It’s October and things are going start to heat up in more ways than one!

With the lake close to 100%, the water temperature rising, longer daylight hours and the misery of a very cold winter almost behind us, it’s time to dust off your lightly braided baitcasters and take on what promises to be a record-breaking season of the mighty golden perch.

I would not be surprised if we see fish over the magic 20lb mark this year. I’m sure they have been gorging themselves on plenty of food. The lake has been so alive and health it’s hard to believe the explosion of growth rates since the breaking of the drought.

There have been a fair few reports of yellas being caught lately, but now is where they will really start to school up and feed even harder before they spawn. I can’t wait to throw some of the new Berkley Fat Dogs at them with very hot conditions predicted through October to December. We could even see the fish spawn earlier than last year, which could give us the best 8-10 weeks Lake Eildon has ever seen on the yellas.

Just remember the bigger fish are the breeders (not to mention too full of fat to eat) so let’s abide by the great saying ‘limit your bag, don’t bag your limit’. In fact I think the bag limits are way too high, so please only what you need as it doesn’t freeze well anyway.

Hopefully, we will also see a big increase of spring trout. Recently the trout fishing has been going gangbusters with reports of fish from 2-8lb and some punters pulling in between 10 and 20 fish in weekend. God bless the big river arm year after year; it produces the best of the trout season.

A lot of the fish have moved out into the lake with plenty of fish being caught on the edges through September. But where have the Rainbows gone? There have still been virtually none taken.

The redfin haven’t stopped and they are set to continue to fire in bigger numbers with the increased water temperatures.

The Goulburn has been running quite high, so it is still quiet to fish.

If you can’t get live mudeye, or if you want cheaper and just as productive bait, try the Berkley Gulp Hellgrammites on size 2 Nitro jighead. You can’t go wrong with these lures and they stay on your jig a lot longer than the real thing.

The Rubicon once again had been flogged with some people eager to catch what fish were left from last season’s mishap. Believe me, those fish have been taken, and then some, so let it recover before it’s totally ruined.