With substantial rains in our neck of the woods lately, it’s great to see the lake back up around the 40% mark and heading north towards the Bonnie Doon bridge at a reasonable pace, current expectations are that we will reach somewhere around the 70% mark before irrigation starts again. Let’s hope we get some springtime rain.

It has been quite an encouraging start to the winter, with good reports of trout coming in, with almost all catches being browns. It seems the rainbows have gone deep and don’t want to show themselves to anglers, and the catch rate of rainbows seems to have steadily dropped over the past 5-6 years. I’m really not sure why this is the case.

Flat lining Tassie Devils is the standout method at the moment, and that’s no surprise really, with some nice brownies up to 3lb and plenty of pan-sized fish of around 1lb in the mix too. The mouth of the Delatite River is always a go-to spot at this time of the year, and don’t be scared to throw a small soft plastic in black and gold into the mix either.

The cod fishing has just continued along nicely with loads of reports coming in of cod between 55-90cm. Michael Dodsley picked up a well-conditioned 81cm model up the top of the lake recently that went a solid 10kg, a great fish in anyone’s photobook.

Next issue we will be having some quality input from the guys at Mansfield Hunting and Fishing, who on a recent trip to this great tackle shop let me know that Lake Nillahcootie had been fishing superbly with numerous catches of cod over the magic metre mark, and a couple around the 1.5m range! Hopefully there’ll be some great news to report on next month.