Fishing Reports

On Saturday Kevin Bamford, Peter Patterson, Manual Ferraro, Ken Ely, Andrew Harris, Steve Smith and myself fished Newlyn from 1pm to 8pm. The afternoon started with a BBQ put on by Ken – thanks for that Ken, I really enjoyed my lamb hamburgers.

The wind was fairly strong from the north and as we were situated in the northern corner, there was a glass like effect on this region of the lake. Kevin Bamford, Peter Patterson and Manual Ferraro all bait fished here throughout the day. They used worms, mudeyes, yabbies and power bait for no result. There were fish rising in this area early afternoon, and another angler took a fish just as we arrived, but as the afternoon went on this corner just got quieter and quieter. There were definitely fish moving in other parts of the lake so I think it was just bad luck the bait guys stayed in this spot.

Ken walked down the west side of the lake and in a sheltered spot threw in a worm for an immediate bite and brown trout of 655 grams. This was to prove the only weighed in fish for the day. Ken said there were many fish rising in this spot, presumably to midge, and a fly fisherman was down there trying to hook them.

I walked around the northern end of the lake and bumped into fly fishing personalities Bruce Smith and John Guljas who told me about their new fly fishing channel on YouTube. I have placed a link to their video below. After a few chats, I hit the very windy eastern shore. The water was really stirred up down here and presumably that meant feeding fish would be protected by the waves and wash. I saw and cast to a moving fish but he didn’t take my Tom Jones.

At about 6pm the wind really died down and quite a number of fly fisherman appeared on the east side of the lake. It really glassed off and every ten minutes or so you could cast to one or two feeding fish close in. Andrew Harris nabbed one of these on a ginked up brown nymph. But he promptly lost it while trying to take a photo. I had several opportunities but didn’t hook up. After watching the video later than night I realised I wasn’t fishing any of the mayfly lifecycle patterns. I have since ordered Bruce’s mayfly kit from http://www.brucesmith.com.au/fly_shop_baetismayfly_page_194.htm

Lessons from the day:

• At this time of year use mayfly lifecycle flies fished quite still.
• On windy days, walk down a shore parallel to the lake and fish just round the protected corner, there can be a lot of food gathering in such spots.
• I reckon the bait guys would have done better on the wind blown shore casting worms under a float and letting them move into shore. A few fly fishermen commented there was a fair amount of movement down there. But who is to know.