Freshwater Trout Fishing: Eucumbene Lake & River - Day 1

I (Jake) always say I prefer the salt, and always will, but I also firmly believe trout fishing is for the fisher who has a true love for the sport/hobby of fishing.

We hadn’t returned to the NSW Snowys since I was a kid using mudeye under a float, so I was pretty keen to get back up there around prime time for the northern reaches (early April) and try out our lure range in both the Lake and River.

The intent was to try out similar successful methods to those we’ve used in the Goulburn and Howqua Rivers, but there was also a little added google research along with listening intently to local hints along the way.

Per our standard lazy first day tradition we hit the lake around lunch time just to troll various depths/locations and determine our plan for coming days.

Probably the largest surprise from our research was how popular blades are in the lake with darker colours bringing most success, so the initial spread consisted of; a ¼ ounce Ever Green Little Max blade/vibe in each corner (in both baby gill and black knight), a Tackle House Elfin Mini Cicada in the shotgun position, Tackle House Bitstream Jointed out one side, and the old man was running a tazzie devil out the opposite side.

We started trolling close to the middle of the lake then slowly worked our way around some trees towards the shallows until we figured out our ideal depth based on water column coverage, sounder activity and obviously any fish activity.

At approx 3m the blades would just kiss the bottom, and it wasn’t long before the first rod buckled over, but we missed that one incl a few more strikes thereafter until finally landing our first brown trout.

Generally anywhere between 3-7m of water depth proved successful which aligned with the sounder readings (this lake is packed full of fish!).

The interesting thing was that nearly all strikes were on the black knight blade, so we switched out the other blade to a prespawn dynamite which is a little darker than the baby gill, and although that improved the number of strikes in that corner it just didn’t match the effectiveness of the black knight blade, irrespective of depths/direction of travel etc.

We probably only fished for 2-3 hours max on day 1 with well over a dozen strikes but only landed 2 fish, both brown trout around the 1lb mark.

Upon arrival back to our cottage at Anglers Reach Caravan Park our friendly immediate neighbour was kindly/modestly sharing his success for the day, and suggested for us to try fishing with our drags as loose as possible, until they’re nearly/slightly ticking on the troll. We also discussed things like lures types and speeds but 4-5 minn kota speed (depending on wind direction) seemed about right for us, and our main focus was ensuring the blades were vibing without going too fast, in other words focusing on the action of the more successful lure type, rather than trying to figure which exact speed trout prefer overall.