Maybe the lack of wind and bright sunshine made the trout a bit picky today, but if so, it was a fair trade. After three days of cloud, rain and bitter winds, it was simply glorious to soak up the Vitamin D .
Too pleasant? Maybe, but it was hard to knock back fishing and feeling warm at the same time.
First stop was Lake Bullen Merri. This extremely fertile water was decimated by a fish kill just last year, but it’s extraordinary powers of recovery were on display today, with trout (and possibly salmon) of a size you’d always be happy to catch, smelting and swirling often enough to keep the interest up.
Max casts at a Bullen Merri smelter…
…Hook up!…
Nearly there…
Success!
Not without some misgivings that we were “goin’ when we should be comin'”; Max and I headed off to Purrumbete after lunch. The surface activity was perhaps a little less than at Bullen Merri, but enough to offer a few targets as fish sporadically charged thick schools of minnow around the weed.
Max puts a cast out towards the weed-beds.
Two nice trout caught and two missed was the eventual result.
This solid smelter took a slow-retrieved olive BMS.
The temperature plummeted after sunset. Call us soft, but with the car thermometer reading just 4C as the moon came up, we were happy enough to hit the long road home and save a twilight fish for a warmer evening.
