Reel Life | Don’t underestimate the Goulburn

Mind you, that is nowhere near what has fallen in Queensland, but down here, it is quite a bit — good enough to keep the rivers and streams topped up and good for fishing.

The reports reaching me are all positive.

Cod, yellowbelly and trout, as well as redfin, have all been caught.

Bait and lures have been successful, although shrimp and yabbies are getting harder to catch.

Worms — both garden and scrub worms — are in good supply.

The mild and humid conditions have seen the hatching of large Bogong moths, and don’t cod just love them as bait?

They are almost like a bardi grub, and cod treat them as a lolly and will eat them until the cows come home!

So if you are lucky enough to find a hatching, then good on you.

By the way, magpies like them as well.

There are many spots I enjoy fishing on the Goulburn River.

Most are around the Shepparton Golf Course, for no other reason than they are close to home.

But they all produce results, which makes the Goulburn one heck of a river to fish.

Carp, cod, yellowbelly and silver perch — of late, I have even landed a redfin.

Around Seymour, you can even catch trout.

Of recent times, I have fished the river around the Boulevard.

I chose this spot because of the cups of coffee from a friend who lives there, but even so, the fishing is good.

So too are his wife’s rum balls.

Most of my fishing has been with bait and an occasional lure.

As far as the Goulburn goes, it fishes just as well as any of the more revered locations such as Mulwala, Torumbarry and the Murray River in general.

Yes, I have fished local.

There are no doubt other locations along the Goulburn that I have not fished that could be just as good or even better than the ones I have fished.

Lake Eildon, meanwhile, is a great fishing spot. In fact, I would go as far as to say it’s the best.

The Goulburn flows into the lake and also out of it; thus the river has become one of the best inland fisheries in the state.

You may have noticed that mornings are cooler.

This is good for fishing for trout, as the cool brings the trout to the surface to feed.

You do not need heavy gear to get your bait or lure to where the fish are feeding.

So fishing at Dartmouth, the Hume and Eildon becomes much easier.

Your contact with the fish is so much better.

So for the early hours, you can ‘flat-line fish’. In other words, it is just your lure or bait.

You can fish like this until the trout move back into the deep.

While I have had only limited success at Waranga Basin, it is one of the more popular spots to fish in our region.

You can catch various species: trout, cod, yellowbelly, carp and redfin.

It made its name as a hotspot for redfin.

However, of late, most redfin have been of the smaller size, with only an occasional bigger fish among the catch.

Waranga is a relatively shallow waterway. It can chop up and become dangerous when it is windy, so boating care is needed.

Lake Nillahcootie is similar to Waranga, so care is needed there as well.

Now it’s time to look south to the saltwater fishing with Rod Lawn at Adamas Fishing Charters at Queenscliff.

Rod said he had been having some of the best late-season whiting fishing he had seen for years.

He said that while the fish were not big, they were mostly elbow-slappers, and those who fished for them were bagging their limit in one session.

He said he was fishing among the grass beds from the mouth of Swan Bay, past the White Lady marker to St Leonards, as well as on the Portsea side of the bay.

Rod said there were snapper on the reefs outside the heads, and salmon and flathead to help fill anglers’ bags.

Rod said the fishing in Western Port Bay was also good for whiting in the shallow grass beds and snapper on the edges of the shipping lanes from Hastings to the steel works.

One out-of-the-blue catch that Rod reported was a small-mouth shark, or as it is better known, a thresher shark.

It has an extremely long lower fin on its tail, which it uses to thrash baitfish with.

North of the NSW border, the coast up to Sydney has experienced bad weather, which has limited fishing off the coast.

At Eden, John Liddell said most fishing was limited to inshore reefs, and mostly reef fish and flathead were caught around the bay.

At Narooma, Graham Cowley said most of the action was on the sheltered side of Montague Island and also inside the mouth of the barr.

Flathead and gummy sharks were all that James Luddington caught at Flinders Island.

Well, that’s it. Stay safe and good fishing.