Philip Weigall

The last month has been uninspiring for fishing. Gale force winds have dominated, but at least they’ve brought some good rain, particularly in the west of Victoria (Lake Wartook is now approaching 50% of capacity). Oddly, the short between-storm periods have been breathlessly calm – the sort of conditions where a size 16 buzzer makes an audible ‘plip’ when it lands.
Such a day drew me towards Lauriston Reservoir last Friday. It was brighter than I’d choose for Lauriston in winter, but the promise of glassy water and being able to spot a smelter from 500 metres was lure enough. Arriving at the northern end, I found the lake at about 32% and rising, but still a good metre down on this time last year. The water was clear-ish, and sure enough, the lake was so still trout could seen swirling and slashing at great distance.

At first the activity was sporadic and well beyond casting range. Then some patchy cloud moved in, and not long after, a couple of trout had the decency to crash the smelt close to the bank. The first one either ignored my fly or had moved on before I got there. The second was more cooperative and took a sparse Tom Jones second cast – a brown of about 4 pounds in good condition. After that fish, I spent another hour searching various bays without any more obvious chances, although every few minutes a trout moved somewhere.
While not an outstanding session, it was good to see reasonable numbers of smelt in close, and trout clearly working baitfish; certainly smelt, and possibly young roach as well. Regarding the latter, some of the action out wide brought to mind the trout feeding on young roach so spectacularly this time last year – something to keep in mind if you venture up (the roach feeders need a much larger, thicker profiled fly than those literally ‘smelting’).

The next day it was down to Warrnambool, primarily to look for whales with Jane and my little boys (whale spotting is a bit like trout spotting, only the swell is about 12 foot, and southern right whales are about the size of a bus). Between whales, there was also time for a couple of fishing sessions. The gales were back, but both the Merri and Hopkins rivers showed promise, as they nearly always do. With time short, I chose to focus on the bream rather than trout. On the lower Merri, I missed a strike or two fishing with friend Matt Wood, who managed to catch a couple of big bream both before I arrived, and again just after I left!
I did better on the Hopkins near the mouth (conveniently located a few hundred metres from the whale watching area). The water was a little murky on what appeared to be an outgoing tide; nevertheless I managed a fair bream of about 30 cm on a Vampire. Then I hooked a stonker – or at least I thought it was, until the bright silver flashes turned out to belong to an over-powered trevally of a pound or so, not a much bigger bream or estuary perch. Still, a silver trevally is a first for me on the Hopkins, so I’ll take that gratefully.