Dean

Well with the uncertain weather I headed off to Dean reservoir about 20 minutes down the road from my house. Arriving to find a car load of guys up from Melbourne checking the place out I had a quick chat with them before heading around the back end of the lake. With the amount of weed in the lake at the moment there's limited areas to fish even rigging plastics weedless, although I'm thinking next time the fly rod could be an option. The boys were doing no good on plastics and taking up most of the deeper water, so with the overcast weather I thought I'd give a couple of surface lures a shot. Down the tail end of the lake there are some narrow channels between the bank and the weedbed which, with some accurate casting can make for some fun surface action when the fish are active. With the water being as clear as it is and the banks being cleared of vegetation recently, a lot of stealth is required and my hopes weren't high being the middle of the day. My first cast at an old tree stump was spot on target and as I waited for the splash of the lure to settle the surface exploded with the splash of a clearly short sighted 30cm trout who managed to clear the lure before landing on the other side - you have to wonder how that guy survived missing a target like that. With that bit of excitement out of the way I worked my way along the bank towards the end of the lake with only a small redfin managing to hook up. I'll say this about surface lures, the size of the fish really doesn't matter for me it's landing that lure in just the right spot and the brief moment of a fish breaking the surface to strike that gets me going. Having said that it doesn't hurt if it's a solid beast that wants nothing more than to wrap you around every piece of timber in sight to keep it interesting. Unfortunately today that wasn't to be. I switched over to a river2sea baby vibe in a golden colour and managed to gain the attention of a roving pack of small redfin which kept me amused for awhile, but couldn't crack it for a decent fish today. With the storm clouds gathering again I headed back to the car and the safety of home not feeling like a repeat of yesterday drenching.