November is fun in the Lake Eucumbene region and offers something for everyone.

The highlight is the Snowy Mountains Trout Festival, from November 1 to 7, call president Col Sinclair on 02 6454 2260 for information about the wonderful prizes to be won.

The opening weekend on the streams is over and thankfully the mayhem has passed. The river fishing over the first couple of weeks was quite good with plenty caught and in most cases returned to the water.

Why some people keep spawning fish to eat is beyond us; the flesh is soft and discoloured and does not taste any good.

Water levels in Eucumbene and Tantangara are up markedly. Many bays that haven’t seen water for months are now filling and the fish follow. Most success for fly fishers this month will come on wet patterns, such as Woolly Worms and Woolly Buggers or similar.

With the water still slightly discoloured, Peter tied an Egg Sucking Bugger which, he says, has earned its way into his fly box. He found the tying notes on the Goulburn Valley Fly Fishing website. Thanks Antony, for allowing us to print the following about the origins of this pattern.

“This fly is called an Egg-Sucking Bugger because it is a variation of a pattern known as an Egg Sucking Leech. The egg sucking is the descriptive part of the name with the leech or bugger describing the pattern style.

“Leech patterns incorporate lots of fur and have a wonderful swimming action. Trout in North America eat leeches and this style of fly is responsible for a lot of great fish... When you see these leech patterns in the water they could represent anything from yabbies to bait fish and anything in between.

“In our part of the world we tend to use Woolly Buggers rather than leech patterns and … we fish much smaller versions of the flies in Australia. As this fly incorporates the successful elements of the Egg Sucking Leech into the Woolly Bugger, I have titled it an Egg Sucking Bugger.”

The lake is rising so the fish are much closer to the banks looking for worms, insects, yabbies and other creepy crawly things so bait is a very successful way of catching a few.

If you can get hold of mudeyes, fish them under a running float with greased line. Use the right small hooks and you are almost guaranteed a fish.

Other good baits are PowerBait, scrub worms and bardi grubs, which are good baits year-round in different combinations under a running sinker.

Early mornings and afternoons are best but the water is still cold so you can get a fish at any time.

The fish are hungry, there’s plenty of food, the lake is rising and the fish are in shallow water mornings and afternoons. So flatline the weed beds and the shallower banks very early morning and start fishing with two to four colours of lead-core line or use a downrigger as the day progress.

If you have a big boat with a big engine, you must have means to slow the speed to a level suitable for the lures.

We mainly use winged lures like Tassie Devils and Lofty’s Cobras with a trolling speed of 2.5kmh to 4kmh. In calm weather, a Rebel Crickhopper on very slow speed can be very good and don’t forget the minnows from Rapalas.

Two great ways to spin are to walk the banks and search through polarised sunglasses for cruising fish, or just pick a good spot, cast blind and let the fish come to you are.

The entrance to a weedy bay is a sure spot for fish to pass very frequently and for that kind of fishing, late afternoon is best.

We also have two rivers and many good creeks in the neighbourhood so you can keep busy for a long time.

There’s a new boat ramp at Anglers Reach, which offers an alternative to Old Adaminaby. It has a compacted gravel surface and is another point of access to the northern part of Eucumbene.

Don’t forget the award-winning Adaminaby Cup on November 22 at the historic racecourse, this year’s theme is ‘flower power’.

For updated fishing information visit www.alpinetouristpark.com.au/fishing.shtml and www.adaminabyangler.com.au/reports.html . To find out everything Adaminaby offers visit www.alpinetouristpark.com.au/adaminaby.html .

Don’t get bogged

We hear about people getting bogged around the banks of Lake Eucumbene and everything gets blamed, such as wet conditions, falling lake levels, low lake levels, high river levels – everything other than the driver of the vehicle. Why don’t people take responsibility for their own actions or decisions?

Recently we saw a vehicle well and truly bogged and were asked to assist. After we’d towed the vehicle out, we asked the blokes what had possessed them to drive down to where they were.

They said, “It looked fine and we didn’t want to walk too far to get to the water.” When we asked them about the very obvious spring 20m above them, they said they hadn’t really seen it. Some people must drive or walk around with blindfolds.

Instead of parking up the bank and walking the 30m to the water, these blokes would rather risk getting bogged.

From time to time we may get bogged simply because of the terrain but the vast majority of people get bogged because of their own carelessness or stupidity.

So use your brains and your eyes and don’t risk your pockets – any tow truck driver will charge you an arm and a leg if you’re bogged way down below the high water mark.