Fishing Reports for Victoria, Westernport and Port Phillip Bay

This season's trout opener was a a ripper - especially if you were in the Eildon region. As many know, both Eildon pondage and the Goulburn river were stocked with a massive 7 tons of trout prior to the season's open. While it wasn't quite like shooting fish in a barrel many anglers managed to hook themselves a solid trout or two. Staff member Don and Dylan went up to the river to check out conditions and have a couple of casts in some quieter water they were rewarded with a nice rainbow of about 6lb. Heavier spoons were used to get down deep under the fast water where the fish were holding.

Customer Manny got out and hit the river opening weekend and while it was busy, he found some quieter water of his own and managed a smaller wild Goulburn brown on a paddle tailed soft plastic, along with a couple of solid rainbows up around 7lb. The larger rainbows preferred brighter coloured plastics, especially with the river quite coloured and dirty. Manny fished the 'pellet' style jigheads on his plastics and found they did the job.

Keen trout angler Anel also hit the river over the weekend and found that early morning Saturday was the best time. Anel focused more with hardbodied lures in the deeper runs around Thornton, and found that lures that got down a bit deeper were the go, like Double Clutch 90 and Shading-X. In the really deep pools sinking hardbodies were super effective, as they shimmied down to the fish. Colour patterns with a bit of flash to them or contrasting colours were the best at getting the fish to notice them in the dirty water.

Customer Cip also fished the Thornton section of the river, and managed to land rainbows to 8lb on a range of Megabass hardbodies. Among the successful lures were X80 Jr, Shading-X and X-70 lures - in a variety of colours. Cip simply picked the lure style to suit the river depth or current, as one lure is very limiting in a big river like the Goulburn.

Kosta from Hooked Up magazine also got out and scratched the trout itch on the Goulburn. Kosta had a look around the Thornton region and walked away from the crowds, and landed fish to around 7lb for his efforts. Kosta found small paddle tailed plastics were the most effective for him on the big fish.

If you're thinking of heading up to the region in search of a trout or two, check out this map for access points that best suit you, and come past the store to get the up to date info on river levels and what's working best.

With school holidays finished up and some average weather hanging around the local suburban lakes will be quiet with anglers, but they had been producing plenty of trout! The main couple of lakes fishing best have been Rowville Lakes and Karkarook Park, and can be fished in almost all weather.

The main couple of tricks for success in this style of fishing has been to use longer rods - anything upwards of 7'6'' or 8ft, and to rig up with the correct weight berley cage and berley. In windier conditions your berley cage may drag along the lake bed, dragged the fish away from your berley spot and snagging up. If you pay attention to the smaller details for this style of fishing you will be more successful. Down at Karkarook youngster James has been hooking some nice rainbow trout fishing powerbait. James was stoked to land this trout and is well and truly hooked on fishing now.

Customer Zoran has been down to one of his local lakes in Rowville and has found that they have been fishing well for rainbow trout using coarse methods. Zoran has found that the 2 most productive baits have been maggots and specialist trout dough, with a fine mix berley an absolute must. Without the berley a single bite can be a good session but after the berley kicks in the fish are 'trained' to keep returning to where you've been catching them. The main lake at Rowville has been the better producer, and has also seen some redfin caught around the edge on small soft plastics - especially after some heavier rain.

There's been some fishing news for the freshwater anglers recently, with some big fish stockings done by the Victorian Fisheries Authority. On the fishing front the western lakes have been producing quality trout for those keen enough to brave the cold, with Lake Wendouree the standout. Fishing surface lures or hardbodies just under the film is a good way to illicit a savage strike from an angry trout as they chase smelt around. Customer Grant fished Lake Tullaroop last week in search of some of the lakes large redfin and he wasn't disappointed. Grant landed some very nice fish on small 'bream' style jerkbaits and plastics fished around isolated pockets of weed. These western lakes have been producing some nice redfin for the lure anglers and now is the time to be chasing them.

Just recently Victorian Fisheries opened a new fishery close to Melbourne. Ferntree Gully quarry was never a secret, but only even had unofficial species in it. Just recently it had a dozen murray cod and golden perch stocked into it, along with over 300 trout! There have been some decent sized put in as well, with staff members Chris and George going up to the lake for a look. While they were there they saw some large trout in the 5 - 6lb size cruising, along with 2 of the cod. Just prior to school holidays it was topped up with yearling rainbows for the kids to catch. Powerbait and dough methods have been working on these fish, with quite a few hitting small spoons, hardbodies and soft plastics also. The natives should respond to bladed jigs and lipless crankbaits fished deep, and the lake will also lend itself perfectly for swimbaiting for the cod. 

