I had great expectations of reporting on big salmon and tailor that I had caught.

Now I don’t mind getting a bit of rain on me whilst fishing, especially when they are biting, but 100mm of rain in one day is a bit much and a six to 10 metre swell make it just a tad dangerous standing on rocks.

Before anyone writes in, I understand how devastating the last week has been in and around this area as I have friends and relatives who live there; the unfortunate loss of life and belongings is a tragedy.

The whole affected coastal areas will be suffering for an extended period of time and it will be interesting to see how much assistance is received from the government and maybe even overseas countries, as we assist everyone else who has this type of emergency.

Speaking of government and overseas, if you haven’t heard, our government has given permission to the Fishing Factory Trawler “Geelong Star” to harvest more than 16,500 tonnes of small pelagic fish in Australian waters, yep us recreational fishermen get into trouble for fishing in and around some of our coastal areas but the Geelong Star is allowed to come in and wipe out areas.

We as recreational fishermen cause so much damage to the pelagic fish in our waters that the government want areas closed, but yet, give a little or a lot of money to certain government entities and you can go your hardest.

There have already been dolphins and seals killed during this fishing session, but that’s all right, we recreational fishermen get a mention regarding this, we also kill mammals as a bye catch, so it’s OK for the Geelong Star to do the same – as long as they tell the government what they have killed – and if they kill any more that’s when they will get into trouble.

What happens with all the undersized and unwanted fish that are caught is there any policing of this? We pay licences, most of us abide by the rules just so people with big boats and big bank accounts can take our ever reducing fisheries away from us – just my opinion

Just to finish off this week – hope everyone has a great Anzac Day.

Burrinjuck

A couple of cod taken on trolled lures, big spinnerbaits and larger hard bodies have been doing the damage there, a couple of large yella’s mainly on bait – shrimp and yabbies and no reddies recorded. Plenty of carp from the bank on corn and bread.

Blowering

Due to the bad weather only the hardiest of fishermen went out and played with little or no results.

Talbingo

Inclement weather equals not many fishermen

Tantangara

A couple of trout caught by a couple of fishermen who found sanctuary in a  quieter bay other than that – yuk

Eucumbene

Pretty much the same as Tantangara (Already have 10 brave or fool hardy people wanting to come on the Freeze Your Bum off trip)

Jindabyne

There was snow up at Thredbo so it was very cold, wet and windy so not many people playing up high

Hume weir

Harsh conditions not allowing many fishermen on the water, the Mitta allowed brave fishermen to weave a wand or cast a lure with some fair results, the river below the weir is still producing some good cod and a couple of nice yellas on lures

Mulwala

The weather was nice and sunny but the wind was atrocious even caused the stoppage of the power boat races down there

The river

A few fish down towards Narrandera on lures, when we drove over the bridge at Gundagai you could have walked over it so the water is very low making it hard to fish in places

The South Coast

Huge seas, nasty weather, lots of rain equals stay at home and service your gear or possibly become a statistic.