April 23, 2024 • 43 mins
Join us as I explore the art of trout fishing with the young and enthusiastic Julian Congues Straub. At just 17, Julian has over a decade of experience fishing the small streams of Victoria's Dandenong area. In this episode, he shares a wealth of knowledge from stream navigation to lure fishing technique.
Julian talks about the streams close to his home where he's fished for quality brown and rainbow trout for over a decade. His knowledge and experience on finding trout and knowing just how to put the right lure in the right pace at the right time will help anyone interested in targeting Melbourne trout.
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Check out previous episodes on brown trout fishing at https://doclures.com/brown-trout/ and rainbow trout fishing at https://doclures.com/rainbow-trout/
Learn about Melbourne River and Lake Fishing: https://doclures.com/fishing-melbourne-lakes-rivers/
Full show notes for today's episode: https://doclures.com/melbourne-trout-fishing
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
One of the great joys of lure fishingis the opportunity to travel to far
off places and experience wildernessdestinations and tangle with fish
that we couldn't normally tangle with.
But in many ways, it's the fishingin our backyards, the everyday
fishing that shapes us as anglers,because unfortunately for most of
us, we can't just head off to exoticdestinations and target exotic species
(00:21):
every time we want to go for a fish.
If we take advantage of thoseopportunities that are closer to home,
we're It enables us to take care of ourmental health, first of all, but also
to hone and maintain our fishing skills.
And I think as human beings, we oftenhave a tendency to look longingly at
those distant destinations and thosedistant opportunities and overlook some
of the stuff that's closer to home,or maybe even not be aware of some
(00:44):
of the stuff that's closer to home.
And in my estimation, that'sexactly what today's episode of the
Australian Lure Fishing Podcast isabout, especially for Melbourneites.
And I know we have lots ofMelbourne listeners to the show.
And you guys really should availyourselves of this opportunity to fish
for wild trout, quality wild trout,in river and creek systems in the
(01:06):
Dandenong Ranges, just 35 kilometersto the east of the Melbourne CBD.
So Melbourne listeners,here's the challenge.
If you've been looking for thatopportunity to get away, maybe just
for a few hours, and just blow out somecobwebs, wet a line, catch some fish,
or hopefully catch some fish, And at thesame time, manage your stress levels,
head off to the Dandelong Ranges.
(01:27):
We're going to go there in this episodeof the podcast with a local who's been
fishing that part of the world forover a decade and share some tips with
you about how you can get onto somequality brown and rainbow trout within
a stone's throw of the Melbourne CBD.
Let's get into it.
(01:52):
This is the Australian Lure FishingPodcast, where our mission is
to help everyday sports fishersexperience extraordinary lure fishing.
If next level fishing is your dream, thenlet us provide the tools and information
that will bring that dream to life.
Tune in as our expert hosts chatwith Australia's best anglers
and share their tips for success.
(02:13):
Then check out our website.
It's one of Australia's largest andmost popular online fishing resources.
But right now, settle in to listenas ALF founder, Greg Doc Lue's vinyl
delivers today's episode throughthe nerdy lens of a scientist, lure
maker, and sport fishing tragic.
(02:33):
Hello ALF listeners.
Welcome to a new episode of theAustralian Lure Fishing Podcast.
And folks, We are fishing in Victoriatoday and we're fishing with a young
fellow by the name of Julian ConguesStraub who has been fishing down in
that part of the world for a long time.
And I say a long time he's only a youngman, 17 years old, but he's been fishing
(02:54):
a trout in some of the streams in theDandenong area for well over a decade.
Does a bit of part time work ina tackle shop, lives and breathes
fishing and certainly knows his stuff.
So looking forward to mining thewealth of knowledge in his brain.
About how to go and catch troutin some of these small streams.
So with no further ado Julian,welcome to the show, mate.
(03:14):
Great to have you on board.
Thanks for having me, Greg.
It's awesome to be here.
My absolute pleasure, my friend.
Hey, let's spend a little bit of time justintroducing you to our audience because
there's a good chance that a lot of ouraudience might not know you, or if they
might've found you on Instagram or onYouTube, because I know you do a bit of a
bit of stuff on both of those platforms.
But just in case they haven't, mate,Let's introduce you to our audience.
(03:37):
So tell us a little bit about the typesof fishing that you like to do, mate.
Other than trout, what do you like todo fishing around the Melbourne area?
I love mursery perch fishing.
I've been really getting into that lately.
I recently bought a pedal kayak,so that's opened up a whole bunch
more opportunities for me to go anddo that in a lot of systems where
it's imperative that you have that.
A kayak, a good kayak, love atrout, love, not lure fishing,
(04:01):
but land based shark fishing.
I've been doing a bit of that mostlyover the summer months down here.
That's good fun, but I'll pretty muchfish for anything that swims to be
honest, but certainly trout, somethingthat I've been fishing for the longest
time and it's something that's close.
to my house.
I, the nearest trout stream to meis in a straight line, about 250
meters and it's a five minute drive.
(04:22):
So I'm right down the road.
I can nip down on my bike or just getmy parents to drop me off and I have
my license in a year and that's great.
I can just go fish down therewherever I want pretty much.
Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Excellent.
Now mate, where do youdream of going fishing?
Is there a backup list destinationthat you'd really like to spend
a week or two wetting a line?
Sounds good.
(04:43):
There's a lot, and beingsuch a young bloke, I haven't
got to go to so many places.
It's all in front of you.
Yes, but I think definitely somethingthat I want to do on the top of my bucket
list eventually is get up to Jervis Bay.
And fish off some of the rock ledgesup there for land based game fish.
Yes.
Hopefully, maybe one day amullet, kingfish, stuff like that.
(05:05):
Sure.
It's I've done a little bit of it.
I haven't been that successful, butit's just, it's such a awesome type
of fishing to do and the rewardsare amazing when you get it right.
That's right.
And then anything can turn upthere and sometimes it does.
It certainly does.
It's one of those rare places on theplanet where you can tangle with some
seriously big blue water fish standingon terra firma, so a very cool place.
(05:29):
Mate, what's your bucket list species?
You've mentioned a few sort of gamespecies there, are they your, your
prime targets or is there somethingelse that's at the top of the
list that you want to knock off?
