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