This can be a great time to be on the water at Blowering Dam. Sure, it’s cold most of the time but if you dress for the occasion with thermals, beanies, hoodies, gloves and a jacket, you will barely notice the cold.

Regular glassed-out conditions, beautiful scenery, no ski boats to contend with and almost no other anglers on the water and you have conditions that make for a pleasant day. And the fishing can be sensational, particularly if you’re after a feed of succulent redfin.

Redfin can be caught in huge numbers through the Winter and some of these fish are very large.

As usual over the colder months, these redfin are best targeted vertically with lures, jigs or bait.

The schools are normally sitting fairly deep at this time of year, anywhere from 30’-80’ down, but once a school is located it is quite easy to entice them with any vertically-presented bait or lure.

Just remember to keep your presentation moving, especially when bait fishing, and you’ll fill your keeper bag before you know it.

When bait fishing for these redfin schools it is hard to beat garden worms but small to tiny yabbies are very hard to resist for redfin.

Use the bait on a paternoster rig and keep things moving by employing a subtle lift and drop of the rod commonly known as yo-yoing.

Moving your bait this way will entice fish from a much wider area and will help you hook more fish.

Lure anglers will need one of only three lures to entice redfin all day long.

I always start with an ice jig but if I find the fish are being a bit tight-lipped, I then opt for a blade.

And if the fish still won’t play the game, I then swap to a heavily weighted soft plastic.

The beauty of the blades and the plastics is that you can cast them well away from the boat and slow-roll or hop them back. This really helps to find any active fish.

Once I find an active school it is best to try to position your boat above it and stick with the same lure or change back to an ice jig until the fish move on or wise up.

After the fish move or shut down, you repeat the process until you find another active school.

For those of you are still keen to get a trout fix, all the creeks and rivers remain closed but what better lake to target big rainbows and browns than Jounama Dam.

This picturesque little lake near Talbingo is a great place to take the family for a fun-filled day beside the water.

Luckily, the big trout and redfin this lake is famous for just happen to fire up right after the official close of the trout streams.

The lake has fished well over the last couple of months and should continue so this month.

Casting lures or flies from the bank is very productive but fishing with PowerBait, grubs or worms is also a great way of hooking into a trout or two.

If you’ve never been to Jounama, I strongly recommend you take the time to head there. If you’re heading to the snowfields or the more notable trout dams, it’s not far out of your way and you won’t be disappointed.