Something that I really want tocatch is a 10 pound wild brown
trout in Victoria I've caught a few.
Around the 10 pound mark softfish mostly rainbows But I really
(05:51):
want to be able to tick off a10 pound wild brown in victoria.
It's just it's such a It's abig fish for Victoria and it's
very tough in some other states.
In the snowies it might be a biteasier in Tassie but in Victoria it's
definitely a pretty big ask to catch a10lb wild brown in most waters so that's
something I definitely want to do.
(06:11):
Yeah, I think a double digit browntrout in any waters is certainly a
trophy fish and Not a lot of places.
Yeah, they're around, butthere's not a lot of places.
What's your personal best brown, mate?
My personal best brown thatI've caught would be in the
Merri River in Warrnambool.
Yes.
So I know you obviously werefishing in that area quite a lot.
(06:32):
Yes.
Back in the day, but yeah,it was in the mirror.
I just up from the weir there and itwas from memory, 60 centimeters and I
guess about five or six pounds, so notthat big, but a very respectable fish.
I caught that on the fly.
I do quite a bit of fly fishingas well as spinning fishing.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yep.
I know that weir, in fact, one of my besttrout came from just below that weir.
(06:54):
So it's certainly, it fishes pretty wellat certain times of the year when the
Galaxians are running and getting tracked.
At that fish ladderjust at the weir there.
It can be just mayhem with the trout, so.
Very good.
All right, mate, tell us about yourfavorite fishing gadget or your
favorite piece of fishing tech.
I think probably has to be avery good quality head torch.
(07:15):
Okay.
Being land based, a lot of the time,something that I always carry, even if
I'm planning to go out fishing and comeback before dark, things can go south very
quickly and not so much in this area, butwhen you're out, Kilometres from anywhere.
You really want to have a good brightlight to get your way home if you need to.
(07:36):
So that's probably what I wouldsay is a good bright head torch.
I've got a lens up one here that Ithink puts up on a boost feature.
It does about three and a half thousandlumens, but normally about one and a half.
So it's very bright and if you evergot lost out somewhere remote, it'd
(07:57):
be a great way to attract attention toyourself in the event of an emergency.
Absolutely.
Yep.
And the other thing with landbased fishing is that you're often
heading out before it gets light.
And so you need a torch to getto your destination and then
you've got the whole day aheadof you, hopefully, but very good.
All right.
Tell us about somebody you'd liketo spend a day fishing with mate.
And this could be a family member.
(08:17):
It could be some sortof fishing celebrity.
It might be someone who's got nothingto do with fishing, but somebody you'd
like to spend a day out on the river,casting some lures at trout and just
having a fun time and a good chat.
I'd probably pick my Pop.
He's still alive but he's 92 now sohe's got some mobility issues where he
struggles to get out and fish for troutin streams and almost any type of fishing.
So I'd love to go back 10 or 15 years whenhe was still very good and very strong
(08:42):
and Mobile and be able to go fishing withhim, taxing trout and lures and show him
what I've learned over the last few years.
And what's pop's name, mate?
Right, right.
Right.
Welcome.
I hope you're having a bit of a listeningto this episode, mate, and I'm sure you
are in fact, and I'm fairly proud of yourgrandson, but I do have to say, mate.
He's only 17.
(09:02):
He really should be able to piggyback you.
So if you want to get out onthe river, I'm sure he'll carry
you to where you can wet a line.
All right, so let's move on.
I want to talk about your,that PB trout again, mate.
And typically one of the thingswe do in this getting to know
you session is we will talk about
your favorite memory of catching a fish.
So tell us about that fish.
(09:23):
You're obviously not fromthe Warrnambool area.
So you were in Warrnamboolfor whatever reason, had a
bit of a fish above the wind.
Tell us the story of that fish.
Yeah.
So it was actually a specificfishing trip to Warrnambool.
I was there with my mate FinnTape, hopefully he's listening
in, and my dad, Frank Straub.
So we were there, three of us fishingand it was just in the afternoon and it
(09:45):
was actually, I had two fly rods on hand,one with a sort of intermediate sink tip
line and the other with a floating line.
And I was casting around the floating lineand I just left the sink tip in the water.
I thought I'll cast it out.
I believe it actually caughta fish doing the same thing, a
(10:05):
smaller one earlier in the day.
But I just cast out my secondfly rod and I was fishing in
an area that's quite deep.
So I let the flies getright down to the bottom.
And I picked it up and I startedjust very slowly figure eight
retrieving the flies back into myself.
And yeah, bang, big trout came,he grabbed the flies, it came
(10:27):
straight up, rose up, jumped out ofthe water and got him in the net.
And that's pretty muchthe story of that fish.
Amazing fish.
That one.
And it's a fishery where thereare some pretty big trout.
And it's one of thosethat breeds are stocked.
Fishery as well.
You can fish year round, but there'ssome pretty good trout in that
river system for a very small river.
Yeah, definitely somevery big fish in there.
(10:48):
And I've had some hits and seensome which are substantially
larger than the one I caught.
But it's definitely aplace that I like to visit.
when I can.
Do you remember what fly you were using?
It was a little zonker, a littlerabbit zonker that I've tied myself.
It was actually, I'd used it tocatch a good fish in Tullaroop
reservoir a little while before,and it had mucked up the fly.
(11:10):
So it actually stripped thefly and retied it basically.
And of course that fish on it as well.
Excellent stuff.
And folks, after this short session ofconversation, you can already, I'm sure
understand why, despite his young age.
Julian is the perfect guy to have onboard to talk about fishing some of
these small streams in the Dandenongarea because as you say, it's close
(11:32):
to your home, it's a place that you'vebeen able to fish from a very young age.
So just give us a littlebit of an overview, mate.
There's numerous streams in that area,isn't there, that hold decent fish?
Yeah, there's quite a few streams,and I won't talk too much about
the names, but I will give you one.
The Warriellic Creek is a greatplace to go, especially when you're
starting out the bigger systems.
(11:52):
So I don't mind sharing thename, and there's lots of areas.
You've just got to be careful.
There are some areas that are off limitsto fishing due to being conservation
areas and obviously private property.
Yes.
But there's, within 15 to 20 minutesof each other, there's at least five
or six different streams, two differentcatchments, you've got the catchment
that ends up in Dandenong Creek andthen into the Patterson River system.
