The second round of the Australian Yellow Belly Championships (catch and release) was held at Burrinjuck over the weekend with 44 teams taking part. A bag of 8 fish was needed on Saturday over 8 hours, with upgrades permitted. Sunday required 4 fish per team over a 4-hour period. Nineteen teams caught their bag on Saturday. The majority of teams chose to target fish on trees in 10 to 20 metres of water.  Most fisherman opted to use a 1/4 oz jighead and paddle tail plastics, slowly rolling vertically through the timber. The competition was super close throughout the weekend with only 100 mm between the top four teams after Saturday’s session, and 40 mm separating first and second place. 

First place went to Team Gotcha (Michael Collison and Aaron Graham) with 12/12 for 5,796 mm.

Second place was Loomzys Fish n Fix (Jamie Loomes and Paul Browne) with 12/12 for 5,767 mm.

Third place went to Dynamite (Toby and John Anderson) with 12/12 for 5,572 mm and 350 yellow belly were measured over the weekend, with an average length of 426 mm.

Most teams headed up the Bidgee River beyond Scrubby. However third and fourth place picked up their fish closer to home around the Main Basin.

The next round will be at Keepit on May 28.

Murray Cod

A 104 cm fish caught by Jarryd Sirca took out fish of the week. Jarryd landed the big fish last Saturday night while trolling an AC Invader in the Main Basin. Steve from Canberra trolled up an 80 cm fish on a large Oar-gee. Owen from Canberra also recorded 76 and 73 cm fish on a purple spinner bait. It was good to see some bigger fish starting to take lures as winter approaches. There are some additional rock formations appearing in the main basin and some shallow areas around the island. This makes for great fishing but be careful at night.

Redfin

Still plenty of schools about but they don’t seem to be chasing lures as much.

Park News

The park, in conjunction with our local bush fire brigades, will be conducting hazard reduction burns to finalise our bush fire preparation work over the coming weeks.

Lake Report

Current discharge: 1600 ML per day

Water level 20/04/16: 33.2 per cent

Water level 27/04/16: 32.3 per cent

Current inflow: 700 ML per day

Water visibility: Up to 2 metres

Rain past 7 days: 2 mm

Forecast Weather:  Rain and showers predicted for Friday and the weekend. Temperatures ranging between 14 and 24 degees for the weekend, light winds.

New Moon: May 7

Full Moon: May 22

Water Temperature: 19-22 degrees

Contributed by Dean Brine, Burrinjuck Waters Holiday Parks.