A summary of 2018/2019 season

We had three trips to Harrietville this season, Melbourne cup weekend in November for 4 days, Australia Day weekend in January and when Easter Monday lead into Anzac Day ( Thursday 25 April)  this year we had another four days in the north east. River height was great in November at about 1.30 but dropped to 1.20 in January and even lower in April at 1.16.  The fishing was great in November but really tough on both other occasions with trout being very hard to coax out into the feeding lanes. Low water levels mean that trout are wary and stay pretty close to safety. Took some nice fish each trip, but never really found the best fly in the last trip in Autumn. Most fish were taken on a nymph of some sort. Early season fishing when the river was fuller, meant better quality of trout were out and about. I'm really hoping we get a lot of rain over the winter break because the ovens river system really needs it.

Return to Alpine Arnica #1 - January 25-28 2018

Our favourite accommodation in Harrietville was available again after 2 years and we were very happy to use it. The weather was perfect, low 30s with a few thunderstorms over the evenings. River height was 1.29 which is perfect for fishing and about 9 cm deeper than the normal Summer flows I have experienced previous years. Arrived Wednesday afternoon and took a walk up through Grannies to School Bridge. Took 9 trout on a range of flies including a red tag beetle and a Glenn Innes hopper. I was surprised by the size and condition of the fish. Most were 30-35 cm and really eager to take the fly. Thursday morning I fished Frosty corner. Took a small rainbow in the first section up to the corner. Don't know why i can't get a fish out of that section , it looks really good. Made many fly changes and as I moved around the bend i was running out of options. Put on an Adams #12 and then the fun began. I took 25 trout in the next section. All rainbows and most were 30 plus with 4 in the 35-38 zone. I dropped the 2 best fish in successive casts and both did the same thing after being hooked. Leapt straight out of the water made a big splash and threw the hook. I wasn't happy. I returned each day to the second half of Frosty Corner and cleaned up each day. I took another 17 the following morning and all fish were very large in comparison to previous years. Tumblegum was quite reasonable with fish the same quality. The Howards bridge wade has really deteriorated over the last sea on or two. Not much definition in the river and theres a lot of walking between great places to fish, although their are a dozen massive trout in the Theatre Pool. I could see them all swimming about on the first day as I walked through. The next walk in from Grannies was promising until i got to the Theatre Pool. !2 people swimming in the water, just kept walking and will try for one of those trout next trip. All up, this was the best fishing Ive encountered up here. Plenty of fish as always, but the quality was magnificent. Hardly took a small trout, most above 32 cm with the largest , a brown trout at 40.5 cm from below the little logjam in the photo below. I took about 73 fish over the 4 days, an amazing trip.

First trip season 2017/18

I'd been waiting a while for this trip and when it finally arrived I found the river to be at 1.50m running clear and fast. It took me a while to get used to the high and fast water. It created too many drifts which were dragging in the current. Line mending was much more important and casting directly above me helped a lot. Caught some nice fish for the week, many about 30cm ,but nothing of any size above that. Got em on nymphs which were heavy, some took the large stimmy I used as  an indicator and I also got a few on a range of dry flies later in the week. The highlight of this trip was searching for and finding a nice open part of the West Branch. Only about 5km from Harrietville, 3.5 km on the dirt road. A great walk, some nice trout, but really only an option when the main river is flowing quickly. The first section of Tumblegum was also a great section of water at this level , but the second section was running quickly and hard to fish. Took about 45 trout for the four days. Temp was about 15-18 degrees with some sun, a few showers one morning and a couple of overcast days. This was also our last trip to Alpine Arnica No. 2 as its all been sold. Hopefully, next trip is back to Number 1 unit.

Harrietville with Glenn, Tony and Denis.

Getting all the blokes available was difficult enough but having them all fit was too much to expect and alas, it was the maestro, with a crook achilles, who couldn't fish with us. Anzac day fell on a Tuesday and this gave us a chance to get together for 4 days at Harrietville. Leading up to our trip, we'd had about 30 mm of rain which freshened up the river. On the Sunday morning the sun was out and the men were keen. First trip was to Frosty corner where another angler had already entered the river, bastard, that never happens in Harrietville. Drove down to Tumblegum where we fished for the morning. We worked away with dries and nymphs and although the fish were a bit difficult to find we managed to get amongst a few smaller ones. Both blokes enjoyed the river and its little pockets full of fish, the runs and riffles that all carry rainbows and the soft little pockets that sometimes hold browns and occasionally produce a surprise for the angler. In the afternoon we returned to Frosty Corner and managed to find a few more fish, nothing spectacular, but enough to keep us all interested. A few beers around the campfire and we hatched a plan for day 2. Weather was stable and we began the day at Granny's Pantry.We wandered up the river and tripped up a few more trout. Took the fellas up past Archies Pool and shared a few stories of Denis and the massive escapee he caught a few years ago. The afternoon was a trip to Bon Accord track. The river was beautiful up there. Plenty of fish and magnificent scenery, just perfect for a finale. We kept a running total of trout numbers and we managed 45 between us for the journey. Glenn and Tony returned to Melbourne on Tuesday morning because the rain began the previous night. Michele and I stayed the day and watched the rain tumble. 100mm of rain  at Mt Hotham that night. We returned to Melbourne with plans to do it again next season.

Harrietville March 2017

The weather was warm and stable for the 4 days, the river was at Summer height of 1.24 and I was keen to fish. I took a lot of trout over the  four days, 66 in total. Many of these were juvenile and keen to have a slash at anything that looked like food. The larger trout were very careful and much more selective and it took a while to work out what would constantly take a fish. I used a Glenn Innes hopper , elk hair caddis, yellow and red humpy and a couple of different Wulffs. Finally I started to get better fish on a green Humpy # 14 . that was a nice change because I tied it years ago but never sent it down the river. When I found some deeper water near Smoko I began with a larger red and yellow stimmy. My thoughts were that the larger fly might dissuade the little fish from having a crack. In a particularly nice gutter which ran at the rivers edge for 40 metres I took a beautiful brown trout of 43 cm. Great fish who'd been sitting at the food conveyer belt gobbling anything that came its way. I took some photos, put the tape measure on him and released him back to his home. Over the next few sessions i fished that water 3 more times and on one afternoon found a few more nice browns which were all over 35cm. The trailing Copper John worked well on those trout. We had a great trip to the North East and have another planned for April 22-25 with Denis, Glenn and Tony.