Hope your fishing tales are worth a yarn around a campfire. I’ve spent a bit of time on the Goulburn River, in North Central Victoria, running the tinny up and down with quite a bit of success! The Goulburn River is a major inland river. The headwaters rise in the Western end of the Australian The Goulburn River is a major inland river. The headwaters rise in the Western end of the Australian Alps near Mt. Buller. The Eildon dam creates Lake Eildon, major water storage for irrigation. From Lake Eildon all the water goes down the Goulburn River. The Goulburn is a fast fl owing cold trout river and offers a multitude of fi shing options even when most of the country is in drought. Brown and Rainbow trout being very popular, as well as Red Fin.
I had arranged Brad to meet me at Thornton and we were going to Boat down the Goulburn to Molesworth, about 70km by river passing through a lot of untouched areas, the only access being through private property.
Woke up early, to a blustery type day. I didn’t look at the forecast; we were going no matter what! The Goulburn is
quite navigable in the summertime as it supplies irrigation water further down stream. But be very careful as it can be quite dangerous with rocky, prop smashing, bottom and fast flowing 90 degree bends. In between that are good stretches of fishing water!
We travelled downstream for about half an hour to get away from the beaten tracks. Fishing started ok with a few 500 – 800gm fish
caught, with odd bigger one spotted. Clash of thunder and maybe we should have looked at the forecast… Oh well we get wet! What happened next is among my favourite fishing memories.
We had just come to a huge backwater when the rain started spotting the surface. As we were going to get wet either way we kept fishing and glad we did!
Big crashes of thunder all around, Rain turned to hail and the fi sh CAME ON. Casting Rapala CD5’s among the fallen timber it was nothing to get at least one hit every cast. So there we were sitting in the boat, icy slush slopping around with our lunch in the bottom, all the while catching fi sh. 17 trout up to 1.4kg we got in about half an hour session. Nothing huge but we had a lot of fun… Fishing this river is quite rewarding, with a little bit of preparation and effort.
Same deal as anywhere, walk off the beaten track to find spots where less people go to. Fishing with bait (eg. Maggots worms etc…) works very well. Look for a back eddies with an incoming flow of water. Usually trout will sit in these areas with the larger fi sh at the head of the incoming flow and the smaller ones further down.
One tip is to leave the float for a while once it has come to rest on the edge of the bank, as trout will often roam these areas where the food gets deposited from the fl owing water. Try alternating the depth of the bait, or even just drifting the fishing lure down with nothing but the hook. If you really like the spot and have pulled a few fi sh, try burling up the water with small bits of whatever bait you are using mixed with bread crumbs and red jelly crystals. Grab a handful, wet it and mould it into a ball. Throw upstream about 30mtr. above where you are fishing.
Well I hope you have fun on your next fishing trip.
See you out thereSteve
Ps. we only kept 3 of our fish caught. The rest we
released back into the river!
