As the weather cools down the fishing is heating up.

In fact the fishing at Purrumbete could better be described as hot, very hot. Monster browns are starting to show in fishing bags. Catching them has included a few methods. Local fly fisher Wicky got onto a few earlier fish around the weeds along the eastern shore. Smelt patterns did the trick on fish to 3.5 kilo.

The really big fish have been falling to flat line trollers using larger then average lures; Rapalas and Rebels in trout patterns seem to be the pick. What doesn’t surprise is that a lot of these fish seem to feed best when there has been a recent release of fish into the lake.

There has been good numbers of smaller fish as well, browns from 1.5-3kg and rainbows to 1.4kg. Now I know these aren’t small fish in some angler’s eyes, but when you compare them to the 4.94kg brown taken by Graeme Raynor from Geelong.

Then along came Chris Finlayson from Portland, who landed an 11lb (in the old scale), female brown. Of course there have been others around the 4kg mark like the one caught by Todd Gentsch of Lara.

Sounds good I know and we will be hearing plenty more similar reports as the weather continues to cool. It won’t be long before those big fish start feeding during the rougher weather along the southern and eastern shores on plastics and lures. Yes its good times ahead at Purrumbete and I nearly forgot to mention there are still plenty of redfin around up to a kilo.

Wurdiboluc is still fishing well with browns and rainbows both on the catch list. Flyfishing has been good with good water levels keeping fish along the shorelines. For those who prefer baits a mudeye suspended below a float is the best way to go.  

As for the local rivers with trout season closing there will be a bit more pressure put on the blackfish population. The results may be a bit disappointing, as with the cooler weather we are not going to see the blackfish around in numbers.

Reports from Bullen Merri have been on the ‘slim picking’ side compared to Purrumbete. But it is usually this time of the year that we see an increase in action for those trolling, deep or flat lining, especially closer in. There seems to plenty of big schools of bait present in Bullen Merri, which usually means a bait fished close to the bottom can bring good results.

Please when fishing the local lakes don’t dump your plastic bags and so on into the water. I recently heard of one angler who ruined a motor because of someone dropping a couple of redfin over the side in a plastic bag.

I’d like to mention the passing of my fishing mentor. As a child he taught me to catch mountain trout on bent pins and cotton, then it was trout and blackfish from the Gellibrand River. He brought home massive rainbow trout from Purrumbete, that he had caught while trolling in a rowboat, caught on Eildon 99 lures. As we progressed he showed me how to catch garfish around Lorne on floats he handcrafted from broom handles. We used sand hoppers we caught under the seaweed for bait. Then it was bait sticking for crayfish at Castle Cove. I could go on forever but he was the best blackfish fisherman ever.

So just at present I am a little sad because on May 5 I lost my dad. Thanks Dad.