Back in the states' west, Victorian Fisheries have been busy in the crater lakes, with a recent trout stocking. Lake Purrumbete received 1600 'cheetah' trout for the first time ever just this week. The cheetah trout is a sterile hybrid between both rainbow trout and brook trout and just another addition to the already booming trout fishery in the west of the state. While these recently stocked were only in the advanced yearling size they should respond to coarse and dough style fishing similar to that of other stocked lakes like Eildon pondage.

Things are good in the fresh! There are plenty of options for all manner of fishing and heading in all different directions. Up around the Eildon region the pondage has been producing fish from pre-holidays stockings when conditions allow. With plenty of water still being sent down the Goulburn river the pondage has experienced increased flow which has made the bite a bit inconsistent. Fishing during the next spell of low pondage flow will see the fish come back on. Dough style baits and light line have been the key to catching these fish. Staff members Don and George fished the pondage during the week and found a few smaller fish amongst tough conditions. Persistence and the correct berley have been key.

While the Goulburn itself hasn't been super exciting in terms of trout reports there have been some nice fish caught in the rivers above Eildon itself. Customer Chris had a good weekend fishing with his two boys recently on both the Delatite and Howqua rivers. While Chris had good success fishing small bladed spinners and hardbodies, his sons Atticus and Flynn caught both brown and rainbow trout on unweighted worms free drifted into some of the pools.

In the south Gippsland region the rivers have been running as low and clear as ever but still producing fish. While the fish may be small they are not pushovers and still require an element of stealth in approach unless you want to see the tail end of the trout heading in the opposite direction. Customer Brendan fished the Noojee region over the weekend and landed a few typical brown trout from the Latrobe river. Brendan found that the most effective lures were small slender jerkbaits in natural galaxia patterns.

On the cod scene things are starting to heat up for the bigger fish. Early Autumn is an excellent time to target the bigger fish in the lakes and dams, while the smaller fish will still keep you busy. Customer Shane fished Lake Mulwala just recently with his wife in some lovely conditions.  The lake produced a few fish for them, with 3 nice cod around the 60cm mark taking spinnerbaits worked along the channel edges.

Continuing on with the cod, the locally stocked lake of Karkarook Park has produced a couple of fish for persistent anglers. While they aren't monsters they have been caught on lures and can be caught. Customer Cip fished the lake last week and connected to one of the small cod on a small spoon. Cip was fishing the spoon over a shallow clay bank drop off in search of trout when the cod pounced.

Now that many of the holiday crowds have come back home the estuaries have started fishing a little better out towards Lakes Entrance. The sheer amount of people on the water had kept the fishing a bit quiet and the fish a bit skittish, but now things are starting to heat back up. Around Lakes itself there has been a good amount of variety caught, from kingfish and King George whiting through to bream and flathead. Customer Josh fished around Lakes in search of nice flathead and he wasn't disappointed when a nice 72cm fish jumped on a hardbody in the shallows. The successful lure imitated a small garfish perfectly, and he caught many other flatties around 40cm on the same lure.

While many people might not expect to catch fish right amongst the crowds in the heart of town, and customer Anne proved that theory wrong. Anne fished the 'main' Cunninghame arm in front of town at Lakes Entrance and landed a ripper dusky flathead of 52cm. Anne was fishing with plastics and this was her first fish on a soft plastic, which is awesome. Customer Daniel was also fishing the shallow lagoons around the estuary mouth at Marlo where he caught some nice flatties to a similar size. The fish in this region have been gorging themselves on small prawns too, so if you can imitate them or use them you're in with a good shot!

Customers Jordan and Morgan both fished some of the estuaries around Lakes Entrance and Marlo recently, where the boys managed some nice bream. Fishing out of their kayaks, the boys had some good surface fishing with bream to 35cm taking 'deruzze' dead sticked amongst the weed, but the real winner was the Jackall 'spytail' fished with short darts and jerks along the riverbank edges. The fish would hammer the lure after a small twitch as it slowly 'died' and drifted along the drop offs.

Customer Ange fished the Gippsland estuaries in his kayak recently where he had a ball on the bream using mainly surface lures. Ange stocked up on a few different style of lure before heading away, with plenty of fish taking small prawn and baitfish imitations. The best lures were the new colour and size 'sugapens' along with small Tiemco 'deruzze' - which are both very natural in appearance and action. Ange landed some nice bream to 40cm using these lures, working them through the shallows. This surface action has not long heated up and will be on the table for a while yet, so get out there and make the most of it!

Young gun Ashie Damelio has been having a ball catching some nice black bream out in the estuaries also. Ash has been bait and lure fishing with his dad Steve and is well and truly hooked on fishing, as he's normally picking up more lures in store than dad!

