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In Native Heaven
  |  First Published: December 2011



As the water temperature gets hotter so does the fishing.

Spring was great but summer looks like it’s going to be something special with the natives going absolutely bonkers throughout November and December.

What will the New Year bring? One thing’s for sure it will bring huge numbers of skiers, jet pilots and of course anglers, so as this year’s high water levels are amazing, anyone who uses the lake this year will have to be super careful, as things are going to be very busy.

Boat ramps in particular throughout spring got as little testy as some people don’t have much experience with launching and retrieving boats, so please be as diplomatic as possible and help out where you can.

Loads of reports have been flooding in of late with very good numbers of trout including a couple of extremely aggressive rainbows. I got a cracker myself, it was only about 1kg but it went like a rocket.

A good number of browns up to 5kg have been taken mostly in the river mouths and the grassy flats.

My great mate Damian How cast at a school of carp and let his Black and Gold Berkley T-Tail sink a fair bit when his Howlex rod loaded up. He called it for a carp, but as it got closer he discovered it was a massive brown of around 7kg, which ended in tears when this massive fish got amongst the snags.

NATIVES

Where do I start? What a couple of months we’ve had! The yellas and Murray cod have been playing in good numbers. A couple of great Tasmanian blokes Shane Ling and Dean Blair came to Eildon to try their luck. The boys weren’t disappointed with three cod and about eight or so yellas up to about 4-5kg.

Since that weekend I have managed to land a 91cm cod (15kg+) on a 3-5kg spin stick with 8lb Trilene leader; my heart was in my mouth that’s for sure.

Not too long later I dropped a cod much bigger on the same gear about 30kg+ (not sure I would have landed it anyway). I think I was a little light on my tackle as I was targeting yellas anyway.

PONDAGE

The level has been up and down like a yo-yo. When they fill it up is the best time to fish without a doubt. Flies are producing good numbers of fish, as are worms and Powerbait.

RIVERS

With the Goulburn running like a steam train it is hard to fish.

Once again find the clean slack water, as that’s where the fish will be sitting and feeding. The Rubicon is still clean as a whistle. Local trout-bum Rod Hedger has caught browns to 750g on Black and Gold T-tails in the bigger pools. Black and Gold T-tails have been the biggest selling trout plastic in Tasmania for 3 years. If you don’t have any, source them out for your trout and you won’t be disappointed.

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