The August report is always the hardest for us freshwater anglers due to the closure of trout season, so I thought I would use this report to share some lake fishing reports and also some long weekend reports as well.

Starting with the long weekend first. The rivers such as the Thomson and Macalister both fished very well. What surprised was the quality of fish that were caught in the Macalister River over the long weekend. Brown trout to 45cm were caught and there were a good amount of fish to 35cm caught as well. I didn’t hear or see any photos of rainbow trout, but the brownies were quite prolific. Most of the fish were caught up high above Licola and some of the tributaries such as Shores Creek fished pretty well too. Anglers using worms did well, but fly anglers fishing with bead head nymphs in the rapids did very well and streamer patterns such as Mrs Simpsons and Tom Jones worked well too. The Thomson River was a bit of a saviour for us Gippy anglers this year and was by far the most reliable and trout closing weekend was no different. Areas such as Bruntens Bridge and the Thomson Bridge on the road to Walhalla were the best places and there were plenty of brown trout caught to 35cm by anglers using small hard bodied lures and soft plastics.

In our lakes we had some excellent bass reports from Lake Glenmaggie. On the warmer days, the wall end of the lake has been producing beautiful big bass to 40cm on worms fished on the bottom. The key is fishing the right time of day. All the bass are getting caught before 10:00am and after 3:00pm and nothing in between. The same is true for Blue Rock Lake, however Blue Rock has been producing some really nice trout as well as some good redfin. At Blue Rock anglers trolling the edges have been getting quality browns to 45cm on Tassie Devils while the land based anglers fishing near the wall and also at Willow Grove have been catching most of the trout and bass on lightly weighted worms.

• For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on (03) 5174 8544. You will get expert advice and great deals on fishing bait and tackle. Tune into Rex Hunt and Lee Rayner’s Off the Hook on 1242 to hear Will’s report on what’s going on in Gippsland!