There is plenty going on in the freshwater if you want to try your luck. Pretty much every specie is on offer at present, from local suburban lakes right up to the Murray river way up near Swan Hill. Local lakes such as Devilbend and Karkarook have been producing fish and customer Morgan has been getting amongst them. Morgan has been catching some sizeable redfin from a few different lakes around the area, with fish well over 40cm smashing small surface lures and plastics. Morgan has found lures that imitate the local mosquito fish have been the most effective on the redfin.

The native fish up along the Murray have been fishing well, with golden perch and Murray cod both active at the moment. Customer Phil fished the Murray up towards Mildura and caught some chunky golden perch from the boat. Fishing baits back in around undercut banks and fallen timber was the most effective method, with shrimp and frozen bass yabbies the two most effective baits at present. Customer Andy also fished the Murray around Yarrawonga for the cod and he has been catching a few smaller fish to around 65cm. Andy has been casting a few different styles of lure, with high-buoyancy hardbodies doing well for him over the timber and weed at present.

There has been plenty on offer closer to home around Eildon. Fisheries Victoria have been very busy stocking 150 solid trout to over 2kg in the pondage during the week - with a mixture of both browns and rainbows. These fish will be worth targeting now that they have been in the lake for a few days - so make sure you check all your coarse tackle and specialist baits and berley out before the kids go back to school. 

In the main lake at Eildon, Fisheries have also topped up Murray cod numbers, with another 25,000 cod stocked in during the week. At around 3 months old, these cod fingerlings will find shelter among the broken rock and timber and turn into mean, lure-crunching machines soon enough!

Speaking of Eildon cod, there have been some nice fish caught - but the high amount of water traffic over the busy period has kept things a bit quieter. If you're a die-hard cod angler you're probably not fishing 'gentlemens hours' anyway so you will be aware of the boat traffic. Despite this, there have been fish caught. Customer Travis went and fished the lake recently after purchasing a handful of different cod lures.

Trav persisted away with a large redfin pattern swimbait which got nailed by a chunky little cod of around 50cm, right within sight of one of the main boat ramps! Just goes to show that there are fish all through the lake, and the only way to catch them is to keep on casting! Trav also had some fun on the carp during down time, with some sight caught using surface lures. Catching the carp in the lake can be good fun and a good way to break the monotony on the light gear.

For anglers thinking about trout fishing over the long weekend, reports are still good! Whether you're going to stay local or head up into the high country the trout have been active enough to get into a few. Around the local stocked lakes there have been enough fish to catch both on lures and bait. Customer Scott came in to the store with daughter Pheonix to set themselves up for some local trout fishing, and after their first session young Pheonix managed to land her first fish, a nice little rainbow trout.

Customer Manny fished locally in the upper reaches of the Yarra to land nice brown trout to around 400g. Manny was fishing small shallow running hardbodies in a good black and gold contrasting colour. Being that the Yarra is silted and darker coloured water the flash of the gold gets attention while the dark silhouette gives a solid profile for fish to attack.

Up at Eildon the pondage has been fishing well again with some freshly released fish really getting in on the action. With a long weekend coming Eildon is the ideal location to try your luck on these freshly stocked fish, but ensure that you have the correct specialized tackle and bait. If you are unsure swing past the shop and talk to the guys who can get you set up.

While the smaller trout have been getting amongst it, there are still some thumpers to be caught. Customers Jozef and Margaret fished the pondage during the week where they landed some ripper trout on both bait and lure. Powerbait and dough fished well in the coarse berleying method while a couple of fish also took 7g tassies. Brighter coloured tassies and spoons are effective on the pondage and can trigger a reaction bite from the fish, so make sure you have bright as well as natural colours in your box.

Customer Zoran has also been getting amongst the solid trout on the pondage, with his last trip being early this week. Zoran mentioned that there is no shortage of smaller aggressive fish and good numbers could easily be caught if you are using the correct methods. Zoran did manage a few big fish on top of the smaller fish, with his best rainbow going 12lb and taking the specialzed trout dough fished on a feeder cage rig.

 

 

The trout fishing continues to be very good whether you're fishing locally stocked lakes or going for a 3 hour drive. The local lakes like Rowville and Karkarook have been producing plenty of fish since their pre-school holidays stocking. Customers Jay and Ariiff went down to Karkarook and young Ariiff proceeded to catch some of the rainbows on a new rod that he won during our Megabass VIP night. The most successful lure for Ariiff was a 'tailbender' in spawning fire colour. Another young gun catching fish down at Karkarook is customer Harry. Harry was fishing with his mum and managed to land himself some nice little rainbow trout using a powerbait and berley method.

