As we now know the trout spawned very early this year with the early seasonal rain bringing things forward, it seems that the spawning was complete prior to the season being closed! I will talk to our good friends at fisheries in the near future to see if they may bring the closed season forward to counter the issues we could face in the future as a result of this.

The Big River arm fired in a massive way and loads and loads of early spawning browns and rainbows were an easy target for punters absolutely slaying them, with some reports mentioning upwards of 50 fish in a day! Let’s hope common sense prevailed and bag limits were treated with respect.

This went on for almost two weeks and boats came from everywhere with one Sunday bringing over 150 boats. Thankfully, the fish had gone off the bite in the river and seemed to have moved back out into the lake, so not too much damage was done on that busy Sunday.

It was also very interesting that 30-40% of the boats were big bay boats between 5.5-7m long, which is very odd. Out of the carnage there were some cracking browns up to 9-10lb a few nice bows around the 7-8lb mark with the ever-reliable clown pattern Tassie Devil smackin’ ‘em up nicely. The good old Rapalas are still producing great numbers of fish aswell.

Still, the reddies have eluded us. Let’s hope like hell they turn back on soon. I miss my Sunday lunch of fillets a lot…

There have been some nice cod caught lately, with green fish between 55-90cm being caught all over the place with no real standout areas as such, so stick to your usual haunts and you should see some success. Blacks and purples seem to be the popular choice and who can argue? This colour scheme always does well on Eildon.

It’s this time of the year when the pondage really comes in to its own with very consistent water levels. The fish become more active for longer periods of time, creating more opportunity for anglers to come and have a crack at some of the monsters that are in the ponds.

Keep in mind that it’s very cold this time of year, but well worth rigging up and giving a whirl, as the rewards can be big.

So I hope to see you up here soon. Drop into Eildon Bait and Tackle for all the latest info and tell Gaz I sent you.