place to start at present. Around the township and deep drop off cliffs on the eastern side are great places to find some good browns. Creel bay and the Waste point area is another area worth working.

The bait fishing in Eucumbene has been good with many anglers catching a couple per session.  Orange nuggets, lime twist and lemon twist have been the best colours overall with chunky cheese gulp being a popular colour too.

Mudeyes have produced a few more fish this week and they should improve rapidly over the next two weeks.

Cooler days and evenings have provided better fishing with scrubworms and grubs over the past week.   Mudeyes have been a good option for right on dark and if it has been a warmer day and the evening is the same, these would be the best bait in the evenings.

During the day scrubworms, grubs or powerbait will work. 

*Gday,
 
Fished overnight with the girlfriend last Friday at Seven Gates.
we managed 5 plump rainbows around 48 - 50cm 
the action was very hot once we figured out what colour powerbait they were after (red nuggets) but couldnt seem to hook-up and lost well over 10 fish!
Also took my new fly rod for my very 1st crack at the sport and managed to hook up to a monster brown early morning it was gorging in close on what i think were midges, even though I lost it halfway through the fight, the adrenaline was still pumping for days.
I think im well and truly hooked on my new form of fishing and cant wait to give it another crack!
 
Nic with her 1st ever rainbow trout
 
Cheers, Josh
 

*Below Rudi Gerhardt with a super fat rainbow taken on a mudeye.  This is one of two taken in the Buckenderra area.

*Tanya Beckmann holding a couple of nice fish taken on the weekend.   Fishing with Johnny 'scrubworm' Pene, Tanya got a nice one on Powerbait.  Johnny ended up with three rainbows from 40- 43cm, these were taken on mudeyes fished on the bottom.  They were fishing out of Buckenderra.

There are hundreds of likely looking bays, soaks and corners in the lake at present but the ususal haunts of Seven Gates, Buckenderra, Yens Bay, Cemetary point and Anglers Reach are the pick of the areas overall.

Jindabyne has been a little quiet report wise but will produce some excellent bait fishing as over the weekend.  Mudeyes Grubs, and Powerbait will be the pick there.

Try areas like Rushes Bay, Hatchery Bay, The Clay pits, Curiosity rocks and Kalkite.

Lake Levels

Jindabyne    59.5%  

Tantangara     7.4%

Cheers Tom

Got any reports from the local lakes or rivers?

If so, email them along with pictures to info@alpineangler.com.au  for inclusion in our weekly report.