Alpine Tough Time
Back to Jindabyne on Sunday night and the fishing forecast looked pretty good:
Regular readers will remember that, on the last trip, I didn’t take the boat. Andrew Wily had his new fishing jet ski and was marking stacks of trout 10 metres down on his sounder. Catching them, too. So this time my wife joined me for the trip and we trailered the 4.2m Atomix down. We set up the boat with the electric motor and twin downriggers, ready to copy what worked so well for Andy:
Big downside. So much water had filled the lake it was completely flooded. Here’s an underwater apple tree:
All around town there were signs saying, don’t drink water from taps or bubblers. How that affected us was, the water in the lake was too brown and muddy for effective downrigging. We headed down towards the dam wall, figuring that’s where the clearest water would be. We were getting strikes, but not from the big trout we wanted:
Three fish in an hour so at least we had something to show for our efforts:
Next stop, Crackenback resort, on the way to Thredbo. This beautiful spot has a well-stocked lake as a centrepiece. Unfortunately the trout weren’t rising, and because it is school holidays the lake was swarming with paddle boarders and kayakers. I had to wait for the action to clear before taking this pic:
We needed a fresh option. Googong dam was on the way back to Sydney and had a big rep as a redfin hotspot. The forecast was good. Maybe we could stop by, find a school, and fill the esky with delicious redfin? The place looked fantastic, when we arrived. But then I spotted the notice on the bottom of the right hand sign, at the ramp: - ELECTRIC MOTORS ONLY:
Yep. Australia 2022, where anything not expressly permitted is automatically banned. Check this out? Just wondering how helpful an electric outboard would be, in an emergency with ‘sudden weather changes, strong winds, rough conditions, and low water temperatures’?
At least we got to check out the spectacular overflow at the spillway:
You win some, you lose some. I’m staying positive and will be back at Googong dam within the next month - this time, in the kayak. Stay tuned for that report and thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow
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