Organised by GoFish Nagambie, they have an event centre at the Nagambie Lakes Regatta Centre at 66 Loddings Ln, Nagambie, should you need details of the event and times for the various entertainment that will be held over the weekend, including fireworks over the lake and other night time entertainment.
Displays, demonstrations, workshops; they will have a farmers market as well as indigenous educational activities, a learn-to-fish pool, on-water workshops, sip and sample local produce and much more. So, you don’t have to be into fishing, but it helps— there is something for all the family.
Around the traps
The reports from those who spent Easter fishing have been good, with one-metre-plus cod caught in the Murray River.
The person who landed and then released this monster is a little coy about revealing the location of where he was fishing. All I could find out was that he used chicken as bait.
The top spot was at Eildon as expected with cod, yellowbelly, redfin and trout being caught by anglers fishing mainly in the river arms. In front of the wall was another popular spot, especially with anglers using large deep diving lures for cod.
At present, Eildon is below 35percent capacity and most of the boat ramps are clear of the water, so launching and retrieving boats is a bit of a chore. It’s the same at Dartmouth, where water level is also lower than normal.
Speaking of Dartmouth, some nice-sized trout, mainly brown, were caught over the Easter period. Trolling a fender with a bunch of worms or a mud eye trailing behind was the preferred method. Flat-lining Tassie devil-style lures or minnow-style hard body lures were also getting results. The best time was at first light through until 9am or 10am. The fishing slowed down through the day.
I received a few reports from anglers who have been fishing in Waranga Basin, but most are giving this spot a miss due to the algae bloom that has happened over the past few months.
The Goulburn and Murray Rivers are worth a try. Both are fishing reasonably well and now that Easter is over there will be less traffic on the water, making things a little easier for fishing.
Down south
At Queenscliff, Rod and Peter from Adamas Fishing Charters reported a quiet Easter period, although there is still pinky snapper and flathead being caught both inside and outside the heads. The mouth of the Barwon River is a popular spot as well as the area in front of Point Lonsdale. Inside the heads, calamari squid and trevally are being caught around the ferry terminal in the mouth of the creek, as well as the grass beds between Queenscliff and the Lonsdale jetty.
Western Port is another well-frequented spot for anglers over the Easter break. Fishing wise, most reported some flathead and small pinky snapper, but gummy shark were biting on dusk during the run-out tide. Fresh fillets of fish were the best bait.
According to James Luddington at Flinders Island, the fishing around Lady Baron and the Chapel Island was still producing plenty of flathead and gummy shark and occasional kingfish.
James said off the shelf there were occasional albacore tuna and on the bottom some trumpeter were boated.
Easter was also a busy time at Eden, according to John Liddell.
He said Mark from Freedom Charters was flat out with tourists, taking them out to the inshore reefs. They were bagging plenty of flathead, morwong and snapper among other table fish.
Mark reported schools of kingfish were also around the Green Cape area.
According to John, there was not a lot of action off the shelf, although an occasional tuna was being caught.
At Narooma, Graham Cowley had a similar story. Close to inshore, there were plenty of table fish along the inshore reefs but little action off the shelf.
Graham said his son Nicholas was still getting among some good hauls of kingfish, mainly to the north of Montague Island.
