Victorian trout season begins by Robbie Alexander

Earlier this year I retired from my regular gig as a fishing reporter right across all magazines. For a couple of months I twiddled my thumbs, but then I was offered the opportunity to write a trout opening feature - I pounced.

For many people, Bathurst weekend is a special time for them; others love the AFL Grand Final; many love the Melbourne Cup - for me, my favourite weekend of the year is trout opening weekend. I enjoy cod opening each year as well, but trout opening weekend is my favourite and one that I look forward to with anticipation many weeks in advance.

This year, trout opening is Saturday 5 September. It's always the first Saturday of September, as opposed to cod opening being in the 1 December regardless of what day of the week it is.

Unless I write this article 3 or 4 days in advance, it is almost impossible to know what the conditions will be like, so I will write it with 'average spring conditions' in mind, that being cold and damp with slowly increasing warmth in the sun.

2015 TROUT OPENING

Cast your minds back to the bumper 2011-2012 season. Leading up to that, we had massive amounts of rainfall in September 2010, December 2010 and then again in March 2011. There was water everywhere. Trout were free to swim wherever they liked as every little gully and seasonal creek was flowing for lengthy periods of time. Food was abundant and trout growth rates were phenomenal. This lead to the 2011-2012 season being one of the best trout seasons in living memory. Everybody that went trout fishing caught trout and the fish just appeared out of nowhere once conditions became favourable.

The following season was nothing short of devastating. There were no fish. Some streams fished okay but overall the decline in trout numbers was widespread and immense. I formed a belief that it was like a 'boom and bust' type cycle. The previous season being a boom, and the new season being a bust.

Some people blamed fishing pressure, some blamed cormorants, some were so spoilt in 2011-2012 that they forgot what the fishing was 'usually' like and got a bit of a reality check. Victorian fisheries at the time believed that it was a combination of numerous things, with birds and fishing pressure having a minimal effect as trout have such high growth rates and can grow from fingerlings to pan size in a matter of weeks if conditions are right. Their main concern was low flows and higher than usual average water temperatures, both of which were backed by scientific evidence and field-testing.

Anyhow, for whatever reason, the 2012-2013 season was appalling. Towards the end of autumn 2013 there were some encouraging signs with numbers of smaller trout on the increase.

We headed into the 2013-2014 season with higher hopes, thanks to the number of smaller fish at the end of the previous season. This new season shaped up OK. It was not great, but was better than the previous season. Trout were caught on a regular basis, but not in great numbers.

Last season, 2014-2015 saw a marked improvement in trout fishing across the region. Once again, it was not as good as it can get, far from it, but the gradual improvement in trout fishing after the disastrous 2012-2013 season has continued. Some streams still offered poor or no trout fishing potential all season, and some fished 100% as good as they get. It was easier to find trout last season than it was the season before, and many anglers caught good numbers on a regular basis.

This brings us to the new season, the 2015-2016 trout season, which is upon us now. Will the improving pattern in trout fishing continue? This is what I predict:

My prediction for the new season is a slight improvement on last season. I am tipping that it will be quite a similar season to last year, but may possibly be a little bit better. As mentioned, trout numbers in general have picked up in recent seasons and when last season closed things were looking good. Prior to the closing of last season, we had some very good widespread rain in April and May, just in time to put more water into the rivers and creeks to allow trout to swim upstream and spawn much easier.

At the time of writing this article, it is difficult to know exactly what will happen with trout sizes as I do not have a crystal ball to tell me how much rainfall we are going to receive. Trout are a very fast growing fish, capable of growing 2-3kg in a single year if there is an abundance of food. These insane growth rates are usually only seen in lakes, particularly lakes that have filled for the first time, drowning plants and shrubs and providing a never ending food source.