The small waters around our area in central Gippsland have been a little disappointed, however many of our local anglers are finding better fish further afield in places like the Macalister river and Blue Rock Lake.

For starters, my little favourite stream Traralgon Creek isn’t doing too well. Hopefully there is a “yet” after that statement, as I know we are only at the beginning of the season and things could change but it doesn’t look good so far.

Basically, there is nearly no fish left in the upper reaches of Traralgon Creek in the area from Koornalla up. It doesn’t matter who you speak to or who goes up, there is pretty much only schools of minnows or minute trout 50-100mm long, and there isn’t even much of them up there.

On a better note, there are a few trout down lower closer to Traralgon South. When I say a few, I mean a few. Maybe half a dozen trout reports from this area all season. That’s half a dozen trout as well! So not many and not a real good sign as I thought the winter rain would have bought a new recruitment of trout into the up reaches, but it looks like it hasn’t.

On a positive note, the fisheries know about the issue, and hopefully very soon there will be a proper survey carried out of the creek which will give us all some scientific data about the current stock levels and about any other possible issues and factors that the creek is facing. So stay tuned, I will keep you all posted.

Further across into the Morwell River catchment, there have been a lot more trout caught than in Traralgon Creek, but still nothing like what we are used too. The best reports I have heard from the Morwell River have been five trout in a session and that is from anglers flyfishing.

Some anglers say that the whole Gippsland catchment has been wiped out and that the numbers in our little Strzelecki streams have been severely culled to a near zero state. This is why we need to get these creek surveys done to get accurate numbers of how many trout are actually left in our little southern creeks.

Moving North to the Macalister River, the feedback has been far better and there have been quite a lot of trout caught considering how much rain we have had. It has been very hard to fish the Mac as the levels have been so high, so often due to all this rain, yet anglers are still catching some really nice trout.

The good thing is, a lot of brown trout have been caught and on mixed methods anywhere from fishing with worms, which has been very successful in the dirty fast flowing water, to lure fishing with Tassie Devils and big Celta style spinners.

Blue Rock Lake has been consistent, especially with the trollers. The trout guys are mainly using Tassie Devils and decent sized hardbodied lures and are doing very well flat lining around the trees up the Willow Grove end of the lake. I haven’t heard of any bass reports this month, but I’m sure they will go very good once the water warms up. Hopefully we see some more bass next month.

For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 51748544. You will get expert advice and great deals on fishing bait and tackle. Tune into Rex Hunt and Lee Rayner’s “Off the Hook” on 1242 to hear Will’s report on what’s going on in Gippsland!