Well, the Queen’s Birthday long weekend has now been and gone and that signals the end to the 2018-2019 Victorian Trout Season, as does this day every year. The final weekend was, as is so often the case, a very wet one. This year we’ve seen very good rainfalls in the last couple of months of the season, and it’s been ideal with so many of the streams low and desperately in need of a freshening up. This got a lot of fish moving early too and put plenty of good sized fish into the smaller streams that run off the larger rivers.

It’s been an interesting season,t hat is for sure. Plenty of people talking about how many of the rivers have been fishing really well, at the same time, there have been a lot of reports of tough fishing due to weather conditions. Victoria kicked off with a wet start to the season. I hit the waters late on opening morning with Scottie from Indulgence Flyfishing, once we dragged ourselves very slowly to the water after a long night of a little too much indulging. We were lucky to find some beautiful, untouched water and didn’t see another angler in sight. We did manage to almost step on a Lowlands Copperhead, which was a good heart-starter to wake us up in the morning.

Of course, it wasn’t as quiet elsewhere on Victorian waters with the widely publicized release of hundreds of ex-brood stock rainbow trout going into the Goulburn River right before opening. This saw the systematic release of fish ranging from 4-12 pounds into a number of locations along the Goulburn. Naturally, this attracted anglers in their hundreds and thousands to the area over the weekend and resulted in a lot of big fish being caught.

What was interesting was that whilst many of these fish got caught, and kept in the first week, a good number survived and managed to assimilate into the environment, It wasn’t unusual to find one of these beast sitting in a backwater happily feeding on ants later in the summer. And even as the finally week of the season came along, we still saw plenty of these fish getting about and even landed a few that were willing to play ball. There should still be a few about in September when the rivers re-open to fishing. Which will be bolstered by another release of brood trout for the following year’s fishing.

During the summer months, we saw some very low water on many of the local streams, and very high water on the tailraces. That meant tactics needed to change dramatically if you wanted success on the water. Hoppers were definitely on for much of the time, except when they weren’t. And then, it was sippers looking for ants. This offered some very rewarding and sometimes frustrating fishing when you got to watch a feeding trout ignore your size 24 spinner because it was just a little bigger than anything else drifting by. Willow grubs didn’t make much of an appearance this season. I only came across an few genuine grubbers under the willows, with more days than I care to think of spent crawling about down there. So, it meant changing flies and chewing through tippett was the secret to success. Of course that is summer fishing is all about, but it’s now a long way off.

So, until then, it’s time to cool our heels in some of the delightfully windblown highland lakes that offer great winter fishing options. Or, you can opt for the warmer plan and stay in at the vise tying flies in anticipation of the coming season. Here at Troutlore, we’ll be doing a bit of both, and making sure your orders for tying materials are promptly dispatched to get your fly boxes ready.