The big news this month on the fishing front has been the Trout fishing all around the state, with record rainfalls and snow dumps over the last two months rising Lake levels and flooded river backwaters have produced some of the best opening season Trout fishing seen in many years, and the best is yet to come. Aurthurs Lake, now at levels never previously seen and the Great Lake has produced well early season with anglers reporting good sized bags from both waters mostly on soft plastic lures such as Yep Tassie Tackle Flappers and Gary Glitter Squidgy Fish. The Pioneer Mine Dam is still fishing well with a few local St Helens anglers hitting it up since opening week and catching quite a few Rainbows to 3-4lb on a mixture of soft plastic lures and Grubs floated under a float.

The annual Pioneer Trout Fishing Competition will be on again this year on Saturday the 15^th of October from 9:00am until 4:45pm. Entry is Adults $7 and Kids(6-14 years) $5 with some great prizes up for grabs. The Inland Fisheries will release 2 tagged fish and if caught on the day are worth $250 cash each to the lucky anglers, all other prizes will be awarded as a lucky draw so if you enter you could win regardless of the size of your fish. It is a licence free event with hot and cold food available at the dam and this year will see the first year that power boats will be allowed for use on the water.

The lower Georges River and the South Esk were both flooded into surrounding paddocks for a number of weeks and a quite a few and although now starting to really clear up they are still running high and will need a few more weeks to come down to a more manageable flow for easier fishing. They have been producing some great fish however and you can expect some absolutely fantastic fishing for the coming summer.

The Scamander River has really started to fire now especially in the lower reaches with some great fish being caught, and what appears to be a slightly better run of bigger fish then in previous years, some anglers reporting at least 1 or 2 40cm+ fish, almost 4lb in the old scale, per session. For the lure fisherman the Lucky Craft Pointer 65, the Bushy’s Stiffy Minnow and the Shimano Lure Project series have been the standout models, plastics such as 100mm Squidgy Wriggler in Wasabi and Bloodworm and for the bait fisherman the Prawns, Pippies, Mussels and Crabs are the standard diet needed. Also the Dynabait Freeze Dried Worms have proven to be a handy bait to just have in your bag or box, with an unlimited shelf life they can stay packaged until you are ready to use them.

Offshore fishing has seen good bags of Flathead being taken off Elephant Rock in around 60-65 metres of water and mostly taken on Neptune Arrow jigs in Lumo and Pink/White by drifting over the sand banks where the Flathead lay in wait to ambush its prey.

The Break O Day FlyFishing Club will be holding a Fishing Movie night in St Helens during the latter half of October, this will be 3 hours of fantastic Fishing action including Fresh Water, Trout, Flyfishing, Salt Water, Estuary and Game Fishing as well as some unusual footage from around the world. There will be supper provided and a bar so keep your eyes posted here for dates and times.

For any more advice on where to go and what to catch just drop in and see me, Jamie, at St Helens Bait & Tackle…….Tight Lines.