Closure at Lake Wendouree

VFA is giving trout stocks in Lake Wendouree a helping hand to ensure they provide fishing fun for future generations.

At the request of local fishers and rec fishing organisations, the VFA has introduced a 200m two-month closed area at Lake Wendouree near the Ballarat Fish Acclimatisation Society (BFAS) hatchery. The closed area comprises a 200m stretch along Windmill Drive on the western side of the lake opposite the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, and will be in place from 1 June to 31 July inclusive. The remainder of the lake will be open to fishing year-round.

The location is adjacent to the hatchery’s outfall pipe, which is often congregated with spawning trout. Lake Wendouree is one of the most productive trout fishing lakes in Victoria and is stocked annually with trout from the VFA’s Snobs Creek Hatchery near Eildon as well as the BFAS hatchery. The Ballarat hatchery has been in operation since 1870 and plays an important role producing fish that are stocked into other waters throughout the state.

The area will be marked with signage on site, and you can find more information at www.vfa.vic.gov.au/ wendouree.

The Snobs Creek Hatchery team recently stocked 15,000 brown trout yearlings into Lake Eildon at Jerusalem Creek. Another trip was made further afield to the lower Macalister River, between Lake Glenmaggie and Maffra, to stock 2,000 browns. These fish will grow to catchable size within 12 months, but there’s no need to wait that long because both waters have a long stocking history, so they already contain good fish and are worthy of a visit with the spin rod, fly rod or bait.

VFA has also stocked another 3,500 Chinook salmon into Lake Purrumbete, one of Victoria’s finest freshwater fisheries, that offers big trout and salmon, as well as redfin. – VFA in small groups of up to four fish. You really need to know how to read your sounder because it will be your best friend. Rather than trolling blindly, you want to be sounding around while looking for surface life. Find the arches, work them with everything you have, and hopefully you’ll trigger a response from the fish to attack. Finding them is actually the easiest part; hooking and landing are the hard bits.

Whiting continue to amaze, and just when you think they are going to run out because they have gone a little quiet, they fire up again and seem to be everywhere. We started to see lots of very small whiting through the summer, then the bigger ones started showing up in the autumn but very patchy, and now we are seeing the winter ones that are the best eating whiting that we see all year. Over the last couple of months the whiting have been much better in some of the shallower areas, especially around Reef Island and Bass River. In Cleeland Bight and Dickies Bay we have had several reports of schools of kingfish, only rats but enough of them to keep the whiting from biting.

In the shallows, along with the whiting there have been a lot of calamari as well. Reports of both have been good for numbers and size.

Before we know it the daylight hours will increase, there will be more sun than rain, and we will all be rigging up for the upcoming snapper season. In the meantime, there is plenty of fishing to be had. It’s the best time of the year for bait collecting, i.e. salmon, mullet, garfish, couta and calamari. If you get yourself a vacuum sealer, your frozen baits will stay as fresh as the day you caught them. Vacuum sealing is a great way to pack your caught fish as well, because it stops the freezer burn and keeps your catch fresh until you are ready to eat it.

If you don’t have a boat and it’s a bit windy for the jetties, don’t forget the local rivers. We see quality fish come from both the Powlett and Bass. Not so long ago we weighed a couple of 700g+ whiting caught from the Bass, got a report of a mulloway that was lost just before netting, and a couple of pan-sized pinkies as well as dozens of other fish. Then, from the Powlett there are plenty of bream, estuary perch are coming down the river within reach of most, and towards the entrance there are small salmon, flathead and even a small gummy. The Powlett is also a great place to go and practice your casting and lure fishing.

For those of you who are customers but haven’t been in the store for a couple of months, here’s an update on what’s been happening. Melanie and her husband Jack have welcomed to the world a baby girl, their first (and a third grandchild for us) Malia Kathleen Rogers. All are well and just getting used to parenthood. For this reason I will be flying solo over the winter, with Mel looking at returning back to the shop for the season in the spring.