Having a few weeks up the sleeve i headed for he big island for some R&R plus some catch up with family and freinds .
Of course fishing the still open season in Vic was the main game plan :D
Having a couple of vans on the Goulburn river bank at Molesworth makes for a great base camp to sample some of the local streams in the area .
There was also enough water being released to get the boat in the river and cross the gravel beds all the way to Alexander which was a real treat .
First stream i tried was the King Parrot , where i was curious to see on how the trout have recovered after the drought and recent fires .
The evidence of savage fires was everywhere with some trees seeming never to recover .
Equipped with the fly rod and a hopper/nymph i was soon surprised to see a miss and then a very nice fish hooked up in the first few casts .
I missed the first in a deep hole off of the nymph before plopping the hopper on the shallow edge of the gravel a few feet ahead .
The result was a nice looking displacement of water ,followed by the inevitable crunching of the hopper .
Typical King Parrot water .
Plenty of fish were caught with another nice fish dropped .
Typical Brown from the Parrot .
Next stop on the cards was the Upper Goulburn River near Jameison .
Also started off searching there with the same hopper/nymph set up .
Started off a little slow with the first sighting being a Murray Cod charging straight down stream towards me .
Standing still he passed by very closely giving me a good look at the markings on the fish .
Only around 60cm or so but large enough to fool me into first thinking it was a Platapus WiHs
First five fish caught were all Rainbows before losing a hefty Brown in the rear of a deep pool .
A few more Bows before a Brown came to hand .
The access was fantastic with the road running right along side the river for quite a few kilometres with plenty of wadeable water .
Next stream was the Acheron where the change to lures was made .
A little to much water was flowing for comfortable wadeing and the fish were a little quiet .
Still a few were landed after changing to the JD's in a brown trout pattern .They just wern't interested in the plastics or anything other than a brown trout pattern .
One that i took for my 93 year old Scottish gran .She loves them !
Apparently the Acheron has had a solid flow all season .
The only disturbing thing i seen all trip was the carp breeding up in the backwaters of the rivers .
This is a backwater attached to the Acheron .
I had put %90 of the fish down but you can still small carp on the surface everywhere !
Very sad to see these fish starting to thrive again .
Next on the list was hitting up the King Parrot again with some lures .
Changing through the usual selection seen a few fish follow and only some striking .
First fish landed was actually the dreaded reddy .
The sure do love the little lip rippers .
Ended up getting one on a plastic before reverting to the usual brown trout pattern .
The change worked out well with a few good fish falling to the same lure with the Lox receiving a work out .
Happy to catch a stream fish in Tassy of this quality !
Yet again i was smiling with this fish hitting the lure 3 times before the hook up .
More Wombats than you could shake a stick at .
Even had one run flat out straight through the camp in the dark ,scaring the crappa out of me !
More good fish were available which kept me covering ground in anticapation of what was next .
Then another good fish was sighted .
Cast and bingo ,another good mexican trutta on the board !
No worries with the Vic trout populations .
The Rubicon was always on the short list of streams to visit but was over run with punters looking for their peice of water to fish .
Starting talking to a nice fella called Daryl who showed me some interesting water in the farm land area before heading up higher in the system to find some virgin water .
Had around an hour to fish where i managed 2 fish from some very farmiliar water .
Much like one of my favourite Tassy streams just slightly larger in size .
Gin clear with fighting Browns .
I think hitting this river mid week would be a better choice than the actual weekend .
Still thanx to Daryl for getting me into some of gods country !
Last stream on the short list was the Howqua .
Headed here with a mate from Melbourne and decided that the fly would be a noble choice for this magnifacent looking river .
The water was clear turning slightly New Zealand looking (green) in the deeper pools .
Also mostly wadeable with many inviting runs to try out .
I missed my first three fish before nailing a little Bow .
Sam found his first fish for the arvo which was another Bow .
8 fish between us for the arvo with only one being a Brown .
Sam and myself took turns with the video camera so hopefully i will post up a you-tube link soon .
Thanx for a great day Sam and see you next time i return to Vic !
Bring on next season and thank god for the recent stockings of Atlantics .
Should provide some entertainment whilst waiting for the new season to arrive ,
Dave ...
