Spring 2019 Flyfishing Report

Trout Season is Coming Back Strong

Welcome back to trout season!! With what was one of the hardest starts to any river season that I have seen it’s good to see that the trout are starting to show themselves! The weather has been fantastic the past couple of weeks and the days are certainly getting warmer. The bugs are stating to come out in numbers and the fish are starting to look up.

River Fishing

With a very poor rainbow run this year, the early season river fishing was tough to say the least! There were very few moving fish in the river and just a few residents were willing to come out and play. Although some nice fish were caught the numbers of overall catches was quite low. Thankfully it appears that the fishing is on the turn for the good. That doesn’t mean that you can drop your game, walking and stalking the banks and edges should be done carefully and fishing the undercuts and margins with a Dry-fly and dropper rig should be enticing enough to bring the big dogs out to play. A high riding dry fly such as a small Stimulator of Royal Wulff with a smaller lightly weighted nymph or soft hackle fly trailing around 14 to 16 inches behind the dry-fly gently drifted under the banks and through some tight pocket water usually do the trick. The middle of the day on some of the smaller streams have been producing some very reasonable fish on the Dry-fly, smaller CDC low ring flies have worked quite well, but you must ensure a drag-free drift to get good results.

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The past few evenings have seen some good termite and ant falls, these should continue over the next couple of weeks, particularly the still humid evening should see some solid ant falls as well as some caddis and mayfly hatches. There is also an abundance of frogs and tadpoles getting around. when the tadpoles are on the edges of the lake the brown trout tend to come in very close to gorge themselves on both the tadpoles and frogs.

Lake Fishing

The lakes have been a fishing a little better lately, both Lake Eucumbene and Jindabyne have been on the rise and is seeing some fish move closer in. Yabby patterns are proving to be the go to flies as they have been a very stable food source for the lake feeders and continue to eat them throughout the year even with massive lake level variations. A slow retrieve along the bottom with a bigger Wooly Bugger, Killer Patterns, or one of the Yewchucks King Cray flies from manic will work great.

The fishing is only going to  get better from here on in, so come on down and get into some early season dry-fly fishing. The weather is great and the trout are coming out to play!!!

Don’t forget to drop into the shop for a chat, stock up on some new flies, grab some gear, and find out where is fishing best!

Have a great day!!

Ant.

Originally Posted 2019, Updated 15th June 2020