Lake Jindabyne Snowy Mountains Australia
I received an email from Dave a mate of mine in
Swansea saying there was a
fisherman from
Queensland visiting my area and he
wanted to have another go at the trout after a 30+ year absence. Being on the
lookout for any excuse to go fishing I quickly offered to give
Wayne another chance at the
trout and made the arrangements to meet him at the Jindabyne Hotel/Motel.
In the meantime I put out a call on the fishing site in Canberra to see
if anyone would like to join us and Braz (blacktrout) put his hand up to join
us. I like to have a second boat (working on the buddy system) along with me as
the mountain lakes can turn very nasty in the blink of an eye.
I met up with Wayne at about
4:30 and we had a chat waiting for
Braz to arrive at 5PM. Braz turned up and we chatted a bit longer (waiting for
the sun to nearly rise) and then headed to
East Jindabyne where we launched from the
shore.
Lake Jindabyne Map (extract)
Both boats headed out in search of trout by
6AM. Wayne and I trolled for a
while around Sid’s Bay for no real success but saw many large trout on the
screen. They were just not interested in anything we trolled.
Trolled around Sid’s again, went out into the basin and then back to
Sid’s where Wayne
finally managed to land the first of three RBT. They were not large fish but it
was good to see the look of pleasure on
Wayne's face as he landed them.
Despite the lack of fish I spent many enjoyable hours listening to
Wayne
discussing all of the various types of Abu reels, their history and his
reminiscing about fishing trips past. He has a real love of and joy with all
things Abu.
Only ABU used on the trip and here a nice ABU Ambassadeur baitcaster and
a very rare ABU Cardinal Suveran spinning reel are being used.
Braz also trolled many areas of the lake as well with little success in
all the normal places however he was to catch the fish of the day. He caught a
very nice Brown trout measuring 51CM and weighing in at 1.212KG.
After the heat wave that we have had all over
Australia the water
temperature was 24 degrees and I think that may explain why the fish were so
sluggish all over the lake.
We were off the water by about 10:20 as Wayne had to get back and assist Anne
his wife. Braz and I then had coffee and delicious cake with Anne, Wayne and
Fintan (a truly amazing young man) at the hotel before heading back to Adaminaby
for Braz, and
Canberra for me to check up on the
builders.
It was a pleasure to meet up with Wayne and his family and help him to catch a
trout again. Hopefully Braz and I will have the pleasure of fishing with him
again at Awoonga in early October and/or at the Troutfest fishing out of
Jindabyne in late October 09.
Cheers....Marty
PS Editor's Note!
Many thanks Braz and Marty for your diligence in getting
this written so quickly and the kindness shown by two true blue helpful Aussies
whom Canberra and Fang ACT can be justly proud of ...Wayne