Lake Eildon – Spring Fishing for Natives
We spent a lot of time in spring and early summer last year chasing natives on lures, focusing much of our attention at Lake Eildon 2hrs drive from Melbourne. It was my first proper attempt at targeting the Yellowbelly and Murray Cod that have predominantly been stocked into the Lake.
Through spring our primary target was Golden Perch aka Yellowbelly, as they move up onto the margins of the lake in preparation to spawn. During this period they school in large numbers and can become quite agressive, which helps when targeting them with lures.
Once summer comes though our focus shifts to Cod as the golden’s start to wind down. They are still around and able to be caught but most people have been waiting for cod season to start and tend to forget abit about the goldens once this happens. Plus the busy summer water traffic can make the fishing a bit more difficult and not as enjoyable, so I try to get my Cod fishing done before xmas and the holidays.
We had most of our Golden Perch success this year targeting rocky points and shorelines, either trolling hardbodies in the 3-8m range or casting lipless crank baits and working them down the banks, some days the fish preferred only one of these methods, so make sure you change up your technique and lure colour until you have some luck.
We caught quite a few cod as by catch using these techniques during their closed season, so be aware of when those closed season dates are and if you do happen to catch one out of season handle it with care and get it back in the water asap, Ideally removing the lure while the fish is still in the water.
When cod season opened we mainly used spinner baits and big deep diving minnows to target them.Focusing our efforts on backside structure and rocky banks, casting and working the lures super slow. Trolling is the other very popular and effective way to target cod, but as i prefer lure casting i did not do much of that last year.
We also got a fair few carp, red fin and trout as by catch, and this is another reason why Eldon is such a great place to fish, because you have chance to catch one of many species.
Eildon is turning into a great native fishery with the huge amount of stocking they have done over the last few years, if everyone keeps doing their part with catch and release we will have a great mixed species fishing destination for many years to come.
