THE high country flats along the Murrumbidgee River were eagerly sought by the cattle men of yesteryear. Nowadays, those flooded lush grazing flats of the high country support huge numbers of brown and rainbow trout.
Brown trout grow fat on the abundant supply of yabbies that the dammed river – Lake Tantangara – supports. Late Autumn sees well-conditioned fish move into Tantangara’s streams to begin the annual spawning event.
Spring time can find long lean trout cruising the flats after losing condition over winter spawning and the scarcity of feed available in the lake. The rainbow trout are not an aggressive yabby feeder and as such are usually the smaller of the two species in this lake.
Reports of poor fishing in the alpine areas this season did not deter me and my fishing mate, Peter Hanrahan from making a recent trip.
Pete, or “Bags“ to his mates (Pete always seemed to catch bags of fish or bagged out any time he went fishing) has been fishing these alpine areas for decades and has the knowledge to know where, when and how to catch trout at different stages of the four seasons.
We arrived around Sunday lunch time and met up with two friends Wayne and Paula Burns who also have been fishing this area for many years. Lunch was a bit of a problem as we always rely on fresh fish for lunch every day but as we hadn’t been fishing yet, lunch consisted of bread and jam and a cup of coffee. Fly gear was soon assembled and the boat launched and the quest begun.
Water temperature was still high at 19–20C which was not conducive to good bank fishing during the day but was still good for the mudeyes which use the warmer months to leave the water of an evening when they are safe from birds and climb onto a log, bush, rock or stems of grass and emerge from the nymph stage into a dragon fly.
A magic day in the high country.
Finding where the cooler water was welling up after warm water was pushed across the dam by the prevalent wind, we found where the largest number of mudeye shucks were on the surrounding bush and rocks. This would be where the mudeyes would again come ashore, hopefully this evening.
We had our evening fishing spot sorted and just had time for an evening meal of steak grilled over the coals with a lashing of vegetables and boiled spuds.
Pulling the boat up 100m away from the rocks and bushes covered in mudeye shucks, we started fishing the last of the light using small black fur flies and Mrs Simpsons to match the swimming mudeyes as they came to shore.
We were hitting fish straight away and as the last vestige of light was gone we switched to small muddler minnows and the fish fell for these in a big way. I think we had contact with about 10 fish between us when we decided to call it a night and roll into bed ready for an early start. Although there were many signs warning of 1080 baits placed out for wild dogs there seemed to be at least six individual dingos mournfully serenading us to sleep.
Wayne Burns had been up early in the morning and already had a beautiful conditioned brown trout of a touch over 5lbs landed not far from our camp, caught on a Woolly Bugger fly.
Pete and I headed into a nice bay that he knew may hold some good fish, going by previous years.
I was now fishing a black beadhead fly to imitate a small yabby and it was probably in the first half a dozen casts the line pulled up tight on a superbly conditioned brown trout of 4.2lbs which was kept for lunch.
This brownie fell to a black beadhead fly.
On cleaning the trout, its stomach contents showed it had been feeding exclusively on yabbies.
As the sun got up, the action died down and we tried different methods such as loch style fishing over the flats where the sounder showed masses of fish, but this proved hard going.
Pete fishes fly only but I will give anything a go and rather than throw my arm off for nil result I decided to rig a small flick rod with a curly tailed plastic grub.
Second cast with the grub and it was smashed on the drop but failed to hook up, even though it was hit a second time on the same retrieve. I changed to a green grub and soon had a plucky rainbow to the boat.
Rainbows were plenty of fun on soft plastics and light flick sticks.
Moving to a prominent set of rocks on the leeward side where cooler water should have been welling up, we drifted past, presenting flies close to the rocks.
Picking up the flick stick while we were still close enough for a cast, I shot out a Berkley Big Eye blade and got belted at the boat by a nice brown.
Twenty metres along another brown took the blade and the fish, although not huge, was also kept for lunch.
Rain was now beginning to be a feature of the evenings and as such this shut down the hatching of mudeyes – they need a dry warm night to hatch so Muddler Minnows were passed over for big black Woolly Buggers.
Heading to the Murrumbidgee arm of the river we passed numerous herds of wild brumbies, legacy of the early cattlemen, these graze on the lush Alpine grasses and glisten in the sun.
Aquatic life is rampant in the Murrumbidgee arm, platypus seem to be everywhere during the early evening. Caddies flies were thick in the air, and nearby wild brumby stallions stamped and huffed to warn us off.
Wedgetail eagles squabbled on the ground close to the boat and the ever present dingos started their mournful wail.
Fish were rising. Time to fish a dry fly. Then it was discovered that the rises were not surface rises but sub surface rises as the fish were taking emerging nymphs.
Fishing off the bank the line tightened up on a nice fish, the black Woolly Bugger had fooled another brown, this time one of 3.8 lbs.
Pete was hitting a few smaller fish and getting a few takes by some larger ones but kept missing them.
I rigged a very slow action fly rod and tied on small stick caddis fly and a small Mrs Simpson and fished the channel above Pete. It was hard to distinguish between platypus and trout rises.
In quick time I had put three fish on the bank, one of them a reasonable brown.
Being predominantly yabby feeders, Tantangara’s browns are generally of a good size.
Fishing a smaller creek arm the platypus were replaced by water rats, these cruised the water and climbed out onto the rocks before diving back in. One water rat cruised below my feet before emerging from the water. Walking across my coiled fly line laying on the ground, he sniffed the boot of my waders before deciding a fat yabby would be better to eat and again entered the water.
By the end of the week’s fishing we had caught a good number of fish between us; lunch every day apart from the first was fresh trout fried in a touch of oil with bread and butter. Fresh field mushrooms supplemented our diet as well of a bucket full of fresh boiled yabbies which were caught of an evening using strong torch light.
While picking up yabbies I also picked up a pocket full of white stones, much like white marbles split in two, one side looking like a mushroom where the stalk had been. I asked Pete if he knew what the strange stones were. “Yep, they’re gastroliths,” he said. Gastroliths are calcium carbonate stones found in yabby stomachs – yabbies need calcium to grow their new shells after moulting.
As we packed up camp to head home after a week of enjoyable and challenging fishing, a white dingo looking more like an Arctic wolf stood high above our camp and gave us a goodbye wail.
Yeah old mate, see you in the Spring.
