LAKE EUCUMBENE

Fields knee high in green grass, the smell of freshly mown hay, paddocks full of fat cattle… if it wasn’t for the flies I could imagine I was 15,000 kms away on an English hillside in the Lake District. It’s that time of year when I should be writing about hopper action on the Snowy Lakes but it appears the regular rainfalls have killed off the early signs of hoppers. I’m not saying there are none, but I counted the number of hoppers I saw on the water in three days fishing on Lake Eucumbene in the first week of February on one hand.

I spent those three days with Mark as we persistently lobbed a vast range of rubber legged terrestrial creations into every likely spot, before reverting to Buggers and nymphs to catch reasonable numbers of fish. Hot tip: the sounder regularly showed a thermocline at two to three metres, and what I would bet good money on as being clouds of daphnia. There were plenty of trout in schools, sitting out the heat of the day in deeper water. We looked for fish, anchored when we found them, and fished small heavy olive nymphs on 6 metre leaders in deep water, making good use of indicators. We walked the banks for miles, prospecting and polaroiding dry-dropper rigs with very little success, although Col joined us for one morning session and caught two superb fish on his Mattress fly (Chernobyl Ant on steroids).

The surface water temperature was between 22 and 23.8 degrees C, we had wind speeds from 0 to 40 km/h, full sun most of the time, and covered a vast area of the lake by boat. We saw very, very few fish surface feeding. About a third of the trout we caught were browns up to 4lb, and the remainder were hard fighting rainbows up to 2lb.

Col and I spent a day at Tantangara. I’d been avoiding it because of the fishing area restrictions in all my favourite western shore spots, and the general mine-camp feel of the place as Florence, the Snowy 2.0 drill, goes about her work of tunneling to Talbingo. But with the lake at over 20%, Col insisted it would be worth the effort. In hindsight, it may have been better if I hadn’t bothered.

TANTANGARA FISH KILL

We launched at the rock boat ramp near the dam wall and zipped up the lake, enjoying the morning air but noting the green tinge to the water. Our plan was to fish the Nungar arm and creek, and we parked the boat at the limit of the backed-up water. Col fished up the creek and I fished back down the southern lake bank, convinced I’d find some tailers over the shallow flooded grass. There was a sweet, almost chemical smell in the air, which I noted but thought no more about. I saw two dead fish some distance off the shore. Two and a half hours passed and I’d managed one small brown. Col was late back to the boat, so I started to fish back up the creek to meet him – which I did at the first creek pool. He too had managed just one fish. Blaming bright light, green tinged water, and lack of breeze we headed back to the main body of the lake where we sadly found a significant fish kill at the junction of the Murrumbidgee and Nungar Creeks. We didn’t really count, but I estimate we saw somewhere between 50 and 100 fish, browns and rainbow, from 200 grams to 2 kilos or so; and a mob of cormorants so gorged they could only dive to avoid the boat. I spoke to Fisheries, and over the next two days there was a solid investigation involving Fisheries, the EPA, and Snowy Hydro. I haven’t yet heard whether the water testing showed anything.

As an observation, this is a screenshot of the flat-line lake level at around this time in late January. Imagine the several hectares of flooded grass in less than a metre of water at the top of the Nungar arm on a hot summer day. A significant chance that dissolved oxygen would be very low. It’s not difficult to see how this could be a likely cause. Snowy Hydro did decide to dump some of the green water out of Tantangara into Lake Eucumbene through the portal the next day but turned it off when it was pointed out they hadn’t seen the water test results yet.

STEVE SAMUELS

Some news from Steve Samuels, our leading NSW trout savant who has announced his resignation after 29 years as President of the Monaro Acclimatisation Society.

Steve has fought for trout like no other person. I dealt with him when I was Director-General of NSW Fisheries, and he was always tenacious, genuine, and driven by fact-based decision-making. In a sector dominated by emotion and misinformation, Steve was outstanding as a true straight shooter. At least part of his reasoning to leave the role, appears to be linked to a recent decision by the NSW Government to ban trout stocking in significant parts of the Monaro, Murrumbidgee, and Tumut catchments, based on what Steve describes as the “hatred for trout” within the NSW Department of Primary Industries fisheries threatened species unit. Anyone who enjoys trout fishing in NSW should know Steve’s name, and know how tirelessly this man has worked for more than the last three decades to protect this sector.

We should celebrate Steve’s many and outstanding successes, and not let this temporary blip in any way diminish his achievements. I am hoping this can all be sorted once some accountability and transparency are restored.

MUDEYE FISHING

The one consistent theme across all the lakes has been the late evening and night-time time mudeye fishing. Every rock, tree and bush has shucks and there’s no reason to think this won’t last another month at least. If the heat of the day is putting you off, don’t overlook the evenings.

SNOWY LAKE LEVELS REPORT

Lake Eucumbene remains high at 60.87%, down only 1% since the beginning of the year. The Providence flats are still underwater down-lake from Gang Creek, with 10 metres of water off the Providence campsite boat ramp, and plenty of fish on the sounder. I’ve fished all the southern bays this month from Middlingbank, Try-Villa, Rushy Plain, Brookwood, Seven Gates, Cobrabold, and Wainui, and all have been fishy.

Tantangara Reservoir is at 23.7% and rising. I predicted in December that it would start to drop in late January, but that has been temporarily delayed and I expect it to start dropping soon. If you can deal with the green tinge, I would rate a trip to the north and eastern shores as hot tips, if you can ignore my comments about the mine camp environment. (There is nothing to suggest the fish kill I reported here earlier was more widespread.)

Lake Jindabyne is at 71.7%, having risen steadily since the beginning of the year. Reports have been scarce, but as with Eucumbene hoppers have yet to make a big show, and the fish are sitting in deeper water. Everyone’s fingers are crossed for a mass hopper invasion soon!

We have one more month of summer and we’ll be in autumn, temperatures will start to drop, daylight hours are already shortening, and the fish will start to feed desperately to get into spawning condition. Bring your mudeyes, your olive bead head nymphs, and some big foam hoppers, and enjoy the next few weeks before the hordes descend for Easter.