Headlines: It was a return to winter over the weekend with high winds, rain and a heap of snow up high.  While this made the fishing difficult, the water around for the streams and lakes will only help the fishing over the coming weeks.

The fishing over the long weekend is set to be fantastic with rising water in the lakes and plenty of good rainbows in the streams.

Don't forget to pop in and have a free tea or coffee on you way to the water.

Lake Eucumbene continues to rise and is now at 28% plus!  The ground being covered has not seen water for three years and there is plenty of food coming out of it which is attracting the fish in to the margins.  Bait and fly anglers should do very well this week.

And this is sort of quality fish have already been caught in the past week.  Super fat, super energetic, pocket rocket rainbows.  A blast to catch and great on the table too. 

The Yamaha and Freshwater Fishing Australia, Snowy Mountains Trout Festival is drawing closer. 

Dates are Saturday the 31st of October - Friday 6th of November 2009

This year sees the addition of a new 'soft plastics' category.   Once againg there is the chance to win a Quintrex boat, Yamaha Outboard Motor, Minn Kota electric motor and Humminbird sounder all on a trailer ready to go.

See www.troutfestival.com for more competition details

Opening 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:-   Reopen this Saturday the 3rd of October. 

With some good snowfalls in the area the mountain rivers will be flowing well for the opening.  The Eucumbene and Thredbo have good numbers of rainbows and should fish well.  Glo bugs and beadhead nymphs will be the optimum patterns for the Euc and Thredbo rivers.  Use plenty of weight to get the fly down as this is the most important part of the spawn run fishing equation.  A dead drift is also key to success. 

Bead head nymphs in black, brown, pheasant tail, copper john, green drake, olive, prince are all great patterns to fish in tandem with a glo bug.

Other rivers will also fish well and if the weather is warm enough some dry fly fishing is certainly on the cards.  Try patterns like the Elk hair caddis, klinkhamer, royal wullf, humpy, adams, bluewing olive, stimulator, bushy's emerger. 

The Moonbah, Murrumbidgee, Gungarlin, Eucumbene, Thredbo, Little Thredbo are all great rivers to have a look at over the weekend.

Lake Eucumbene:-  Fly reports have picked up with some nice fish being taken off the bank in several areas.  Evenings and first light on a morning have been the best though you can polaroid the dam wall area for good results at this time of year. 

*Above Brian Julian spent a few days in the Old Adaminaby area and managd a couple of nice fish including this near 2kg brown.  He said the lake looks fantastic and will be returning to catch some more soon.

*Danny Spelic and Mark Bulley fished Frying Pan recently landing eight fish that on fly between them in a couple of hours.
As they left, the fish started rising! According to Danny that part of the lake is looking a million bucks with midge already buzzing around and plenty of other food items around the edge.

Already there are reports of midges moving in the mornings and this should be the start of a great midge year.  Fish have been found to have lots of pin head sized black beetles as well as numerous small grubs in them.  These have been drowned with the rapidly rising water.  It is a great time to be on the lake at present.

The lake has plenty of non muddy bank access at and with the continuing rise of the lake will be this way for most of the season. 

Other anglers have reported some good boat based fly fishing as well.  The lake is really starting to fish well drifting and loch style fishing.

Try a Scruffy, Hamils, Simpson, Bugger, Fuzzy Wuzzy in likely looking spots with a bit of a drop off or soak and you should be able to hook up on a couple.

Midge pupa and other small size 14 and 16 wets and nymphs like stick caddis,  should do well in the shallow margins early and late also.

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

Lake Jindabyne:-  Jindabyne has picked up a little with a couple of quality fish caught by polaroiders recently.  The lake has risen a fair amount but the fish don't seem to be worried by it at this stage.

*Danny Spelic and a brownie that he got polaroiding at Jindy with Mark Bulley. It was hooked near the sticks and rock in the water just behind the fishes nose. They saw 6 fish in about 1.5 hours of fishing and never left the small bay in the
photo! Mark also managed to hook one (albeit momentarily) not far from
where this photo was taken.

Searching with a woolly bugger will produce a few nice ones or just wander the bank looking for fish and cast a small wet or nymph at any fish found cruising.  There is still a heap of weed in many of the bays that is drawing the fish in to the food that it holds.

Try Bushy's horror, gold ribbed hares ear, stick caddis and midge pupa.

Try the Eastern side during the morning and Western side in the early afternoon.

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

Lake Tantangara :-  Should fish well and with snow and rain in the catchment may rise again over the week.

Trolling and Spinning 

We have a large range of great trolling and casting lures in stock for the season, including a great colour range of McGrath divers, six blade/vibe stlye lures, New Celtas in rainbow and brown trout, New Metallic Gold Rapalas, Tassies, Lofty's, Sting's, Rebel, Viking, Stumpjumper, Jack's hopper, Flatfish, Strike Pro, TT, Squidgies,  Come in and pick our brains on where to use what.

Eucumbene:-  Eucumbene reports have been varied with wind playing havoc on the weekends. Deep trolling and drifting and casting lures amongst the timber are good methods to use at the moment.  Be aware that with the rising water there have been some logs and other debris starting to float and drift around the dam.  Keep an eye open for these while travelling around the lake.

Flat line trolling in very close in the shallower bays has produced some nice fish and the fish will move into shallow water early looking for food.  Drifting and casting small minnows or plastics will turn up some good rainbows and the odd brown in the hour or so around sunrise.  Look for any of the soaks and channels that have filled up with the rising level and work these areas over carefully.

Leadcore line trolling has been working well with tassies, cobras and vibes this week.  The deeper water off Cobrabald and Yens bays has produced some nice rainbows.

Boat Launching is available in many areas.  Anglers Reach, Buckenderra, Old Adaminaby, Dam wall.  

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

Jindabyne:- Jindabyne has produced some nice fish over the weekend with some great fish taken both trolling and spinning.

*Anthony Heiser did well recently trolling up a couple of good browns.

Trolling in the Kalkite and East Jindabyne area is a good place to start at present.  Creel bay and the Waste point area is also a great option.

Baitfishing 

The bait fishing in Eucumbene has been fantastic and will continue with the rising water.  Scrubworms have been doing very well as have Powerbait and Gulp bait.  Grubs will also be a great bait especially for browns that are starting to search the flooding bays.

Mudeyes will be available for the opening weekend too and should provide some good evening and early morning fishing.

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 risen considerably and will produce some excellent bait fishing as well over the weekend.  Grubs, Scrubbies and Powerbait will be the pick there.

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

Lake Levels

Jindabyne    54.6%  

Tantangara     10.8%

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.