Victorian Trout Season Opening by Robbie Alexander

It's that time of year again. The time so many Victorian trout anglers look forward to: trout season, and trout opening in particular.

The better known and easily accessible waterways around North East Victoria should fish well for the first few months of the season; here are a few tips on where, when and how.

MITTA MITTA RIVER DOWNSTREAM OF LAKE DARTMOUTH

Last year the lower Mitta Mitta River fished quite well, particularly during the spring months. I did not hear of any large numbers of fish being caught in the river, however catches were consistent and some very nice sized trout turned up.

Late in the season, around May, some very large trout started to show up, particularly close to the Dartmouth Pondage. These big trout are residents of the lower Mitta Mitta River that had no doubt made their way upstream to spawn. Away from spawning season these large fish, some of which were close to 4kg, reside in some of the many deep holes in the river, including downstream of Mitta Mitta township below the junction of Snowy Creek.

These fish are there, and do feed, it is up to the angler to find them and in the spring months they can be a little harder to find as they are generally distributed more widely throughout the river.

The big news on this section of river is that Lake Dartmouth is currently not far from reaching full capacity for the first time in many years which means that should we get much more rain, either the lake will overflow, or the plug will be pulled out releasing icy cold water from the bottom of the lake. This would be great news for trout angler as large volumes of icy cold water push through the river system, the trout will distribute further downstream which could lead to great improvements to the Mitta Mitta River as a trout fishery, and a subsequent decline in the Mitta Mitta as a native fishery.

Only time will tell, but at this stage lake Dartmouth is one to keep an eye on.

MITTA MITTA RIVER UPSTREAM OF LAKE DARTMOUTH

This area is one of my personal favourites particularly up around the Blue Duck Inn where there are numerous camping sites and easy access to one of Victoria's greatest wild flowing rivers, the upper Mitta Mitta River. This whole area, which comprises many great waterways such as