(12:17):
And then the catchment, whichends up in the Wariyalik Creek,
which then flows into the Yarra.
And yeah, I'm in the Dandenong Ranges.
So not Dandenong itself, whichis obviously the suburbs, but.
Yes.
Just a bit higher up in themountains in the Dandenong
Ranges is where I'm situated.
Yep.
Yep.
And look, totally appreciate thatwe're not going to name the creeks.
Anyone can go and find them and jumpon Google Earth, jump on Google Maps,
(12:39):
get a topographical map, whatever youwant to do, you'll find places to fish.
But obviously these are small streams.
They are sensitive to fishing pressure.
And so we don't want to causehundreds of anglers to descend
on one or two of these systems.
So you need to do that bit of researchfor yourself, but tell us a little bit
about the streams in terms of their size,the types of structure, the flow, the
(13:00):
depth, summer versus winter, all thatkind of stuff gives a bit of an elevator
view from way up high of what thesestreams look like and how they fish.
So most of the streams, I would sayBetween a metre and a half to about three
metres wide, they're very small streams.
Most of them you can jumpacross in one section or another
fairly easily, if you're youngand nimble like myself anyway.
(13:23):
And so they're very small streams.
Flow wise, they generally,most of them flow fairly clear.
There are some which obviously dirtyup after some rain, and that can
be a fantastic time to chase trout,especially this time of year, as they
begin their spawning and migrating up.
Obviously, some fish, bigger fishyou'll find come out of a larger
(13:44):
river downstream and you'll getsurprised with 40 or 45 centimetre
fish in water where it probably reallyshouldn't be in a normal time of year.
Now, I remember, and this is deviatingfrom the conversation a little bit, but
I do remember and I suspect it was inthis part of Victoria talking to Paul
Wursteling back in episode, I thinkit was 208 or something like that, and
(14:05):
Paul mentioned that one of his goalsas a young fella was to catch a trout.
That was longer than the streamthat he caught it in was wide.
And so there are some pretty smallstreams that hold some reasonable fish.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah.
I remember that episode actually.
And it's a fantastic goal to have,and it's definitely achievable
in some of these streams andsome of the feeder streams where.
(14:27):
Normally throughout the spring and summer,I wouldn't even look at this time of year
I'll throw a lure in and sometimes you'llbe surprised at what you'll catch out of
a stream that's only a foot or two wide.
Yep.
And that's exactly whyI mentioned that folks.
So as I said, have a look at GoogleEarth, have a look at Google Maps, get
a topographical map and start mappingout some places or marking out some
places that you can go and check out.
And don't overlook those verysmall, very narrow streams.
(14:50):
You might need to fish them a littlebit differently, but yeah, at certain
times of the year, and as you say,Julian, when there's a bit of flow
at that time of year and fish aremoving upstream, they're quite likely
to be fishing some of those systems.
So tell us what you're looking for,mate, when you're, let's imagine
you're exploring the Dandenong ranges.
Let me start that again.
You're exploring the DandenongRanges for new fishing spots
(15:12):
you haven't been to before.
What are you looking for in termsof, this is going to be a good
spot to go and fish for trout?
Typically, I'll look for afew, at least a few feet wide,
maybe a meter wide, some depth.
You don't want to befishing a tiny trickle.
You want to have some depth becausemost trout, they're not dumb.
They're going to stay inareas where they feel safe.
(15:33):
You want to have some pools that are abouttwo feet of depth, I would say, minimum.
You will find them, like I said, inareas that are shallower than that, but
generally a couple feet of depth is good.
You want plenty of cover for thefish, overhanging vegetation, often
streams that are very small, that are,Right out in the middle of a paddock,
(15:54):
whilst they may have trout, they'reoften exceptionally hard to catch and
target because of how spooky they are.
Yep.
There's a few things there, and,just looking to make sure that
there's, if you're fishing a reallysmall stream, make sure there's
some form of larger water downstreamwhere larger fish can move up into.
Yep.
(16:14):
Yep.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Now there's both browns and rainbowsin these systems, is that right?
Yeah, there's both browns and rainbows.
So for example, the system that'sright near my house, Over the last,
traditionally it was just browns,but over maybe the last three or
four years, I've started to noticesome rainbows moving back in.
(16:34):
I don't believe they weresocks because all the fish I've
caught have very nice good fins.
It doesn't look like socks fish to me.
And so I think what's happened is, I thinkthe, that stream was affected by fires
quite badly, maybe 30 years ago or so.
And it's taken them that long to worktheir way up, maybe 10 Ks downstream
(16:58):
from where they're more stronghold inanother system that this system joins.
They've worked their way back up over timeand we've started to see some bigger fish.
And in fact, last year I caughttwo 40 centimeter rainbow
trout in the same session.
Pretty much to the day, actually, Ibelieve it might've been the 22nd or 23rd
(17:19):
of April last year that I caught thesetwo, and they're the biggest rainbows
that I've caught in these systems.
I've caught some browns that areprobably a tad bigger than that,
and there are some bigger fish,but generally, yeah, about that 40
centimetre mark is as big as they'll get.
And these fish were in less thana foot of water, both of them.
Yep.
And sight fishing, do you see the fishoften or is it more blind casting?
(17:39):
Sight fishing.
It's a lot of blind casting becausea lot of the best fishing can be when
the water is slightly colored and whenit's overcast, but there definitely are
opportunities to site fish for trout.
So generally when those opportunitiesare about, I'll be fly fishing.
Yep.
Fair enough.
Yep.
Yeah.
But there definitely are someopportunities to fly fish
filly with small soft plastic.
(18:00):
Cool.
Now mate, you've probably, you mayhave already in a roundabout way
answered this next question, but.
I guess I'd like to explore the besttimes, those sort of bite windows, when
the trout are going to be most active, andstart by talking about seasons and water
levels, and then talk about time of day.
Year tends to be, the best time ofyear tends to be autumn by the sounds?
(18:21):
Yeah, best time of year,definitely the months of Autumn.
So April, May, particularly March canstill be good, but April and May, and
obviously normally in Victoria, our troutseason extends just into winter as well.
So the second weekend, so the Queen'sbirthday weekend, that's subject to
change each year as the date change, orsorry, the King's birthday weekend now.
