The trout fishing in East Gippsland continues to be terrific. Over the past month we have experienced the whole gamut of weather and temperatures. We have had numerous days in the mid 30's followed by violent overnight changes that have seen temperatures plummet to the mid teens. We’ve even experienced a little snow on the mountains!

Just when the streams are warming up a little we seem to get some refreshing cooler temperatures and often some rain. As we are now into early autumn, these mild temperatures should become more prevalent providing anglers with some great autumn fishing in the high country. A feature of this years fishing has been the large number of grasshoppers present on most of our streams.

The Mitta Mitta River above Dartmouth Dam is fishing well over its entire length. There are the usual 30cm fish present but there is also a few bigger fish about.

Chairman of VRFish, Pat Washington recently enjoyed a nice day fishing the middle section of the Mitta Mitta River near Hinnomunjie Station. Pat was flyfishing using a hopper pattern and landed 5 nice little browns, all of which were subsequently released.

Lake Dartmouth is quite low at the moment with means that the junction of the Gibbo, Wombat and Mitta Mitta Rivers are exposed and accessible by 4WD. All these rivers are fishing well. It is a good option to camp at the junction and from there you have a choice of fishing any or all of the 3 rivers. There is literally miles of good

productive trout water available.

The Gibbo River has a lot of small rainbows present but also some better browns. Phil Nielson of Bairnsdale recently caught a nice 1.2kg brown on a hopper pattern just above the junction of the Gibbo River and Morass Creek. The Gibbo River is a great small river to fish at this time of the year. To be successful requires wading the overgrown stream. A good quality gravel road follows the river for about 10kms so access is really good. Then there are other sections for the more adventurous angler where walking and bashing through scrub is required. One thing is consistent in the Gibbo and that is the fishing. It generally holds excellent numbers of rainbow trout and a good number of browns that will readily take a fly,bait or lure.

Wombat Creek is another nice little river and well worth fishing. It is normally inaccessible, except by boat, but with the lake low now it’s a good time to give it a go.

As usual at this time of year the Cobungra River is also fishing well to hoppers. Fish up to 1kg and being caught in good numbers. Its sister river, the Bundarra, is running clear and also fishing well. Some nice smaller browns are being caught in Middle Creek.

Livingstone Creek around the Cassilis area is also fishing well to hoppers although the fish are not large.