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Bonus days for trout anglers
  |  First Published: June 2012



Luckily for trout anglers, the long weekend won’t be over until June 11, so the first 11 days of the month offer a last chance to target trout in the creeks and rivers.

I strongly recommend you get out before the season closes. The fishing has been sensational all season, thanks to the past couple of seasons’ high flows making for perfect spawning conditions and massive natural recruitment.

The Goobragandra and Tumut rivers and the creeks are seething with fit and healthy trout.

Some trout will have already laid their eggs and some will be very close to doing so, which can mean the fish are quite easy to catch.

The ones that have already spawned will be hungry and willing to hit just about anything retrieved or drifted past them. Those that haven’t spawned will be in an aggressive and competitive mood, which also makes them easy to catch.

Bear this in mind and try to limit the number you take – after all, they are trying to spawn, which is only going to make fishing even better for next season.

The past trout season is arguably the best we have had in well over a decade and I was lucky enough to make the most of it fishing with my friends and my partner.

I was also lucky enough to be filming for my next DVD, Luring for Wild Trout. We have accumulated some amazing footage with the highlight being a monster brown trout eating a smaller brown which I was fighting at the time. This all happened in 15cm of crystal-clear water about a metre from my feet and it was all captured on video.

This and some of the other monster fish landed are going to make for a sensational production.

OTHER OPTIONS

Once the season closes in the creeks and rivers, trout anglers will have to fish the lakes to get their fix.

Nearby trout impoundments include Blowering, Jounama, Talbingo and Tantangara dams, to name a few.

Jounama and Tantangara are my first choices if you’re restricted to fishing from the bank but Talbingo can offer quite easy trout fishing all Winter if you own a boat.

Blowering also holds a decent population of trout and there have been quite a few encountered through the Autumn.

There are a few other targets in Blowering this month so it makes a great destination, particularly if you want to mix it up a little.

If the trout aren’t cooperating or you want to try something different, I suggest targeting redfin. They are in massive schools at this time of year and they can be quite easy to catch.

Vertically jigging with ice jigs, blades, vibes, spoons, lipless crankbaits, soft plastics or bait just doesn’t get much better.

Once a school is located, it is common to catch more than 100 fish in the one spot, particularly if you don’t release any and don’t lose any while fighting them.

I have found that redfin at times behave a bit like Australian bass in this respect. When fishing vertically over schools, after fighting and loosing a fish the school quite often shuts down.

This has happened way too many times over the years so these days I do my best not to lose any fish under the boat.

But sometimes the fish are that frenzied it just doesn’t matter, but if you’re over the top of a school that has very large redfin among them, I do all that I can to make sure that they continue to bite.

COD, GOLDENS

Another option this month at Blowering is to target Murray cod. During the warmer months best results come from fishing after dark and this can also be the case during Winter.

But at this time of year cod quite often move up into the shallows during the middle of the day to bask in the sun. And, like any opportunistic fish, if there happens to be an easy feed while they are up there, they will make the most of it.

The best way of targeting these fish is with long casts because the cod can be very flighty in the clear shallows. For best results cast repeatedly with large lipless crankbaits, shallow-running hardbodies, spinnerbaits and shaker blades like Chatterbaits should.

Natural-coloured lures in green, gold and brown work best when the water is clear but if we have just had a heap of rain and the edges are dirty, try very dark colours like black and purple or very bright, ridiculous colours like the Elton John colour (fluoro pink, bright yellow, bright orange).

Golden perch can also be caught this month but the bite window can be very small.

Generally they come on the bite for about an hour or so during the middle to later part of the day when the water is at its warmest.

Just like the Murray cod, these fish are best targeted in the shallows with long repeat casts.

So even though the weather may be not to everyone’s liking this month, there are still plenty of fish willing to play the game – rug up and go get ’em!

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