But yeah, it's subject to changeeach year, but generally we get
(18:44):
a couple of weeks in winter and.
Anytime from mid February through tothe close season is the best time,
in my opinion, to fish these waters.
Okay.
And in terms of, sorry, you keep going.
No, you go.
In terms of weather patterns and thatkind of stuff, is there something that
you would say, if you were thinkingabout, you do lots of different types
of fishing, but if you were thinkingabout going for fish, Is there some
(19:05):
kind of trigger that would make yousay, it's time to go trout fishing,
this is the perfect conditions for that?
Just your classic conditions, overcast,maybe a bit of drizzle around.
If it's been low water conditions,which some years the water can be
low till that late autumn time.
If you've just had a bit of rain,you don't want chocolate melt water,
but if you've just had a bit ofrain enough to colour up the water.
(19:28):
The stream a little bit, that's afantastic time to go fishing as it
will often trigger those trout tomove upstream and you'll get these
trout that are migrating and they'reoften very aggressive because they're
getting in that spawning mood.
Yep.
And it doesn't seem to matter whatspecies, when you're fishing in river
systems, anytime there's a littlebit of color in the water without
going, as you say, to turning it tochocolate milk, there's a bit of green,
(19:49):
tinge of green or a tinge of brown,it always seems to improve the bite.
It doesn't matter whether it's troutor redfin or cod or up here, mangrove
jack and barramundi, that littlebit of color gives the fish a bit of
cover, allows them to hunt and getsthem excited and wanting to feed.
So definitely a good time to fish.
Anything else we need to know, mate,time of day is, yeah, does it fish
best in the mornings, afternoons?
(20:10):
Doesn't it really matterif it's an overcast day?
You'll find, generally speaking,afternoons and mornings, you probably will
find some more fish, particularly in theafternoons, as trout often are up on the
surface looking for bugs in the afternoonwhen there might be a hatch around.
Yep.
A lot of these streams are down in thebottom of a valley, so you can have a
(20:32):
twilight period that goes from, especiallythis time of year, it might go from three
o'clock in the afternoon till sunset.
So you can have essentially three,three and a half hours of twilight where
the fish are feeding quite heavily.
But I'll go any time of day.
I can fish from 11 o'clock in the morningto one in the afternoon and you will catch
fish, especially if it's an overcast day.
(20:53):
Yep.
Okay, cool.
Anything else we need to know aboutwhere to fish, when to fish, or the
kind of conditions that they're in?
I think that's it apart from justmaking sure that you are fishing in an
area where there's going to be trout.
Obviously, conditions wise, theywill move up into shallow water,
(21:15):
but sometimes you'll see peoplefishing in just shallow water.
It's exceptionally shallow water inthese streams and most of the time
you're not going to find fish inthere unless it's that afternoon.
So sometimes you can throw a littlesurface lure in there in late afternoon,
you might get one, but generally speaking,only fishing those really shallow areas
in the late afternoon, early morning time.
(21:37):
Yep.
Yep.
And I think often they kind oftransition through those areas
and they're going to move undercover of darkness or semi darkness.
And then during the day they'regoing to hole up in slightly
deeper water where there's a bitof struck and a bit of cover up.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Okay.
Cool.
Mate, in, in terms of your strategy forphishing these systems, I want to talk a
little bit about access to them as well.
(21:57):
You've mentioned that some ofthem are on private property,
but let's start there actually.
Let's talk about what the sort ofprotocols and laws and that sort of
thing are around going and phishing thesesystems and how do you get access to them?
For the private property ones, ahundred percent always seed commission.
If there's a fence thatyou're going to cross.
Then get permission.
Maybe you might legally be able to fish.
(22:17):
I don't know the exact laws, but somesystems 10 meters either side or the
riparian zone or some laws surroundingthat, but always go and check with the
landowner just because you don't wantto, you want to avoid confrontation.
If at all possible, so go and talkto them and see if they say that's
their land and they're running cattleon it or running different forms of
(22:40):
livestock and they think you're goingto impede on that, maybe disturbing the
stock or whatever, then respect that.
We're not here to be pests.
Go find another spot.
There's hundreds of kilometers.
It's worth of system through here so thereare some areas in national parks as well.
Most of them are open to fishing, youcan fish in most of those national
(23:00):
park areas, but, do your researchand check the laws a hundred percent
and just be careful because you don'twant to give fishermen a bad name.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and you're exactly right, Ithink you absolutely nailed that,
and be respectful of the propertyowners, it's their livelihood.
We're out there justenjoying the recreation.
(23:22):
So yeah, we're going to haveto pay respect to those guys
because it's a tough life.
Without us coming alongand making it tougher.
Mate, in terms of your strategy fortargeting the trout, is it, do you
wade, do you fish from the bank?
I used to fish in Tassie a fair bit andsome of the streams I used to fish, the
common strategy was just to wade right upthe middle of the creek, firing cast out,
fanning them out as you moved upstream.
(23:44):
But other places, of course, the watergets a bit deeper and so you have to get
up onto the bank and work your way aroundthe edges of pools and that kind of stuff.
Talk to us a little bitabout what the strategy is.
Yeah.
That's pretty much it, Greg.
Mostly just walking inthe middle of the stream.
Most of them, you will find youcan walk straight up the middle
and not in too deep of water.
(24:05):
Yep.
You can wear waders.
If you've got nice extensive weightas I would advise against it,
cause you are going to come acrosssome blackberries and other stuff.
Generally what I'll do is I'll weargumboots and what I've discovered
recently is if you wear, sometimes, theproblem with gumboots is you invariably
go over the top of them at some pointduring the day and then you've got wet
(24:26):
and cold feet for the rest of the day.
So what I've done recently is I've gotsome relatively loose jeans and put
the jeans over the top of the gumboots.
And if you ever slip in, you've got afew seconds to pull your foot out before
your gumboot totally fills up with water.
But generally, yeah,generally I'll wear gumboots.
(24:47):
They also protect you.
We don't have too many snakes up here,but it's always good to be snake smart.
Walk around in crocs and thongs andstuff, which a few of my mates do, and
I always look at them and shake my head.
