The trout season is now well underway and anglers are reporting some good catches from the streams around Omeo. The streams are flowing well and are generally very clear. In fact they have seldom looked better.

No doubt there will be some snowmelt soon and these streams will become cloudy, but given good weather they will quickly clear and should fish well through to Christmas.

The Mitta Mitta River is the major stream in this area and is currently has a good flow. Reports are that the flyfishers are finding it hard to get down to the trout, but the spin fishers are doing well and should enjoy a bumper spring. Bait anglers will also do well if they work the slower holes.

The Cobungra and Bundarra rivers flow into the Mitta Mitta River near Anglers Rest. Both are excellent trout streams, although the Cobungra is flowing much harder at the moment and will fish better when the water level drops.

The Bundarra is an excellent flyfishing stream, but spin fishers have done the best so far this spring with a number of fish up to 750g being landed.

All the abovementioned streams are alpine streams and are snow fed, so they are very cold early in the season. Lower down there are a number of streams with significantly higher water temperatures and the fish are generally more active in these streams.

Close to Omeo, one such small stream is the Livingstone Creek, which carries reasonable numbers of trout. Good reports have been received from this creek which has some large, slow holes, well suited to bait anglers.

The Tambo River is another stream that can fish well early in the season, particularly the area around Doctors Flat. There have been reports of a few nice trout grassed in this area already this season. Anglers will find this river very different from past years, with much of the river cleared of willows. Now you can see and fish many areas that were previously inaccessible. Some of these ‘new’ holes look very fishy and would be well worth a try.

Over near Buchan, the Timbarra River is another early season stream well worth a cast or two. This river experienced major floods in winter, but is flowing low and clear now and there are good numbers of small trout around.

One local flyfisher recently fished this river on a mild spring day using a dual fly rig, with a small bead head nymph trailing a Bushy dry fly. The morning’s fishing saw a number of trout taken on the nymph, with only an odd splash at the dry.

After lunch, a huge ant fall saw the trout taking flies off the surface and the dry flies were the way to go. Not big fish but good fun on light gear.