Ballarat

Tullaroop is on fire

BALLARAT Shane Stevens

The fishing season is well and truly underway around Ballarat and the Central Highlands and look at the weather conditions. Overcast, sultry days are the best for the mayfly hatches throughout November and December, prior to the weather getting too warm.

The bait fishers should start to use mud-eyes (spider or coutas), with early mornings, lunchtime and evenings being the best. I have a remarkably simple theory with my fishing: the fish eat when we eat. This theory has worked well for me over the years.

Tullaroop Reservoir continues to produce some excellent brown and rainbow trout, for anglers fly fishing, bait fishing and casting lures.

The reservoir is overflowing and has been for some time. With the La Nina weather set to continue, Tullaroop could overflow deep into the summer. At the time of writing, the water clarity is still extremely poor in most of the reservoir, and Nathan Angee has been getting good results on Bent Minnow

lures on Lake Wendouree. Image courtesy of Nathan Angee.

Carlo Jarvis with a PB 57cm brown trout from Tullaroop, caught on a Mrs. Simpson

fly pattern. Image courtesy of Rod McNeight.

Region of Victoria. The La Nina weather pattern has ensured there has been plenty rain, and all our lakes and reservoirs are full and overflowing.

Some of our reservoirs in the district have been closed to boating as they are overflowing. These are precautionary measures put in place by the relevant water authorities to ensure the safety of boaters.

The abundance of water has ensured there is plenty of food around for the feeding trout, which are foraging around the shallows now that our weather is starting to warm up. We will see insects hatching morning, noon and night. These include mayfly, damselflies, and mud-eyes.

The trout and redfin will home in on these new food sources. We anglers will need to change our tactics, which include using specific fly patterns to replicate mayflies and mud-eyes. Look at the times of the day that coincide with the hatches, This Tullaroop brown trout found the author’s Black Beetle fly irresistible.

with the continual inflow of water, it could take a long time to clear.

The water clarity hasn’t bothered the trout at all. I have put a lot of time and effort into fishing Tullaroop over the spring months, and have been rewarded for my efforts. I have changed my tactics from fishing lures to fly fishing, focusing on the shallower bays and shorelines, especially the bays. The water has flooded over virgin ground for the first time since 2011. A huge quantity of grubs, slugs, beetles and other morsels have been flooded out, and the trout have decided to made the most of this opportunity while it is there. I have never seen trout feeding on beetles at Tullaroop, but then, I have hardly ever seen beetles hatching before at Tullaroop.

On one such session recently, I fished a couple of areas with no success. I then moved to a shallow bay, where I found a trout feeding on black beetles, which were being flooded out of the ground. This