Lake Lyell Trout 3/5/08

[Luringbream]

All the recent trout reports circulating the forums of late has had me intrigued and the random decision to drive up to lake lyell was pondered on at a very late hour on friday night which had the missus and i preparing gear(and food) for the next morning. Having never caught a trout before, i ran a quick search on the forums hoping to educate myself as much as possible and find any useful information.

We arrived at the lake at 8am and having no clue as to where the fish might be, we decided to ask a couple of guys that were camping out and they were more than welcoming and full of great knowledge of the area. They directed us to a steep point which they said they found good showings on the sounder the previous day. Anyhow we made our way over to this steep point equipped with 4 2kg bream outfits and powerbait nuggets. I was told by the caretaker to use a light bead sinker with roughly .5-1m of leader and a size 10-14 hook so that the nugget would rise above the bottom and resemble fish eggs (This apparently was the key ingredient to catching lake lyell rainbows and browns from the bank).

I have no idea what i was doing wrong(maybe someone can tell me), i kept getting snagged and losing bait without the slightest of touches. During this free-freeding process(for the trout anyways) we managed to hook, snag and de-snag a 27cm rainbow trout and although it was small it was my first and i was stoked. After a solid 3 hours for one fish we made the trip back to town to have a bit of lunch and relax before we returned for the afternoon session at around 4pm.

We spoke to a few chaps down at the boat ramp and even those guys were doing it tough with one rainbow being landed between the 3 boats that retrieved. Anyhow, we shifted spots and we were well and truly into our second jar of powerbait but still no more fish or touches to account for. So i decided to tie on a 3" berkley bass minnow and teach the missus how to use softplastics. Within the first 5 minutes and only a few metres of the retrieve left, the minnow was smashed and i was on again!! This was a better fish and as i handed the rod to the missus, the rainbow trout began leaping out of the water clearing 1m+. It put up a great fight and measured 42cm . A couple of casts later the minnow got smashed once again however this time by a brown trout and a short tussle had the brown of 45.5cm on ice.

It was now around 5:30pm and we had caught 2 fish in quick succession and left after another 10 or so casts as the sun and temperature faded. I regret not flicking plastics earlier in the day, it may have resulted in a many more trout or perhaps it was just a coincidence.

The catch..

Anyhow, my first trout fishing experience was great and i can recommend it to anyone who is contemplating heading that way.

Regards,

Daniel

[jenno64]

Great report ther Luringbream

I have a theory that a change of tactics is quite often the fish producer Well done on persevering and getting a nice feed!

Cheers, Rob

[Hodgey]

Great report, Daniel. That's pretty impressive results for someone who has never caught a trout before

It's amazing how often saltwater principles, particularly when fishing plastics, succeed on freshwatwer fish. Well done mate!

Hodgey

[Penguin]

Congrats on your 1st Trout capture, I bet they tasted good to.

penguin

[Luringbream]

Thanks for all the kind words guys, i appreciate it.

It's amazing how often saltwater principles, particularly when fishing plastics, succeed on freshwatwer fish. Well done mate!

Hodgey

Too true, soft plastics produce great results no matter where you flick them. I use my bream outfit offshore on small tuna and they absolutely trash the plastics. Next i'm going to target trout with poppers, i don't see how a trout wouldn't mistake a popper for a small insect.

Congrats on your 1st Trout capture, I bet they tasted good to.

I really didnt know what to expect of them but we had them last night and they were superb. The brown was much more tastier than the rainbows.

Regards,

Daniel