Headlines: Excellent, fantastic, unbelievable, amazing, incredible, just some of the words that describe the fishing in Lake Eucumbene at present. Bait, fly and lure anglers have been tapping in on this bonanza and the fishing should continue for a few weeks yet. 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.
The river fishing for fly and lure anglers has also been very good of late, though many anglers are giving the streams a miss to hit the lake while it is firing.
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Flyfishing
Rivers:- Mountain streams have had a good top up over the weekend with the Eucumbene flowing stongly. Levels will drop fairly quickly and will provide some god fishing over the next week. Weather and temps have been cool recently but with a return to some warmer days the dry fly fishing is going to be sensational.
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.
There have been alot of small hoppers showing and this augers well for the coming weeks.
A nymph suspended under the dry during the day is a good method to use, but a dry at dusk will have best results.
Other rivers to fish are the Thredbo, Moonbah, Mac, Snowy, Gungarlin, and a few other smaller high country creeks.
Lake Eucumbene:- The lake is offically firing.
It has taken a while but it has fished much better again this past week. We have had plenty of reports of great fishing around the edges both during the day and evenings. Conditions have been varied but mostly windy which has made the fishing challenging at times, but there are 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 have all been on the menu. You need to find the areas where the fish are working. They are not everywhere. 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.
*Stuart Sturgeon in action on the weekend.
*Phil Lopilato with one of the many solid rainbows he has been catching recently.
*Managed a couple of nice fish, amongst others, myself this week. Rainbows that went hard and weighed in at 1.3 and 1kg.
*Matt Daniel and Colin Myles caught a few nice ones.
*Pete and Dave had a fantastic four days on the Eucumbene catching 70 plus fish. They caught alot out of the boat by casting back towards shore. Small nymphs were the best flies though a few ate Woolly Worms. They only kept a few choice rainbows and released the rest. Great fishing fellas.
*Hi Tom,
Fished the Eucumebene over the weekend with my mate Roger at your
recommendation and am happy to report that the fishing was just as you
predicted. Bumped into the usual suspects (Mudeye, Scott Tucker etc) and
had an absolute ball fishing the flooded margins on Sat night and Sunday
morning. Caught several rainbows on nymphs, small wets and dries all on
floating lines in knee deep water. Landing some of the fish was a bit
tricky due to the thistles, but if you kept a tight line and got their
heads up you could steer them into the net without too much trouble. All
fish were around the 40cm mark, some in better condition than others.
Cheers
Danny Spelic
There have been a few hoppers on the water and the trout are eating them also.
Areas to look at are Seven gates, Buckenderra, Braemar, Cobrabald, Waiunui, 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.
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 :- A few fish have been on the go in the evenings and though not all big have provided some fun for a few anglers.
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.
*Ivan, Mick, George and Mijo from Sydney went home a day early last week as they cleaned up on the troll and bait catching forty plus fish. Most fish were caught on three colours of leadcore and tassie devils. When asked what colour was best 'didn't matter' was the reply. They also got some nice ones on mudeyes off the bank. Best fish was a 2kg brown and 1.5kg rainbow.
White rocks, Anglers Reach and Coppermine 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.
Boat launching in Eucumbene is available at Old Adaminaby, The Dam Wall, Anglers Reach, Buckenderra.
Jindabyne:- Jindabyne trolling reports have been scarce but there are bound to be some good fish taken by those who fish it this weekend.
Tantangara:- No Reports.
Baitfishing :- Mudeyes have been a key bait over the last week though Powerbait is doing exceptionally well in Eucumbene. The Gulp Chunky Chartreuse has taken over from Lime Twist as the Powerbait of choice of late.
*Matt Sturgeon had a good session with Mudeyes in Eucumbene late last week. Fish pictured below.
Bait fishing has been excellent in Jindabyne with Gulp Power bait and standard Powerbait.
There will be some great fishing for Rainbows in the next few weeks in both lakes with some really fat fish in Eucumbene and some nice ones in Jindabyne as well.
