Ballarat and district anglers continue to reap the rewards from the fisheries Victoria drought recovery plan.

We have had waters like Bolac, Wendouree, Burrumbeet, Tooliorook, Hepburn and now Deep Lake just to mention a few transform from dust bowls to excellent fisheries full of fish.

Deep lake, approximately 80km to the west of Ballarat is the latest fishery to become a success story from the drought recovery plan. The lake is located on the outskirts of Derrinallum, a small farming community rich in fishing tradition. The lake is relatively small covering approximately 85Ha when full with an average depth of 3.5m.

Deep Lake fished spectacularly in the spring, and while it isn’t still at those dizzying heights, good rainbows to 2.5kg are still being caught, mainly by slow trolling hardbodied lures such as Rapalas. Better success has come from fishing mudeyes under bubble floats. My son and I, in around 20 minutes landed seven rainbow trout of 1-2.5kg and released all in excellent. Powerbait and fly have also taken good fish as well.

Lake Fyans continues to produce quality trout and redfin without fail. The Ballarat and District Angling Association recently help their annual fishing competition attracting 63 anglers representing 6 clubs from around the district. Lake Fyans did not disappoint with 72 trout and redfin being weighed in for the competition. The Ballarat Anglers club won the shield with an aggregate of 8.8kg of fish.

The size of the trout was down a little on previous years while numbers were up, with the average around 600-700g. Trout were caught using every method, with the most successful being Powerbait fished on a running sinker rig.

Shane and Ben Jeffries with niece Dooley have been terrorising the trout up at lake Fyans as well catching plenty of rainbow and brown trout up to 1.2kg on mudeye suspended under a bubble float. I expect the fishing to be excellent in the coming months as the lake never seems to stop producing quality fish.

Trout have certainly started show up in numbers with anglers now starting to reap the rewards from the results of excellent trout stockings over the last 18 months.

Finally the dredging works have been completed on the rowing course and we hope that the water will now settle down and water clarity get back to the pre-drought days and all the aquatic insect life gets back to some normality.

My brother Malcolm Stevens and his boy’s Jag and Chase have been having a ball catching rainbow trout up to 1.5kg on Powerbait fished from the bottom. The fish are in excellent condition, and we can only hope that we get some mayfly hatches through autumn that Lake Wendouree is so famous for.

This water continues to fish well for fly and bait anglers with the bait anglers catching rainbow trout on mudeyes and Powerbait and the fly fishers using mudeye patterns on evening and after dark for fish up to 2kg.

As we now are heading in to autumn and the water levels cool down the fly fishers are hoping for some excellent mayfly hatches during the overcast days

This continues to fish well for both trout and redfin with evenings and mornings the most successful times to catch fish. All methods of angling have been successful.

Newlyn will also have mayfly hatches in the coming months, pretty much at the same as Hepburn Lagoon.