We were going for a fishing sessiononce about four k's up into this
river system and my mate rocks up incrocs and I'm like, you're wearing
crocs, look, what are you doing?
(25:08):
He's like, I'll be right.
I'm like, okay.
Not my problem.
It is if you've got to carry himback out mate, and you're already
carrying Ray, so I'm not sure you'regonna be able to carry three people.
Yeah.
Alright, now that's good advice and Ilove that idea of putting your jeans
over the top of your gumboots just togive you that little bit of time, because
as you say, you are going to step in adeeper pool or slip over occasionally,
(25:30):
it's just the nature of the game.
And you also reminded me of my archenemy,the old Blackberry, it's been a long time
so we don't get them up here in Cairns.
That's been a long time sinceI've tangled with blackberries
and I can't say that I miss it.
No, I don't imagine you would.
They're terrible things.
Apart from when theygive you a bit of fruit.
That's true.
That is true.
Yeah.
(25:51):
It'd be rather nice to sit on thebank and eat a few blackberries
while you're having a fish.
Very good.
But let's take a change of direction here.
I'd like to explore the tackle thatyou use for this style of fishing.
So run us through first of all, we'llget into lures in a minute, but run us
through Rods, reels, lines and leadersand what you typically take with you.
So I am currently using, it'san older model Daiwa Preso.
(26:13):
I got it as a gift fromone of my dad's friends.
So thank you, Chris.
If you're listening, Ireally appreciate that.
So it's a, the model is a PSO 662ULF.
It's a six foot six ultralight and it'scast 130 seconds to one quarter ounce
and it's a two to It's a six pound rod.
(26:35):
Some people prefer ashorter rod than that.
A lot of anglers will, you'llfind, they'll use a 5 foot
5 or sometimes even shorter.
And that's great if you're going tohave a dedicated small stream trout
rod, but you'll find, if I'm fishing asmall stream, Then I might want to go
fish a slightly larger river and I don'twant to have to take two rods with me
(26:57):
to go and fish two different systems.
So that's a great size in myopinion, that six foot six range.
I do have some, I have fished sevenfoot or seven foot plus rods and I don't
struggle personally that much with it.
I think just because I'm used to managingthe longer rods of fly fishing and stuff.
But if.
(27:17):
And stuff like that.
A euro nymphing, you can fish a 10foot rod in a very small system.
Yeah.
And as you get used to it, itdoesn't bother you that much, but
definitely 6 foot 6 is a good size.
And the reel I'm using is a DaiwaTD Black, and It's a two thousand
size with a shallow spool and braidon that fish a six pound braid.
(27:40):
You can't fish straight for a six poundmono and I have done that and it can be
very good, but I like to use my reelsfor multiple different species and you'll
struggle to catch a good size F3 perchon four pounds straight through mono.
Yep.
So, I generally just fish a six, six poundbraid and leader wise, again, Typically
(28:01):
these trout aren't very line shy, a lotof them have probably never seen a lure.
I would go with just a6lb fluorocarbon leader.
You can go 4lb if it givesyou a bit more confidence.
But generally speaking, six pounds shouldbe more than adequate for these fish.
Excellent, excellent.
And leader to line connection,what are you using for that?
FG, not all the way.
(28:21):
I have experimented, you can do, anotherone is a slim beauty, and I do that
not, it's a bit quicker, but you cando a slim beauty if you're in a quick
situation where you've busted off alure or something on a tree and there's
a nice big brown sitting in front ofyou, you want to get a lure out there
quickly before he decides to move on.
You tie a swimbeauty or even a doubleuni off of these fish, they're not going
(28:44):
to try to bust you off in structure.
So you can get away with a doubleuni if that's all you can tie.
Yep.
Excellent.
Very good.
Mate, let's move on andhave a chat about lures.
And what I'd like you to do isnarrow it down to just three lures.
And if you're headed to the DandenongRanges, you're targeting trout in
these streams, both brown and rainbow.
These are the three lures that you'dfeel confident that most times when
(29:05):
you're out there you're going tobe able to catch fish on them and
then once you've nominated thoselures we're going to go through and
ask you how we go about fishing.
All right.
This truly is the, probably the toughestquestion on the show, isn't it Greg?
But I'm going to have to go withthe number one lure that I would
pick, which is not one thatprobably most people have heard of.
It's called a Dorado Stick 4.
(29:28):
5cm.
So if you look up Dorado Stick 4.
5cm, you can buy them on eBay.
I believe they're a Polish made lure.
I don't even know, I've only got oneof them and it's all I, if I tie on
one lure, this is all I use and Ihaven't lost it because fishing small
streams, you don't lose many lures asyou can normally wait and go get them.
(29:50):
But I'm going to be buying a fewmore because for years and years
I didn't know what it was called.
It doesn't have any markings on thebody at all until eventually I found
a tiny little in tiny print on thebib that says Dorado and then through
the digging I found out what it was.
Okay.
How did you come acrossit in the first place?
How did it end up in your tackle box?
(30:10):
I couldn't tell you, Ithink I must have bought it.
Honestly, I've got somelures in my tackle box.
I've been fishing for a very longtime and I've got some lures that have
been passed down to me from people,so I think it was probably in a tackle
store somewhere when I bought it.
I think it was probably in HookupBait and Tackle and I bought it there.
Yep.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you for sure.
(30:32):
That's pretty normal.
So, so tell us about this lure.
So Dorado sticks 4.
5 centimetres.
It's a hard body.
It's a hard body.
Yeah, it's a hard body.
It's got a fairly decent size bib.
What you will find in these streamsis often, if you're not wading, you'll
be up quite high above the bank.
In a lot of areas,they're quite channeled.
So, if you fish something like aclassic Rapala with quite a small bid.
(30:56):
You're not going to get down verydeep and you won't really get down
in the fish's face Because a lot ofit is a reaction bite to these trout.
I really believe that a lot of thetime They're just reacting to it.
So you really want something to getdown too close to the bottom They're
going to see it and especially thistime of year, if you've got some dirty
(31:18):
water and fast current, they're notgoing to see a small lure that's a
meter above them in really dirty water.
So that's another reason, but yeah.
And I guess some alternativesto that lure would be because
you might struggle to get them.
So I think an alternative would beEcogear SX40 in the floating or Daiwa
(31:42):
Pro Double Clutch in the 48 suspend.
