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Jindy Fishing trip 2 and the Snowy Mountains Trout Festival


GordoRetired

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OK, where do I start..... I have just returned from fishing 10 days straight on Lake Jindabyne and words like Awesome, Epic, Fantastic and just good plain fun come to mind..

I drove down from Sydney on the Friday morning, an early start saw me arriving in Jindy just before 1.00pm. Went into Snowy Mountain Sports and registered myself for the Snowy Mountains Trout Festival and as I am a member of the Jindabyne Fishing Club I registered for their comp that runs in parallel.  

Then it was off to the temporary boat ramp at the Clay pits to launch for an afternoon fish. That day the weather was stunning so I sat back in shorts and tee shirt enjoying the sun as I cruised around the lake looking for some fish. As the afternoon drew on I hooked my first fish of the trip, a nice Brown that went around 35cm

That was it for my first day but I was happy as I had a nice fish.

Day 1 of the Comp. I hit the water around 5.30am, just before sun up. It was a slow fishing day but I did manage one nice Brown during the morning session that went just over 50cm and another during the afternoon, so 2 for the day which was not all bad. It also meant that I weighed my first fish for the comp. I also had the pleasure of meeting up with another Fishraider member Arthur Kelly who gave me  few hints and tips. Funny really, he said that he was heading into Tailors Bay as he had seen some good fish there so I met up with him on the water in Tailors Bay. An hour later he had caught 4 fish and I was still trying... 🙂

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Comp Day 2 not too busy in the morning but managed a small Rainbow when I headed into Tailors bay again. Then at lunchtime one of the guys from Snowy Mountain Sports mentioned that his best mate was looking for a boat to fish off and asked if I would be interested in having him come out with me. As the guy was a local I figured that I had nothing to lose and could get someone who could show me around the lake so I agreed to meet up with him later that afternoon.

So I met up with Ollie at around 3.30 and off we went. I have to say that for 19 he seemed to have the wisdom of someone far older when it came to chasing the elusive trout. We tried a couple of spots with no luck, but Ollie was working hard, changing lures, changing depths and constantly trying to find something to turn the fish on... Well what happened next was fantastic. We were trolling along and hooked up, nice Brown into the boat, trolled back over the same area and hooked up again, nice Brown into the boat, trolled back over the same area and hooked up again, nice Brown into the boat.. This went on for best part of 2 hours and as it was finally dark we packed up and headed back to the ramp with 8 good sized Browns in the boat.... We threw back a smaller one and lost a decent one. 

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With that great session things were set for the week, I had a permanent companion on the boat and we had a blast. They say that you can not teach an old dog new tricks and many say that older people really do not listen to the youth of today. Well let me tell you that this old dog learnt a lot of new tricks from the young lad during the following 4 days, he was a pleasure to have on the boat and I look forward to fishing with him again.

Comp day 3 - This turned into a steady day with quite a few miles between fish, having said that we did catch, with 4 during the morning session and 4 more during the afternoon session. 

This was the day that the weather turned, we had 40kph winds that had my little Quintrex bouncing around all over the place, however some say that the bouncing puts extra action into the lures as the down-rigger bombs bounce up and down. It sure helped with my biggest Brown of the comp, it hooked up as we were just about to bring in the lines and pack up for the morning due to the wind. It went 55cm and got me the second biggest Brown in the Jindy Fishing Club comp.

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Comp day 4 - Again the weather was not our friend. We had some rain and plenty of wind, however it was not a bad fishing day, with 2 in the morning and 4 more during the afternoon. These were mainly 'average' fish for the comp, all between 35cm & 45cm. So good fish but not spectacular.

Comp day 5 - This was our best yet and saw a selection of fish find our lures. Including the monster Salmon below 🙂

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Total fish count for the day was 1 Salmon and 11 Browns to make it our best day of the week.

Comp day 7 - I started the day with a strike within a few minutes of us starting to troll.... Unfortunately that was it for me all day, however Ollie landed 8 Browns for the day so overall a good day on the boat.

