There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of rain over April and May. The Strezlecki Ranges have been copping most of the rain, so the rivers there have been running very fast and dirty.

Traralgon Creek has been fishing superbly as is expected in the pre-spawn season. Dave Bonnici and I fished the creek with soft plastics recently and caught plenty of small, 6 to 10” brown trout. They were taking Celtas and other small lures. The key was to cast into the shallow edges where the current was weaker.

I have had some great sessions in the lower sections of the creek after work, and even though I only had about 20 minutes of daylight to fish I was rewarded with 3 lovely big brown trout over two nights. The fish measured 48cm, 42cm and 38cm. The biggest one weighed 1.5kg showing that Traralgon Creek holds some very large fish indeed.

These fish fell to soft plastics, which are proving extremely effective in the fast flows. The best plastics are around 2” in size in minnow or natural colours. They should be used with very light 1/32oz and 1/16oz jigheads.

Rod Booker, Darren Baumgarten and I had a very productive day in the upper Thompson recently catching 1 to 2kg brown trout. Darren caught the biggest trout for the day on a Tassie Devil. It went just under 5lb.

The Tassie Devils worked well, but Rod showed once again that soft plastics are on trout. He caught and released five lovely browns, all around 1.5 kg.

The rivers in the alpine areas seem to be running a lot clearer than the Strezlecki rivers. The fish are still moving upstream to spawn, which explains the larger than average trout we’ve been catching.

Stu Boucher and I fished the Morwell River above Apex Park and were greeted with some 8 to 10” browns. The river has been running fast and discoloured fairly consistently so the fishing has been excellent. Small plastics and size 3 Celtas have been the most effective recently but flies will work well too when the flow slows down enough.

Bead head nymphs and small to medium sized streamer patterns have been very productive in the faster discoloured water. Back towards Boolarra, the river has been very discoloured and flowing too fast for anything other than big Celtas, Bangtails and plastics. The upside is that the fish are a bit bigger in the lower end at the moment, but these larger fish will move up high over June.

The riverine trout season closes at midnight on 12 June, so next month I should have some awesome tales to tell from fishing trips just before closing.

As the fish are moving upstream to spawn, it’s a good time of year to talk about fish conservation. Many anglers like to release the trout they catch at this time of year. Most of the female trout will be carrying eggs and the bigger the trout, the more eggs they have. It’s common sense to release the big ones.

For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on (03) 5174 8544.