Okay.
Those are just a couple of, if youcan't get hold of those lures, the
Dorado 6, those are a couple of otherreasonably deep diving small hard
bodies that will get the job done.
Walk us through how to fish them,mate, in terms of where you're casting
them to and how you're working them.
I'll cast them up generallyto the head of the pool.
(32:04):
In larger rivers, you want to startat the tail of the pool and kind
of work and stagger your cast up.
If there's multiple fish in the pool andyou catch one, At the top, you're gonna
spook every fish throughout the rest ofthe pool, but if you catch one at the
bottom, generally, you'll be able tocatch a couple more fish out of that pool.
But in these smaller systems, generally,I'll just cast straight to the head
(32:27):
of the pool, because there's oftenonly one or two fish in the pool, and
no matter where you hook them in thepool, you're gonna spook the fish,
because they just flap everywhere.
So I'll cast it ahead of the pooland mostly I might give it a couple
taps to the rod tip to get it down.
And then just a slow wind and a fewtwitches throughout the retrieve, just
to, especially if I have one followingit, I'll give it a few twitches just
(32:48):
to hopefully get an aggressive responsefor that trout to grab the lure.
Obviously.
You've got to work that lure a bit fasterthan the current to give it some action.
I imagine that's going to determinewhat a fast, medium, slow roll is.
Yes, 100%.
And another reason why I pick the lureswith slightly bigger bibs is generally
it takes A slower wind to get them going.
(33:11):
Yes, you often have to pull over a parlouror something a classic tramp quite fast to
really get it going But with this lure itwill sit right down and it will sit there
and you can work it really slowly and keepit In the strike zone for a lot longer.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Awesome Anything else we need toknow mate you just fish them out
of the pack with standard hooks andall that kind of stuff Or is it you
(33:31):
don't need to trick them at all?
I'm not sure these hooks thatI've got on this one here
have definitely been replaced.
I believe these are just littleowners, little owner trebles.
From what I can see on their website,when I've looked them up, the hooks
look okay to fish out of the pack.
You're not going to, on smallertrout, generally I don't bother
with upgrading my trebles.
(33:52):
They're not going to hit youup too badly most of the time.
They don't generally straightenthem, but yeah, you never know.
Alright, so we've got three hardbodies, so the Dorado sticks, and then
you've given us a couple of optionsthere that, the IKIGIRA SF40 and the
double clutch, pro double clutch.
So they're all hard bodies.
Did you have other lurestyles that you use mate?
(34:13):
You mentioned soft plastics earlier on.
Yeah.
So I'd throw in a StrikeTiger one inch nymph.
You can use different colors, butthree colors that will get you
through is olive pepper, blackand gold and the orange spawn.
They're three colors that will cover youfor any scenario in these small streams.
I'd generally fish that ona one 32nd ounce jig head.
(34:35):
Yeah.
Down to a 1 16th.
Depending on water condition.
If it's a bit faster, fisha slightly heavier jig head.
Yeah.
And how do you fish that one mate?
Similar again.
I'll often just throw itto the head of the pool.
Yep.
And, Either slow roll it back, whichyou can get a few fish on, but generally
it's a, it's weird if you fish thebent minnow, you'll understand, but
it's like a cast out and you generally,I'll let it sit there for a second.
(35:00):
Like you would have been.
And then obviously it's not a floatinglure, but work it in a similar way.
Just a wind and a tap, aconstant tapping of the rod tip.
And that just reallygives it a little twist.
Twitching action, because they don'thave a lot of action, inherent action.
You can also just do a sink to thebottom and a hop retrieve, but generally
speaking, in your average trout poolthat's only a foot or two deep, I'll
(35:22):
just cast it out and do that constanttwitch retrieve back, all the way back.
Cool.
Cool.
Right.
Is there any other lures youwant to throw into the mix, mate?
I will throw in a Hurricane Lures, whichis the 66cm minnow, which I've recently
started targeting these fish on surface.
And yeah, it's just, it's been the,probably the best lure so far for that.
(35:47):
It's obviously fishing.
In these smaller streams, the classicbent minnow often 76 or even bigger mil.
So just that slightly smaller presentationof the 66 millimeter bent minnow seems
to get a lot more hits and strikesfrom these often smaller trout.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay, cool.
So mate, we've got threebasic lure options here.
(36:08):
We've got the small hard bodies.
We've got the strike tiger, softplastic nymph, and we've got the
hurricane twitch 66 bent minnow.
Talk to us about When you would chooseeach of these different lures, do you
have particular conditions or situationswhere you'd say, I need the hard body
here, or maybe I need the soft plastichere, or is it just a case of rotating
through them and fishing all of themto see what's working on the day?
(36:32):
Generally, when I'm startingout, I will throw on a hard body.
It's the most reliable lure.
You have the, generally thebest hookup on hard body lures.
So sometimes the softplastics and the bent minnows.
And you can definitely struggle toget hookups on these smaller fish
because there's often not room tostrike or very short strike from
fish, but with two trebles, yougenerally hook most of the fish.
(36:54):
So I'll throw on a hard body, but if I amhollows and the fish aren't hitting the
hard body or they're just barely tappingit, then I'll switch almost straight
away to the Strike Tiger 1 inch nymph.
Because when they're being abit finicky like that, often
a soft plastic presentation.
We'll give you a lot more hits and eventhough you might not hook as many you will
(37:18):
end up landing more fish Just because morefish are actually connecting the lure.
Yep.
Yep With the bent minnow, if you'reout there to catch heaps of fish, it's
not something I'd suggest But if youwant a surface strike Or obviously,
and a bit more fun and sometimes itmight sort out a bigger fish, then
(37:39):
that's when I would choose that lure.
Okay.
And any time of day and night withthe bents or do you prefer to fish
them in the low light periods?
You can definitely fish them throughoutthe day, but yeah, the low light periods
are probably when I would mostly throwit on, particularly in the evening.
You definitely, the trout areoften looking up in the evening,
so throw that on late afternoon.
(38:00):
Perfect.
All right, mate.
Anything else we need to know about lures?
No, I think that covers it all.
Got it all nailed, alright.
