At this time of year, I would normally be writing about how low the water levels are in our local streams, but this year it’s a very different story.

The rivers in central Gippsland such as the Traralgon, Morwell, Thompson and Macalister, all currently have a nice steady flow due to the fairly constant weekly rainfall that we have been seeing in central Gippsland over the past month or so. This means that the fishing has been good. In my neck of the woods, the Morwell River and Traralgon Creek have been fishing fantastically, with good numbers of brown trout being taken in both streams. The best times of day have been morning and late evening, which has made for some really exciting fishing.

Dave Bonnici from Morwell had a brilliant session in Traralgon Creek in late evening on fly. He was using any kind of caddis pattern and he landed four lovely brown trout to 1.5kg - awesome fish for the creek.

This is not the only report of this calibre. In mid afternoon, worm fishermen seem to be doing just as well. Up higher in the creeks where there are no carp, worms on floats or very light running sinkers have been very successful, with fisherman easily getting their bag limits in a day. These fish are of good quality and up to 30cm.

The Thompson River has been fishing well above Coopers Creek, below the wall. Spinners such as Bangtails, Cleats and Tassie Devils have all been working well. The fish aren’t huge but it’s a good day out if you want to be almost guaranteed of catching a trout. The rainbows in the Macalister have been making good sport for anyone fishing near Licola; plenty of these fish can be taken quite easily on all methods.

For something different, another interesting report is of sea-run brown trout apparently being taken in the lower sections of the Rainbow, Avon and Latrobe rivers. These are trout that either leave the rivers to go out to sea and get big, or they are permanently estuary trout. Scientists are still not sure but research is being done. I don’t know if they permanently live in the estuary - it’s usually the October/November period when reports start filtering in and they don’t last all year - so this evidence does suggest that the sea-run trout leave the estuaries and go somewhere! I don’t normally hear reports of these fish this early in the year, but it just means that there may be some very big silver trout swimming in our central Gippsland rivers.

Try to practise the art of catch and release. Good Luck!