For a long while now, we have heard people
talking about the successful trout fishing that’s on offer at Eucumbene.
Neither of us had fished there, but were both jealous of the stories we’d heard
of the success rate there. We wanted in on that action, so we decided we’d head
out that way for a couple of days of fishing. We spoke to Graeme out at Tackle
World and he suggested a review on fishing for trout with soft plastics would
be a great direction to go.
With so many soft plastic varieties out
there it can be a hard decision when choosing a colour or style, but we were
offered the types that are a favourite of a couple of the fellas out at the
store: 2.5” Berkley Powerbait T-Tail Minnows in Olive/Pearl and also in Black/Gold.
Additionally, we stocked up on some
jigheads. We were offered 2 different weights in the Mudguts brand of fishing
gear. We were excited to get on board
with the Mudguts brand as it is made locally here in the Riverina.
We’d used soft plastics a few times prior
to this trip, but it was great to get some tips from Graeme on the correct way
to rig them up to ensure they swim perfectly.
First, you need to line up the jighead with
the soft plastic to determine the point at which the hook will need to come
through the top of the lure.
Then you insert the hook into the end,
feeding it down the length of the soft plastic ensuring it runs through the
center. Once you reach the spot on the lure where the hook needs to come
through, you pull the soft plastic down so it meets the weight at the end of
the jighead.
For the soft plastic to swim perfectly, it
is important that it sits straight on the jighead.
Well, with technical stuff aside, it was
time to organise our trip to Eucumbene to test our luck. We were pumped, and we
had high hopes. We planned to leave straight after work on Friday arvo with the
idea of getting in a few hours of fishing before sunset.
Then we looked up ‘Eucumbene’ on Google
Maps and realized the distance we’d have to travel in a short amount of time.
We were not in a position to travel that far, so needed a contingency plan. We
decided our best bet was to try out these awesome soft plastics at numerous
locations along the Tumut River and out at Goobragandra. Kind of like a pub
crawl, but with more chance of hooking up (see what I did there?).
We decided, to make it interesting, that
we’d ‘rock, paper, scissor’ to determine who would be using which colour
plastic for the weekend, and see who could catch the most fish. As we’d both
had success on the Black/Gold in the past, we were both super keen to be paired
up with that weapon. As it turned out, Jim won the ‘rock off’, chose the
Black/Gold, leaving Chris with the Olive/Pearl. We were keen to get the
friendly competition started, so we headed to our first destination.
Our first stop was a place on the Tumut
River we’d been numerous times before, out on Tarrabandra Road. We pitched our
tents and got on with the fishing. The water was running very high, so we were
feeling a bit unsure about the whole process, but we persisted. After numerous
hours of guiding the Berkley soft plastics through rapids and under trees, we
felt our heads, and confidence, begin to drop. For one last dash at success we
switched to Celtas for the last hour, with Jim snaring a decent rainbow trout
that was a tasty dinner. We retreated to our fire, and planned our attack for
the following day.
With an early rise inevitably on the cards,
we found ourselves with zero confidence and just as much sleep under our belts,
so we packed up and headed out towards Brungle Bridge to see what damage we
could do down there. With expectations high, we arrived, found fast running
water, and flicked the plastics around regardless. After 10 minutes of
dislodging one of Chris’s lures from a tree, we found ourselves back on the
road heading towards Tumut.
We contacted a mate in Tumut, Dooie, who
was keen to join us for a fish. We found another spot on the Tumut river,
closer to town, and walked up and down the dirt paths looking for an entrance
through the scrub to get to the water. Once we found a spot, we tried our luck
once more. This ended in yet another fail for our little trout expedition.
It was time to get serious. We headed out
to Goobragandra and found ourselves at a spot we hadn’t visited for some time.
We scaled the steep hill, perched ourselves up on some rocks, and got ourselves
rigged up. Jim had the first cast using the black and gold soft plastic and got
a follow from a massive rainbow who decided at the last second he wasn’t keen
on a feed of plastic. We were, however, back in the game!
With Chris’s first cast, he landed a decent
sized brown trout who followed the lure right to his feet and took it.
After a photo, a gutting session, and a few
high fives, Chris cast for the second time, snaring himself a second decent
brown. It was party time. The phrase ‘bag limit’ started to get thrown around.
The Olive/Pearl soft plastics had hit the lead.
It wasn’t long later that Jim finally
got a hit. It was an energetic rainbow who was kicking about and putting up a
fair fight. Once reeled in, it was determined to be a keeper, so it was time to
do what needed to be done. On bended knee, on the side of the river, Jim began
the gutting process, only to have the dead fish slip from his grip and sink
cheekily to the bottom of the river, with our flailing arms following it down.
The steepness of the rocks restricted our efforts of a rescue, so it was time
for to Jim suck it up and get over his rookie mistake.
Once things seemingly went quiet, and with
the departure of Dooie, we headed up the Goob a little further to see what
might tickle our fancy. Jim was, as it seemed, lacking in the fish department.
Not too much further up the road, we found
a spot that looked idyllic; rapids, deep channels, shallows, rocks, and
over-hanging trees. We liked what we saw, so we waded out into the water and
continued to flick our soft plastics around in the hope of catching a glimpse
of a few fish.
It was the middle of the day, and the sun
was doing some serious damage to our hydration and patience, and we were having
no luck. Chris had one follow, but it wasn’t enough to keep us excited. It then
occurred to us that we should probably be aiming deeper in the channels considering
the heat was borderline unbearable. With a quick change from a 1/16 oz to a 1/8
oz Mudguts jighead, we were ready to explore the depths of the Goob. With
Chris’s first cast he got a follow, with Jim achieving the same result from his
first cast. It wasn’t long till Jim got a hit and began the battle with a
feisty rainbow. With Chris’s instructions to ‘enjoy it’, Jim reeled it in to
make the score 2-1 on the plastics.
After a few more casts, Jim hooked another
rainbow, but unfortunately it decided it wasn’t going to play nice, and jumped
off the hook. With a sympathetic final score of 2-2, we decided to call it a
day (although Jim’s luck on the Celta may have been the clincher?).
Overall, it was a fun couple of days
fishing using the Berkley soft plastics and Mudguts jigheads. We often hear
from the older generation that soft plastics are a waste of time and that live
bait is the only way to go. Although our stats of 5 trout isn’t outstanding,
fishing with soft plastics is a load of fun. The fellas at Tackle World had
pointed us in the direction of the Black/Gold variety before which we loved,
but it was great to see results from the colour neither of us particularly
wanted to be stuck with - the Olive/Pearl. We can honestly say, the Berkley
soft plastics in either Black/Gold, or Olive/Pearl, would be one of the first
lures we’d go for when out looking for some rainbows or browns, and the Mudguts
jigheads undeniably did their job well. This is definitely a style of fishing
worth trying.
J & C
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