Caravan Park owners know one thing – you can depend upon Easter for rain! After months of beautiful days, with no rain to speak of, Easter produced around 40mm in total. This downpour ignited the fishing!

There have been very few hatches of any type since January. The insects have been few and far between, which has meant very little joy for anglers, particularly the ‘flyboys’. But the results of the rain for anglers were virtually instant.

Easter Sunday and Monday nights produced large termite hatches, which had the trout rising in large numbers. Flies were the way to go with quite a few good size trout being caught, the best being a 6kg (13lb) brown caught by Frank Biggs. This monster was taken on a fly, which resembled a Bassin Hopper with beads. There were several 3-4kg trout taken, but the 6kg was the talk of the town. It is still well short of the largest I’ve seen from the lake, 8.5kg (18.5lb) in 2001, or John Rupic’s 4kg Australian sportfishing record of 15.5lb or 7kg, also caught in 2001.

These trophy trout are the reason anglers keep returning to Khancoban. There are not too many lakes that support these monsters outside of Tassie or New Zealand. April to November are the months to catch these ‘trophies’.

Winter fishing in Khancoban is nowhere near as chilly as the higher lakes. Khancoban is only 300m above sea level, as opposed to Eucumbene at 1200m or Jindabyne at 900m. The area is also well protected from the icy southerlies that blow up from the Antarctic during winter. Just another reason to come and check us out!

On a more serious note we have been seeing a number of set lines, nets and traps being retrieved from local waters, as well as anglers fishing illegally, particularly in the closed waters under the spillway. Fisheries Officers are aware of these activities and are keeping Khancoban and Tooma under regular surveillance. Just recently two drum type traps were retrieved, as well as five ‘springer’ type set lines. If you see anything like this going on, please let me know at the Caravan Park – I have a direct line for Fisheries, which is much faster than reporting it to the 1800 number. These types of fishing are illegal and damage a small fishery like Khancoban. The most effective deterrent is other fishers, so please keep your eyes open.