So that was it for the comp but not for me, the morning of the presentation saw me on the water again at 5.00am, caught 1 nice Brown, then headed off to the presentation for the Snowy Mountains Trout Festival, no prizes for me or Ollie, but fun to meet more of the fishermen and hear their stories. Seems that with our total capture of around 50 fish for the week we had done a lot better than many others, even if we did not win any of the size based prizes.
I was also very please to get tied 4th in the Jindy Fishing Club comp.

Then out again in the afternoon for a nice 43cm Rainbow.

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Day after the comp - out early caught a couple of reasonable sized Salmon, both around 35cm and 4 Browns.

Then my last day, 10th day straight fishing I had another good day catching 6 more fish including a 50cm Brown that put up the best fight of the week. It had shoulders on it like an American Footballer and pulled like a train. It would have taken me a good 10 minutes or more to get it to the boat. The others were 1 Salmon, 1 Rainbow and the rest Browns.

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The last fish was a great end to what had been a really fun week so I headed in early for a relaxing beer and tidying up of the boat in preparation for the drive back to Sydney.

During the 10 days we experienced all sorts of weather, from shorts and tee shirt weather to raining and so cold that I was wearing a ski jacket to fish in, and fishing conditions, from double hook ups, fish jumping off lures and the mad bite of the Sunday where they seemed to almost want to jump in the boat.

This was sunrise one day. Unfortunately there is a saying, red sky in morning shepherds warning so as pretty as it was it was a precursor to a day of heavy rain....

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There was some heavy wind 40kph +, but we also experienced some wonderful calm days..as well as pretty much everything in between.

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My boat coped a hammering, when I worked out how much time it spent on the water I figure it saw around 100 hours of use, booked it in for a service next week as I am sure it now needs one....

A BIG shout out to Ollie for his help during the comp I am sure that without his experience and enthusiasm there would have been a lot less fish caught, to Snowy Mountain Sports for their advice and guidance - make sure to drop in any time you need some fishing gear when in Jindy, to Arthur Kelly for his help and advice and to my good mate Geoff who put up with a smelly old fisherman crashing at his place for 10 nights.

Thinking that the next trip maybe the Jindabyne Fishing Club comp in December... wonder if the wife will mind if I clear off again for another week????

Tight lines all.

 

 

Edited by GordoRetired
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Great to catch up with you again Gordon. You obviously had a great week of fishing and learned some new tricks. No point getting older if you don’t get smarter they say!! Always good to learn from a local. 

Look forward to catching up again up there. 

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18 minutes ago, zmk1962 said:

Awsome report on what was obviously an unforgettable trip. Glad to see you're having a blast Gordon !   All the bast mate.

Cheers Zoran

Thanks Zoran. I certainly have been enjoying retired life after IBM.... Hope you have been catching a few too. 🙂

 

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That's an absolute cracker of a week in Jindy Gordon. You got some fantastic fish and in great numbers.

I recall one of your previous reports from Jindy you mentioned that you used the fishing Almanac following advice from the Sports Store!

Was it useful this time?

Dave

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3 hours ago, Mullatt said:

That's an absolute cracker of a week in Jindy Gordon. You got some fantastic fish and in great numbers.

I recall one of your previous reports from Jindy you mentioned that you used the fishing Almanac following advice from the Sports Store!

Was it useful this time?

Dave

That is a great question and the answer is both Yes and No. The Almanac rates days as Poor, Fair, Good and Best. Saturday rated as Fair and I got a couple of fish, Sunday rated as Good and we had a fantastic session. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all rated as Fair and we had 8 fish, 6 fish and 12 fish, Wednesday being the best day of the 10 days I was there. Then Thursday rated as Good, we got 7. Friday, Saturday and Sunday rated as Best, I was only fishing on my own and not putting in the same hours as earlier in the week, I caught a reasonable few, 14 over the 3 days, but it was not as hot a bite as the Wednesday.

None of the days were rated as poor, So I guess that based on that the Almanac was pretty much on the money.. 

