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Craig450 with a 62cm Jindabyne Brown Trout
It has been a while since my last visit to the Snowy mountains so after a bit of planning a date was set for the 5th and 6th of September for a weekend of trout fishing at Lake Jindabyne. I started the trip from here on the South coast on friday night and stayed with my friend Alf in Canberra so we could make the rest of the trip down together. We spent Friday night preparing the boat and all of our camping and fishing gear and set our alarms for 4am the following morning.
I was too anxious to get to the lake and had a very restless night and before i knew it, it was time to get up and start the journey. We had a smooth run all the way to Jindabyne and were taking our first load of camping gear to our favourite spot at approximately 6:30am, we unloaded the gear and went back to the ramp for the last of the gear when Paffoh and Squidder arrived with both yaks loaded onto Paff's heavily modded Subaru Forester.
The last of the gear was quickly transported over to the camp site and ditched on the bank and exchanged with fishing gear and we motored over to the nearest timber snags to our camp site and started throwing plastic's deep into the structure. Not much was happening there so we started on a trolling run and a while later the wind came up just enough to convince us to head in to cook up some lunch and try our luck bait fishing from the shore. 4 rods were cast out with various baits including some fat scrub worms and different coloured powerbaits but we still had not seen a fish after 2-3 hours, the thought of heading home without a fish was running through my mind and i didnt like that idea.
At 3pm we decided to head off for some more trolling along the western side of the lake from Kalkite to Waste point with still no sign of fish once we reached Waste point. We pulled in the trolling rods and cast soft plastic's along the banks of Creel bay and finally got a hit but unfortunately no hook up. We started the run back with the trolling lures back out and proceeded down the Snowy arm back towards the main lake and about half way down the Snowy arm the wind got up again and before we knew it we had some pretty heavy waves following us which were throwing the boat around quite a bit and it was only getting worse.
i have fished lake jindabyne quite a bit and this was easily the scariest situation ive found myself in, but we didnt panic or get impatient and just found the best speed to travel as safely as possible and stuck fairly close to the bank just incase. I was releived to finally make it into the main lake which allowed us to travel head first into the wind which was a slightly wet ride back but much easier to deal with. After what felt like an eternity we made it back to the camp site and the first thing we did was load the fire bucket up with wood and got the fire going before settling in for the night with the bait rods back out.
Just on dark, Alf finally landed a fish which picked our confidence up again after a very slow day of fishing, not from lack of effort though. The first fish of the trip was a Rainbow at 35cm, not a big one but a very welcome addition to the esky. About an hour had past with no more action when Alf's rod alarm went off again, and he landed another rainbow of similar size to the first, and no more than 20 minutes later he was on again this time to a 46cm model. 3 nil down and i was starting to feel the pressure, we always have a little competition between us when we go on a fishing trip and unfortunately for me i usually lose.
Then it finally happened, after about 13 hours of fishing my rod started jumping up and down and i landed my first fish for the trip which was a 40cm Rainbow. I was still 3-1 down but my spirit had been lifted and within the hour i had levelled the score 3-3 and the pressure had been shifted to Alf fearing my late come back.
With both of us hoping for the next fish to break the level score, a couple of hours passed with no action and we thought that was it for the night so we decided it was time to get some rest and make an early start in the morning, just as we stood up Alf's alarm went off again and he landed the best fish of the day which was a 51cm rainbow in top condition, and again took the lead 4-3.
We called it a night and went for the comforts of our swag's and after a short, but much needed rest we were back into the fishing just before first light. I was on a deadline to get home on Sunday so we fished land based again so we could slowly pack up our camp site while we fished some more. The camping gear was all packed and loaded into the boat and we still had an hour to spare so we cooked up some breakfast and relaxed for a while, we had been fishing for nearly 3 hours of the morning session and had not seen any action and with only about 30 minutes of time left i was convinced i had lost yet again to Alf and was dreading the drive home listening to him gloat.
Just as i had lost all hope my rod went off again, this time it was bent a lot more than past fish and quite a bit of line was running off the Steez 2500 reel, i grabbed the rod from the holder and felt good weight and big tail beats and immediately called it for a good Brown, and sure enough after a solid fight i had a nice Brown trout on the bank ready for a photo which measured 62cm and would have been approximately 2.5kg. That fish made my day, i had levelled the score again and landed the best fish of the trip. I was a very happy chap at that point, at least i didnt have to put up with the gloating and bagging that Alf loves to dish out.
We had finished packing every bit of gear except one rod each and mine went off again in the last minute of the session and i landed the winning fish, another 40cm Rainbow, from 3 nil down i had managed to make a comeback and finished 5-4 in my favour, i was the one dishing out the bagging and gloating all the way back to Canberra, which was my first opportunity to do so for a long time. It was a great weekend away, and a good warm up session for the upcoming troutfest comp next month which im really looking forward to, i cant wait to get back up there for another trip.
