Weekly Fishing Report
Victorian Alpine Region
After a brilliant start to the trout fishing season anglers have found things slowing up a little over the past days, possibly due to fast changing weather conditions causing adverse swings in the barometer level and unexpected stream surges and soil erosion.
Rocky Valley Reservoir and Pretty Valley Reservoir at Falls Creek are at full capacity and trout are rising during the very late afternoon. Bait and lure anglers should do well around the shoreline, with most of the snow now melted, although there’s still enough around to cause access problems in some places. Best baits are big bunches of drifted earthworms and two scrub worms on a size 8 bait hook attached to a light rig of 3 kilograms breaking strain.
Lake Guy at Bogong Alpine Village is perfect for trolling right now, with scrub worms set for deep running under a downrigger and slowly trolled through the deep water being the most useful application to use.
The Mt Beauty pondage is full and anglers report catching rainbow trout to 800 grams on worms under a bubble float and metal lures during the day. A few rises are occurring very late in the afternoon around the reeds but fly fishers are not apparent just yet, probably waiting until the weather becomes warmer and more insects are on the water.
The west Kiewa River is running fast and deep and fishing moderately well, although only a few anglers have fished it to date and I have no fishing reports on hand. Wearing felt soled wading boots is recommended as the bottom in the west Kiewa is very slippery in parts.
The Kiewa River is running at almost full capacity and anglers are reporting catching trout like they used to, before the big drought took effect. Brown trout to 1.5 kilograms and at least one that I know of that exceeded 2 kilograms have been caught during the day in the Kiewa around Tawonga by local anglers on drifted scrub worms and light lines.
The upper Mitta Mitta River around Anglers Rest is flowing nicely and producing brown trout to around a kilogram on average, with drifted scrub worms the most popular method employed by anglers. The Bundarra and Cobungra rivers at Anglers Rest are also looking very good with high flows and crystal clear water a feature right now.
The lower Mitta Mitta River from Mitta Mitta is flowing at 200 megalites and is a bit muddy this week after heavy rains but is slowly clearing and should be right by the weekend.
Lake Dartmouth is holding steady at around 14% capacity with good stocks of wild browns on hand to delight any angler's weekend of effort. Best results are with deeply trolled scrub worms attached to cow bells and similar attractors, especially in around 8-mile bay area. The pondage (Lake Banimboola) is a very popular destination this week for anglers looking for brown trout in the range of 1.5 to 25 kilograms weight range. Anglers have been taking such large specimens on drifted earthworms and lures over the last few weeks, according to reliable reports.
That's all for now, more next week from,
Geoff Lacey
Angling Expeditions Victoria P O Box 20 TAWONGA VIC 3697
Tel: (03) 5754 1466; Fax: (03) 5754 1991; Mob: 0409 241 762
Email: info@anglingvic.com.au; Web: www.anglingvic.com.au | 