Around the popular spot of Noojee, staff member Don has been catching trout with his twin boys.Don took the boys to fish the Latrobe river and had them both catching a few brown trout to 30cm. Small shallow running hardbodied lures were the most effective in natural trout patterns, with some sort of bright contrast to them. Bright orange bellies, or UV spotted patterns stood out in the tannin and silty water and had the trout crashing them - whereas plain natural patterns didn't get a bite.

Up around Eildon the pondage has still been producing some of the thumping rainbows for customers Margaret and Jozef. Being pondage locals, they have caught plenty of fish on various methods but the powerbait coarse style is still their most successful. Lately the fish have been responding well to bright 'salmon egg' coloured baits, and jozef has also caught a couple of fish in the pondage and river using a few different lure styles. Small 7g tassie devils have been working well, along with heavy weighed spinners to get down deep and throw heaps of flash.

 

Plenty of trout have still been caught by anglers fishing both local and further away. The trout fishing in the Eildon region has still been excellent with the pondage and Goulburn both producing fish, whether you choose to lure or bait fish. Some of the large rainbow trout are still being caught in the river with deep running plastics and heavier spoons finding their way down to the fish. The deeper runs will normally hold the best fish, and these runs normally go unfished by many anglers with their standard shallower running trout lures.

The pondage has been the go if you’re fishing dough-style baits and powerbait, but remember for this method to work as well as it should you must make up a berley mix consisting crushed trout pellets. Customer Jozef and his wife Margaret fished the pondage over the weekend and caught some lovely fish using this exact method.

While it’s not all bait fishing at the pondage, it still is the more consistent method. If you’re anything like customer George you will like casting lures about. Luckily the big rainbows that George has been catching are still quite partial to a hardbody lure.

Around the suburban stocked lakes the fish have been active since their recent school holiday stocking. Customer Cipto and Ariff fished Karkarook lake over the weekend and found a few nice little rainbows. The best lures for the boys were the Yakamito trout spoons and bright coloured ‘tailbenders’.

Staff member Dylan has been up around the NSW alpine region fishing the snowy lakes while on holiday. With idyllic conditions, not much wind and bright sunshine the fish were always going to be skittish. Targeting rocky points and wind-blown bays was the most effective, with rainbow trout to 3lb hitting hardbodies and yabby imitations. Whether lure or fly fishing the area, it pays to imitate the main food source with small yabby, goldfish and minnow copies your best bet.

The trout fishing has really turned it on for anglers over the past few weeks since the opening, and there have been plenty of fish caught in the lakes during the week. The Eildon region is still well worth a drive to either fish the lake, pondage or rivers.

Customer Adam caught an absolute cracker brown from Lake Eildon recently, from the Jew's creek area. Adam caught the fish on a Yakamito 'slim minnow' in brown trout colour. This particular lure is nearly 10cm long, which shows that trout are not afraid to hit larger offerings, especially in rival trout patterns.

Also fishing the Lake, customer Mick had a weekend away with some mates and while the fishing was relatively slow there were still some nice fish caught. Mick managed a couple of browns around 1kg on the troll. Mick tried a few different options but the ever-faithful pink Tassie Devil got the job done. Something about a bright coloured lure, especially pink really gets the attention of the trout. One of the trout was hooked in the pec fin so the fish may still be running a late spawn and showing aggression towards anything in their space.

The pondage at Eildon is still fishing well for the large rainbows that have been lurking since opening weekend. These big fish will eat a fairly big lure if you are spinning, so don't be afraid to tie on something big, bright or just different to what you would normally use. Customer Nicole fished the Burke Street end of the pondage recently to land a thumping big rainbow around the 10lb mark casting lures. Fish of this size are capable of eating a lure or soft plastic 15cm long or so, and often the large 'main course' offering will get a more aggressive strike than the 'appetizer'.

Back in the local lakes, most of the suburban stocked lakes will be receiving a top up stocking any day now - just in time for School Holidays. Down at Karkarook Park, customer Ismail tried his hand at 'coarse' style baitfishing and caught a couple of small rainbows. While these fish can bite their heads off when they are berleyed into a frenzy, incorrect tackle and rig setup and the lack of a mixture of dough style baits will see most go fishless. There are plenty of anglers who catch consistently in these stocked lakes, through proper setup and persistence.

HOT SPOT: If it's trout luring you're after - the Eildon region is hard to beat. For a nice casual fish with the kids, Lakeside in Pakenham has just been stocked with 500 rainbow trout which will respond well to the coarse angling methods.