I DECIDED to do a trip before the June long weekend closing of the trout season, so headed down last week to the Eucumbene River.
I picked up Gary Wade (Wadey) around 4am and we set off up over Macquarie Pass and out onto the Hume Highway chatting about past trips. We had originally invited a couple of mates who unfortunately couldn’t make the trip, but had planned to meet a few other friends down there also.
After a breakfast stop at Goulburn we arrived at Adaminaby and went straight to Adaminaby Angler to catch up with our old mate Col Sinclair and to pick up the keys for our accommodation at the rental house “Claremont” around the corner in Druitt Street.
The Adaminaby Angler is a good place to stock up on gear or source local knowledge on where fish are being caught.
Col told us there were plenty of great fish in the river and that we should do well; so with that we headed around to the house and unpacked and rigged our gear – both fly and spin drift outfits. We picked up a quick pie at the bakery for lunch and headed up to the river.
At the river there were a number of cars parked, so we just cruised along and down from the old bridge below Gang Gang Creek and found a good looking spot to park that was only about 15 metres from the river and had a great looking “run”.
Robyn Ashton with a beautifully coloured Eucumbene River brown.
We were using the traditional two fly rig of a weighted globug and a glo nymph, and as the river wasn’t flowing very fast we only used one “00” split shot to get it down.
It wasn’t long and we had our first fish in the net which measured 55cm, and the stage was set for some very exciting fishing that lasted for that afternoon and the next two days, with good numbers of fish hooked and landed or jumped off.
Some of our friends found us on the river and had good results as well with Trevor Preston, his 70-year-old dad Nev and Robyn Ashton getting amongst the fish and Pat Foster scoring a very nice fish around 60cm on fly at his very first attempt – he is now hooked!
Pat Foster is now hooked after catching his first Eucumbene trout on fly.
Another first timer was Nathan Thornthwaite. After a quick explanation on the rig we use and a demo he was off, and it wasn’t long before he had some nice fish to his credit.
Unlike years gone by where we would walk up and down the river in seach of the best looking “runs” and “pools”, we didn’t move from the one section of river our entire trip as we had fish travelling past on a regular basis. The weather on the first two days was beautiful and mild, but the Friday saw a change that brought icy winds and by late afternoon a shower of rain, which would have made the fish come on in even greater numbers.
There were some big fish caught too. Back at the house we were greeted by Bob Josevski with his 4.5kg buck brown (above). Unfortunately we had to depart first thing the next day for home.
All I can say is if there is any more rain, get yourself down there and enjoy the fishing.
