With some beautiful spring days and barmy nights, the insects have been out and so have the trout.

Fellow VFM contributor Steve Haughton and his partner Cate hit Blue Rock Reservoir on a couple of perfect spring days. On one of the days they caught nine trout ranging between 20-40cm. The Crown Seals lure in green, along with white Tassie Devils, produced all of the fish.

The next day they hit Blue Rock again with high expectations, and managed two fish, one of which went 45cm and the other a whopping 3.2kg. Yes, Steve caught a 7lb brown out of this humble lake! It goes to show that Blue Rock does have some huge trout in it.

The big brownie was caught on the Crown Seals lure, one of Steve’s favourites. Good work Steve, you’ve turned a lot of non-believers into believers with that fish!

The Morwell River above Boolarra has been fishing superbly in the past month. Loads of brown trout have been taken on soft lures such as Gulp Minnows and Berkley Power Minnows. The fish have been up to 1kg.

In September, the ravaged Macalister River was restocked with 9000 trout. There were 2000 rainbow trout stocked in the section of river between Licola and the Wellington River. A further 5000 rainbows were stocked between Lake Glenmaggie and Basin Flats, and 2000 brown trout in the Macalister River below Lake Glenmaggie.

Many anglers over the past month have been taking advantage of this, and plenty of yearling rainbows up to 100g have been caught on both bait and lure. Worms fished on a running sinker have been successful in the slower backwashes and pools, as the Macalister has been up and flowing hard thanks to some snowmelt. Lure such as Tassie Devils and Rooster Tails have been producing a lot of fish in the faster rapids.

Further downstream in the Lake itself, some larger redfin and a few trout have been caught on worms. Apparently, even a few bass are being caught on worms as well.

For more information on fishing in Central Gippsland, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 5174 8544.

VFM reporter Steve Haughton with a monster brown trout of 3.2kg that he caught in Blue Rock Reservoir on a green Crown Seals lure.