Trip on the sweetwater

Since we got the kayaks and the boat, freshwater fishing trips have been few and far between. Today we decided to change this, and got up at the way too early time of 3.15am and headed to Eildon. When we arrived about 6.30, it was still quite dark and we went to the Upper Pondage, coming down Cemetary Rd. This has been very productive for us over the years, however I had to carry Ben through the marshland and when we got there it was all mud and the old goulburn riverbed was flowing extremely fast. After an hour we gave up and headed into town. I had managed to get some powerbait and maggots yesterday, but Dad wanted meel worms so we checked out the fishing shop. The extremely helpful owner told us that (Apart from not having meel worms) they had released 10,000 yearling trout into the Pondage about 2 weeks ago, plus 200 ex brood stock from between 2.5-4.5kg. However, as the Pondage was up and down like a yoyo, the fish were very uncooperative and since their initial stocking they had become very sluggish and not willing to take bait or lures. We decided that even with the fish put off with that many fish stocked recently we had to catch one! We picked up some mudeyes and went back to the Pondage (With a brief 30 minute stop at the bakery/cafe for bacon and egg rolls and coffees/OJ for Ben).

We looked in Nursery Corner and some other spots in the Lower Pondage (Trying to get out of the current flowing through!) and talked to a few people. None had even sighted a fish so we went to Burke St, as even without a fish there was still a lot of space for Ben to run around.

It was very slow, and Dad and I each had one on the bottom, one under a float and Ben had one on the bottom. I was using maggots on both and Dad and Ben both had powerbait on their sinker rigs. Ben was having much more fun actually putting the maggots into the berley cages than fishing, so at least he was having fun!

About 11am when Ben and I were messing around, Dad yelled that I had a bite (On my rod on the bottom). When I arrived at my rod a fish had run with the bait and was a good 50m away to my right. Dad obliged by pulling in my float rod and then the fish decided to run the other way. I could tell straight away that it was a big fish, however my 15 year old (Bought during an NZ trip in 1998) no-name reel is quite sick. It has old, very untrustworthy 6lb mono on it and the drag is the jerkiest thing that you have ever felt. Fighting this fish made me happy that I usually fish with my nice stradics! As I couldn't put much pressure on it at all, the fish ran about 50m the other way and Dad had to reel in the other 3 rods. A couple of minutes later a nice rainbow trout came in, however with me not being able to put much pressure on it, it constantly took off again. By the time I got it near for the 5th or 6th time a couple of people were watching, and to get it in I had to walk backwards and beach it, surf fishing style.

It turns out that it was a nice rainbow (Probably my biggest for 10 years with the dearth of freshwater fishing I have been doing). It measured 64cm and weighed in at 5.5lb in the old scale (Or 2.5kg, but pounds sounds bigger than kilos!). More importantly Ben enjoyed his first encounter with freshwater fishing, despite the fact that we continued fishing until about 2pm without another sniff (However, we didn't see one other angler land a fish all day so we didn't feel too bad!).

Note: It had warmed up significantly since the start of the day, and by the time this picture was taken Ben had stripped to his thermals and "Bob the Builder" gumboots, hence the outfit!