The trout have been absolutely crazy since trout opening, and due to all the rain, the rivers are running beautifully and the trout are in a very healthy condition.

Traralgon creek has been producing trout up to 1 kg or 45cm in length. I’m talking upstream in the shallow clear crystal water as well, so anyone that knows the creek would know that these are exceptional fish. The Yep Minnow pattern soft plastic lures are awesome for this area. The redfin pattern and smelt patterns are working great as well.

The Morwell River has been producing fish up to 1.5kg or 50cm in length. There’s plenty of people flyfishing using nymph patterns here, yet with some of the hot days we have been having, the flying ants are out, so termite pattern flies have been dynamite in the late afternoons and evenings.

There’s even a few brave guys now using the $20 plus Japanese hardbodied lures and are doing great as well.

The Tyers River is another river with great flows at the moment and it has been producing an average size brown trout of 30cm plus, with the odd monster following up lures but not taking them. Russel Macklin caught a beautiful 39cm brownie and a couple of nice crayfish as well.

The Tanjil River is producing some monsters. It’s amazing to see how popular soft plastics have become on the trout scene. The Berkley Gulps and Yep Minnows are my favourite plastics around here. The brownies love em’.

Even the Wellington River has been producing heaps of 25cm plus brown trout despite the hammering this river has had from fires and floods over the past couple of years. This is a really good sign. Celtas fished about 1 hour before dark has been producing most of the trout in this little river.

It’s been a long time coming, but the Macalister is fishing beautifully. I don’t know if it’s due to fisheries finally stocking some brown trout in the system or what, but there’s plenty of 200g trout being caught from Licola and downstream. There are also plenty of stocky rainbows being caught, however they don’t usually last very long.

Brown trout are what I’m more impressed with, as the brown trout fishery here was almost dead after the fires and floods over the past couple of years, so its good to here people are catching them again.

Hopefully fisheries continue to stock the Macalister with brown trout for a few seasons to come, as this river has the potential to be one of victorias premier trout streams with some intelligent management.

Also its good for the other local streams, as the Macalister River can accommodate a lot more fishing pressure than other nearby smaller streams. If the Macalister is fishing well, then it takes the pressure off some of these smaller streams. Most guys hitting the Macalister are using Tassie Devils, Rapalas and Celta style lures.

Matthew Naus from Shady Creek fished Blue Rock by trolling from his Hobie kayak. His best day so far this winter was five brown trout, two caught on vibes and three on a Crown Seal lure with a green/gold bottle cap. His biggest fish was 1kg caught on the Crown Seal lure while the others ranged about 30-40cm.

Fellow V&TFM contributor Steve Haughton has also been hitting Blue Rock in the last couple of months, each time having success on brown trout ranging from 30-45cm, the biggest being 52cm caught off the bottom using garden worms near the dam wall.

He knows this lake pretty well and averages five trout each session, either trolling from the boat or fishing off the bank spinning and using worms off the bottom.

Steve says when he’s trolling he uses Crown Seal lures (no surprises there) and fishes them at different depths using trolling sinkers. Most fish have been caught at the surface flat line trolling and some success coming from the deeper trolled lures.