Lake Eucumbene

[daniel944]

Friday just passed Dad and I headed up to Anglers Reach on Lake Eucumbene for some trout fishing. After a long trip (Bobyean Rd closed, had to turn around and go back to Canberra then down the Monaro Hwy) we arrived at 10:30pm. Under the almost full moon I could see the glimmer of the Lake and it was clear already that the lake had risen some way since my last visit on the Australia Day weekend.

The next morning we woke to some spectacular views. A quick check of the snowy hydro web site revealed that the lake had not been at this level since 2005. Most of the ugly rocky banks have now been covered and all the grass is green and lush. My guess is the lake has encroached 10m horizontally from a month ago. Any way time to cut the grass and clean up and go fishing after lunch!

We decided to head to Braemar bay to troll around, although when we got there I decided to walk the bank with a spinning rod hoping that the trout would be in the newly covered water. Well, I should have stayed on the boat as it wasn’t more than 15 mins when Dad held up a rainbow of about 30cm. I walked all around, getting covered in the hundreds of spiders that have made for higher ground as the lake is rising… Interesting side point, I collected a few spiders about 15mm long that looked a lot like a red rebel ant, shame that lures discontinued but lucky I have a stash! Anyhow two hours later I hadn’t seen one fish, so we decided to go back for beer and bbq. Dad had caught one more rainbow to about 35cm.

After dinner we headed back to the same area for some fly and lure fishing. When we arrived, there were three other boats all fly fishing. After a quick survey of the area and noting that no one had caught anything, I decided to stick with lure. After an hours casting I saw one fish rise quite away from the shore. Lucky I had a devil on as no other lure would have come close in casting distance. Two casts latter and I had him, but not without a fight! When he first hit he took 10m of line out, here was I thinking I had a monster, but it turned out that I hadn’t set the drag properly! He was a rainbow to 31cm, the only fish caught in that bay that night, proving once again that lure out fishes fly!

Sunday morning we planed to head to the dam wall for a quick troll around before heading back to Sydney. Boat launched, motor ideling out while we don life jackets and take waders off. I go to straighten the wheel and open the throttle when the wheel goes loose and the boat turns a sharp left. Quick snap back to neutral and investigation reveals a broken steering cable. Bummer! But not the end of the day, down goes the Minn kota and we start trolling around anglers reach. Its not too long and we have had a hit, then another and finally a rainbow at around 30cm in the boat. We keep trolling for a little longer and the Minn kota stops! How much bad luck can we have? Heres where bright spark decides to disconnect the drag link from the outboard and drop the happy troller and keep going. Good idea in theory, right until you start to try and man handle a 60hp Yamaha 4 stroke. Even at 1000rpm she was hard to hand onto. All the effort was repaid though with a brown to 45cm and a rainbow at 40cm. When the wind picked up we left it as it became almost impossible to control the boat. So we knocked her up to 1500rpm then ran to the back of the boat with both of us hanging onto the outboard for grim death!

Another BBQ lunch with a couple of beers and were off. Now heres where I’m glad I wasn’t driving, as we head out of Adaminaby a RBT waves us down. Dad had drunk two beers, as had I, and I knew he would be right at the limit. Luckily though the cop was more interested in talking about fishing then anything else! Luckily he blew under and we left for a slow but uneventful trip back to Sydney via Cooma.

[Bundyrock]

Great report. I'm new to freshwater fishing so any info on catching trout on lures is welcome.

[daniel944]

G'day Bundyrock

Great time to get into trout fishing. With all the lakes rising or at capacity the fishing is quite good. Regarding lures, it depends on where your fishing and how. Most of my experience is fishing lures from the bank (spinning) so ill start there. My all time favourite lure is the rainbow trout immation Tassie Devil in the size one up from the smallest (most common one sold) They cast like bullets and always seem to fool fish that are on the prowl. After that any brightly colored celta works well or those sinking minnows with blades. I tend to like to always keep moving. The funniest fishing I ever had was watching my brother fly fishing the one piece of water for 3 hours to catch nothing. When he gave up and in order to prove a point I cast out 5 meters to his left and caught a fish then went five meters to his right and caught another. I even used his fly rod to do it!

Best of luck

Daniel

[Bundyrock]

Cheers.