plan C trip: the snowies

[dirvin21]

Plan A: Barrier reef with Big cat reality - covid

Plan B: a week of cod fishing in the New England - flooding

Plan C : a few ideas were thrown around and eventually we decided on the snowies, which was made much easier by the recent report from @JonD

Day 1:

We started the trip with an early start and plan to stay in Canberra overnight with a plan to fish the Murrumbidgee, with some info from @Ganguddy Goodoo plans were changed due to high river levels so instead we fished Googong Dam. We arrived mid afternoon and after 7 hours in the car we were itching for a cast. Three casts in and Amy had the first fish of the trip

a little redfin to get the doughnut broken, didn't take me long to join the fish landing 

 

not big but redfin aren't a species commonly found in our end of the state. The casts kept going out and the redfin kept coming in, 

Amy definitely landed her share

 

pest or not they're definitely a pretty fish

 

with a dropping temp and a campground to be reached we started heading off, but couldn't resist a few more casts and I managed to snag a better size reddie

We spent the evening casting the Cotters river looking for a cod in the dirty water, we had a couple of hits but no fish.

Day 2:

It was an early start getting camp packed up and heading up into the Snowies. Amy had been in the area a few years ago,  but I'd only been as far as Cooma 29 years ago, so it was all pretty new to me. The plan was to walk the upper Eucumbene river looking for trout. Once we came to the river crossing we wasted no time in getting on the river. 

certainly is a beautiful looking piece of river, absolutely loaded with fish, but they are well educated. we put in a lot of casts for lots of follows miss hits and a couple of thrown hooks.

It's funny the further you go along a river like this one the less the fish seem important, it definitely is a beautiful place to fish

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After some serious walking many many lure changes, a put a cast in that's taken and the fish actually sticks as short fight later and the first trout of the trip is landed.

a beautiful little brownie, and in top condition. With some confidence renewed we kept pushing on looking for that bigger trout 

 Amy really worked this run hard for a couple of unlucky miss hits, I put a cast up the very top in a bit of white water near the top of the picture, my lure was taken with a big thump and straight away I watched a solid brown run down river with my lure in it's mouth, there was no pulling it back against the current I had no choice but to run along the brush at the waters edge with my arm outstretched praying the line would hold. I wanted this fish so bad, i ran nearly 100m of riverbank (whilst Amy laughed) before the fish finally played nice and stopped at an area I could get hold of it.

A quality Eucumbene river brown, he went just shy of 50cm and was thick, a couple of quick pics and he was released and took off nice and healthy.

We ended the session on a high and took a short cut over a big hill back to the car 

We drove on and found our camp at Three mile dam, set-up and off we went for the arvo trying to get Amy a fish. We fished a couple of creeks which were full of fish, Amy's luck was just down. 

But Amy just kept casting, we ended up on another section of the river not far from camp, and eventually Amy was hit and the fish finally stuck 

a nice little rainbow, yes we get bigger ones not far from home and much more easily but fishing is about more than just the fish.

We even spotted some Brumbies not far away

We spent our evening at the beautiful three mile dam, trying to catch a rising brook trout had a few hits but didn't connect

 

doesn't matter with scenery like this

Day 3:

Again we were up early to a stunning mountain morning there was rain predicted but so far we'd dodged it. We packed up camp and headed off so some more exploring with the aim to finish the day on the lower Eucumbene.

We found a trail I'd read about that runs down to Tantangarra creek and the upper Murrumbidgee, 

the road in was amazing

I've always wanted to see these alpine fields and they did not disapoint

we headed down to the creek which again was beautiful

and of course the fishing was tough with a jump off from a solid rainbow that thought it was a bird and a few miss hits, with a shower of rain we headed back down to four mile trail again on the river.

The river again was stunning but also had quite a few people  and unfortunately we removed a set line which always makes me cranky. Again some tough fishing I did manage to snare a couple of very acrobatic rainbows

and a reasonable brown

The river edges can be quite tough to walk the tussocks of grass make it very hard to see the thousands of rabbit and wombat holes, with tough fishing unforgiving terrain and deteriorating weather we headed back to the car and made for Denison camp area which was  a little underwhelming with a 3/4 km walk to the river so we ended up staying at Angler's reach on the edge of Lake Eucumbene.

it was damn cold, I spent some time casting the edges of the lake, which was surprisingly full of action, I didn't manage to land a fish but had a lot of hook ups on some very feisty airborne trout. 

Day 4: 

we had planned to head back to Canberra but after waking up to seriously wet gear from overnight rain and with plenty more predicted we decided to head home a day early. We were actually really lucky with the weather from what was forcast for the week.

While the fishing wasn't red hot, a trip is always more than just the fishing we had a great time and will definitely be heading back to the area again

cheers for reading 

Dave 

 

 

[Rebel]

Great report. Well done.

Super photos.

Looks like you two had a great time.

Cheers.

[Blackfish]

Great read Dave and co. Thanks for posting that epic.

[Little_Flatty]

Thanks Dave, Some stunning fish there.

It sure is beautiful country out that way. It's been too long since I was last in the region. Will have to fix that!

[Restyle]

Epic report and epic photos! wow. 

I'm honestly jealous

[big Neil]

Thanks for the very detailed report Dave and Amy. As you say some lovely rugged mountain region landscapes to take your eye, even if the fishing is ordinary. I actually think you did remarkably well considering you haven't fished there before. Thanks for sharing it, bn

[Hoods]

Thanks for the report Dave, We were up there first week of November. The Murrumbidgee below Tantangarra was very low after a recent flood as they were working on the dam wall with only a couple of very small fish. The Snowy II works are amazing to see. Thanks Hoods

[61 crusher]

Love the report Dave never done river trekking, beautiful scenery maybe one day.

Most of your reports remind of a good comic when I was a kid, intriguing narrative with plenty of pictures to bring the story to life