I've got one more question for youbefore we wrap this up, mate, but before
I ask that question, I know that youdo a bit of work for one of the local
tackle stores, and there might be anopportunity for our listeners to come in
and have a chat with you as well, so tellus about who you're working with, mate.
(38:21):
Yes, I work part time atHookup Bait and Tackle.
I've been working there part timefor a couple years now and I've been
going there for probably over 10years since I was only 5 or 6 years
old and it's just a great store.
We stock a lot of stuff that yourBCFs and Anacondas might not stock.
(38:43):
A lot of more specific luresthat are catered to BCFs.
This area, Melbourne area, andall the boys in there are very
knowledgeable, and between one guyin there is going to be able to tell
you about what you need to know.
Okay.
So, we got myself, Glenn, Billing,Casey, George, who you've had
(39:05):
on the podcast before, and Sean.
Billing.
And between us four, Sean does alot of fly fishing, Glenn, lots of
it, you've perched, Casey, the same.
Someone's going to be able to tellyou about what you need to know to
catch the fish that you want to catch.
Perfect.
And tell us how we can find you,mate, both physically and online.
Phone number for ScottBay and Tackle, 9758 4332.
(39:30):
business hours.
And the website is hookuptackle.
com.
au.
And we do some online orders, but youcan always order over the phone as well.
If you want, if you can't come into thestore and the address for the store,
is 718 Burwood Highway, Fantry Gully.
(39:54):
718 Burwood Highway, Fantry Gully, right.
Folks, obviously Julian knows his stuffas you can hear from this interview.
And these guys have got some pretty goodgear for this style of fishing in stock.
So make sure you go and check it outbefore you head into the Dandenong Ranges.
Chasing these trout.
So Julian, we're going to wrap thisup now, but what I'd like you to do
is finish up by telling us some thingsthat we can do on those days when
(40:18):
the trout are not playing ball, mate.
So we've all had those days,conditions might look perfect.
We might have all the right gear,know exactly where to fish and
know what techniques to use.
Cause we've listened to this podcastinterview, but sometimes the fish
don't listen to podcasts and theydon't do what we expect them to do.
So.
Leave us with some tips, mate.
What can we do if the fishing is required?
One thing which I would say is, ifyou're struggling to catch fish in these
(40:44):
systems, generally you'll get followsor some indication of fish being there.
If you're not getting followsand indications of some fish
or you're not spooking fish, Iwould move to another system.
It's such a small creek thatif they're there, you're going
to see some sign of the fish.
So maybe there's been someflooding and they've moved, or
(41:05):
the water quality is not great.
So they've moved orthey're not in that area.
So the first thing I would do is move.
Exactly.
You can have a secondhand water.
That doesn't happen all that muchup here, but it certainly can happen
sometimes and sometimes I'll be fishingand I'm like, wow, this isn't any good.
And then I'll call up one of mymates or I'll be chatting to them
(41:26):
later in the day and they'll belike, Oh yeah, I fished that today.
I was like, Oh, what time did you fish?
And I was like, Oh, I came through an hourafter you and caught absolutely nothing.
Yeah.
Especially when you're walking throughthe centre of one of these streams,
generally it's going to take quite afew hours before the trout are keen to
bite again after they've been spooked.
Yeah.
And one other thing would befish some hard bodies downstream.
(41:47):
You've got to be very sneaky whenyou're doing this, but go up to the
top of a nice looking run or pooland sneak your way off in the trout.
Obviously they're facing upstream away.
So you've got to be quite stealthy,but stealthy, throw a cast.
to the back of the pool and just superslowly work that lower back on very
(42:08):
slow wind, just seeing the current.
Okay.
And you'll be amazed at the resultsthat can bring sometimes when they're
just not in the mood to really chase,something sitting in the current in
their face, just giving a little shimmylike a hard body will very often get
them to eat when nothing else will.
Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Hey Julian, you have doneyourself proud, mate.
You've given us some greattips and some great advice.
(42:28):
You've been through all the tackle, thelures, everything we need to know to go
and target some Dandenong Ranges trout.
For that, we thank you, mate, andwe look forward to having you on the
show again sometime in the future.
Thanks, Greg.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to theAustralian Lure Fishing Podcast.
For free show notes, downloads,tools, and resources.
Please visit our website on doclures.
(42:50):
com or consider supporting theshow by joining Team Doc Lures
to receive exclusive members onlyepisodes, tools and resources.
But for now, tight lines andmay the fish be with you.
One of the great joys of lure fishingis the opportunity to travel to far
off places and experience wildernessdestinations and tangle with fish
that we couldn't normally tangle with.
But in many ways, it's the fishingin our backyards, the everyday
fishing that shapes us as anglers,because unfortunately for most of
us, we can't just head off to exoticdestinations and target exotic species
(00:21):
every time we want to go for a fish.
If we take advantage of thoseopportunities that are closer to home,
we're It enables us to take care of ourmental health, first of all, but also
to hone and maintain our fishing skills.
And I think as human beings, we oftenhave a tendency to look longingly at
those distant destinations and thosedistant opportunities and overlook some
of the stuff that's closer to home,or maybe even not be aware of some
(00:44):
of the stuff that's closer to home.
And in my estimation, that'sexactly what today's episode of the
Australian Lure Fishing Podcast isabout, especially for Melbourneites.
And I know we have lots ofMelbourne listeners to the show.
And you guys really should availyourselves of this opportunity to fish
for wild trout, quality wild trout,in river and creek systems in the
(01:06):
Dandenong Ranges, just 35 kilometersto the east of the Melbourne CBD.
So Melbourne listeners,here's the challenge.
If you've been looking for thatopportunity to get away, maybe just
for a few hours, and just blow out somecobwebs, wet a line, catch some fish,
or hopefully catch some fish, And at thesame time, manage your stress levels,
head off to the Dandelong Ranges.
(01:27):
We're going to go there in this episodeof the podcast with a local who's been
fishing that part of the world forover a decade and share some tips with
you about how you can get onto somequality brown and rainbow trout within
a stone's throw of the Melbourne CBD.
Let's get into it.
(01:52):
This is the Australian Lure FishingPodcast, where our mission is
to help everyday sports fishersexperience extraordinary lure fishing.
If next level fishing is your dream, thenlet us provide the tools and information
that will bring that dream to life.