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Great report, sounds like you had a awesome trip away, nothing like having local knowledge to help fine tune your fishing techniques, that yellow wing is one of my go to did most of the fish come from flatlining or downrigging & what was the best lure of the trip, every time we go in June the lure favoured by the fish seems to change👍🙂👍

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7 hours ago, 61 crusher said:

Great report, sounds like you had a awesome trip away, nothing like having local knowledge to help fine tune your fishing techniques, that yellow wing is one of my go to did most of the fish come from flatlining or downrigging & what was the best lure of the trip, every time we go in June the lure favoured by the fish seems to change👍🙂👍

Most fish came on down-riggers. I made my own, not exactly conventional but I cast a couple of lead balls the size of tennis balls as that gave me approx 4lb each and hang them off a 5mm rope. I have knots on the rope at 5, 10, 15 & 20m so that I can quite easily tie the rope off on the side of the boat to get the lures down to the depth I want. All the local fishing club member laughed at them until they found out how many fish we caught off them... They still laughed but not quite so enthusiastically 🙂

Very few of the fish came on flat-lines, however Ollie was running his lures on lead lines off a planner board to get them wide and he caught a lot of the fish.

As for Lures, the gold one in the pictures caught quite a few, but then so did  red's, pink's and a fluro green one. Seemed to change by the hour, let alone the day.

Edited by GordoRetired
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Thought as much, they tend to be a bit deeper tho time of year, good on you for showing them up on your improvised down rigger, interesting about variedlure colours working  probably to do with light conditions & time of day, have you seen the planers from whitties they are fully adjustable & run a lot further back away from boat noise & know spooking of fish, did you guys run any deep diving hard bodies by chance

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2 minutes ago, 61 crusher said:

Thought as much, they tend to be a bit deeper tho time of year, good on you for showing them up on your improvised down rigger, interesting about variedlure colours working  probably to do with light conditions & time of day, have you seen the planers from whitties they are fully adjustable & run a lot further back away from boat noise & know spooking of fish, did you guys run any deep diving hard bodies by chance

Ollie ran a couple of hard bodied lures off his lead lines and got fish on them. I only have Tassies so stayed with them.

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Hi Gordo. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your well-detailed report of 10 consecutive days fishing. Not something I have ever been tempted to do as I have plenty of time freshwater fishing, anyway. Hope you continue to enjoy spending your retirement doing what you like best. Cheers from bn

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21 hours ago, big Neil said:

Hi Gordo. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your well-detailed report of 10 consecutive days fishing. Not something I have ever been tempted to do as I have plenty of time freshwater fishing, anyway. Hope you continue to enjoy spending your retirement doing what you like best. Cheers from bn

To be honest Neil not to sure that I would go for 10 days straight again. By the time I had been up between 4.00-4.30 every morning and not got off the water till nearly 9.00pm, then sat around with the mate I stayed with chatting till 10.30 or later I felt seriously sleep deprived by the end of it. Already planning a December trip but this one will probably only be 5 days 🙂
 

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1 hour ago, GordoRetired said:

To be honest Neil not to sure that I would go for 10 days straight again. By the time I had been up between 4.00-4.30 every morning and not got off the water till nearly 9.00pm, then sat around with the mate I stayed with chatting till 10.30 or later I felt seriously sleep deprived by the end of it. Already planning a December trip but this one will probably only be 5 days 🙂
 

Yes, it gets a bit tough if you don't get enough sleep, especially on a continuous basis. If you ever fancy a few days tackling Murray Cod, give me a hoy. The season is almost upon us...can't wait. bn

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23 minutes ago, big Neil said:

Yes, it gets a bit tough if you don't get enough sleep, especially on a continuous basis. If you ever fancy a few days tackling Murray Cod, give me a hoy. The season is almost upon us...can't wait. bn

I think you are down Murrumbidgee  way. If I am ever going to be close I would love to go and spend a day or 2 chasing Murry Cod. Never caught one before and it is on my list of fish to catch. 🙂

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15 hours ago, GordoRetired said:

I think you are down Murrumbidgee  way. If I am ever going to be close I would love to go and spend a day or 2 chasing Murry Cod. Never caught one before and it is on my list of fish to catch. 🙂

Only 3 hrs from the Hume Hwy near Yass or 2 hrs from Gundagai Gordo. Just get in touch if you are going to be near. Tight lines mate. bn

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