Tune in as our expert hosts chatwith Australia's best anglers
and share their tips for success.
(02:13):
Then check out our website.
It's one of Australia's largest andmost popular online fishing resources.
But right now, settle in to listenas ALF founder, Greg Doc Lue's vinyl
delivers today's episode throughthe nerdy lens of a scientist, lure
maker, and sport fishing tragic.
(02:33):
Hello ALF listeners.
Welcome to a new episode of theAustralian Lure Fishing Podcast.
And folks, We are fishing in Victoriatoday and we're fishing with a young
fellow by the name of Julian ConguesStraub who has been fishing down in
that part of the world for a long time.
And I say a long time he's only a youngman, 17 years old, but he's been fishing
(02:54):
a trout in some of the streams in theDandenong area for well over a decade.
Does a bit of part time work ina tackle shop, lives and breathes
fishing and certainly knows his stuff.
So looking forward to mining thewealth of knowledge in his brain.
About how to go and catch troutin some of these small streams.
So with no further ado Julian,welcome to the show, mate.
(03:14):
Great to have you on board.
Thanks for having me, Greg.
It's awesome to be here.
My absolute pleasure, my friend.
Hey, let's spend a little bit of time justintroducing you to our audience because
there's a good chance that a lot of ouraudience might not know you, or if they
might've found you on Instagram or onYouTube, because I know you do a bit of a
bit of stuff on both of those platforms.
But just in case they haven't, mate,Let's introduce you to our audience.
(03:37):
So tell us a little bit about the typesof fishing that you like to do, mate.
Other than trout, what do you like todo fishing around the Melbourne area?
I love mursery perch fishing.
I've been really getting into that lately.
I recently bought a pedal kayak,so that's opened up a whole bunch
more opportunities for me to go anddo that in a lot of systems where
it's imperative that you have that.
A kayak, a good kayak, love atrout, love, not lure fishing,
(04:01):
but land based shark fishing.
I've been doing a bit of that mostlyover the summer months down here.
That's good fun, but I'll pretty muchfish for anything that swims to be
honest, but certainly trout, somethingthat I've been fishing for the longest
time and it's something that's close.
to my house.
I, the nearest trout stream to meis in a straight line, about 250
meters and it's a five minute drive.
(04:22):
So I'm right down the road.
I can nip down on my bike or just getmy parents to drop me off and I have
my license in a year and that's great.
I can just go fish down therewherever I want pretty much.
Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Excellent.
Now mate, where do youdream of going fishing?
Is there a backup list destinationthat you'd really like to spend
a week or two wetting a line?
Sounds good.
(04:43):
There's a lot, and beingsuch a young bloke, I haven't
got to go to so many places.
It's all in front of you.
Yes, but I think definitely somethingthat I want to do on the top of my bucket
list eventually is get up to Jervis Bay.
And fish off some of the rock ledgesup there for land based game fish.
Yes.
Hopefully, maybe one day amullet, kingfish, stuff like that.
(05:05):
Sure.
It's I've done a little bit of it.
I haven't been that successful, butit's just, it's such a awesome type
of fishing to do and the rewardsare amazing when you get it right.
That's right.
And then anything can turn upthere and sometimes it does.
It certainly does.
It's one of those rare places on theplanet where you can tangle with some
seriously big blue water fish standingon terra firma, so a very cool place.
(05:29):
Mate, what's your bucket list species?
You've mentioned a few sort of gamespecies there, are they your, your
prime targets or is there somethingelse that's at the top of the
list that you want to knock off?
Something that I really want tocatch is a 10 pound wild brown
trout in Victoria I've caught a few.
Around the 10 pound mark softfish mostly rainbows But I really
(05:51):
want to be able to tick off a10 pound wild brown in victoria.
It's just it's such a It's abig fish for Victoria and it's
very tough in some other states.
In the snowies it might be a biteasier in Tassie but in Victoria it's
definitely a pretty big ask to catch a10lb wild brown in most waters so that's
something I definitely want to do.
(06:11):
Yeah, I think a double digit browntrout in any waters is certainly a
trophy fish and Not a lot of places.
Yeah, they're around, butthere's not a lot of places.
What's your personal best brown, mate?
My personal best brown thatI've caught would be in the
Merri River in Warrnambool.
Yes.
So I know you obviously werefishing in that area quite a lot.
(06:32):
Yes.
Back in the day, but yeah,it was in the mirror.
I just up from the weir there and itwas from memory, 60 centimeters and I
guess about five or six pounds, so notthat big, but a very respectable fish.
I caught that on the fly.
I do quite a bit of fly fishingas well as spinning fishing.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yep.
I know that weir, in fact, one of my besttrout came from just below that weir.
(06:54):
So it's certainly, it fishes pretty wellat certain times of the year when the
Galaxians are running and getting tracked.
At that fish ladderjust at the weir there.
It can be just mayhem with the trout, so.
Very good.
All right, mate, tell us about yourfavorite fishing gadget or your
favorite piece of fishing tech.
I think probably has to be avery good quality head torch.
(07:15):
Okay.
Being land based, a lot of the time,something that I always carry, even if
I'm planning to go out fishing and comeback before dark, things can go south very
quickly and not so much in this area, butwhen you're out, Kilometres from anywhere.
You really want to have a good brightlight to get your way home if you need to.
(07:36):
So that's probably what I wouldsay is a good bright head torch.
I've got a lens up one here that Ithink puts up on a boost feature.
It does about three and a half thousandlumens, but normally about one and a half.
So it's very bright and if you evergot lost out somewhere remote, it'd
(07:57):
be a great way to attract attention toyourself in the event of an emergency.
Absolutely.
Yep.
And the other thing with landbased fishing is that you're often
heading out before it gets light.
And so you need a torch to getto your destination and then
you've got the whole day aheadof you, hopefully, but very good.
All right.
Tell us about somebody you'd liketo spend a day fishing with mate.
And this could be a family member.
(08:17):
It could be some sortof fishing celebrity.
It might be someone who's got nothingto do with fishing, but somebody you'd
like to spend a day out on the river,casting some lures at trout and just
having a fun time and a good chat.
I'd probably pick my Pop.
He's still alive but he's 92 now sohe's got some mobility issues where he
struggles to get out and fish for troutin streams and almost any type of fishing.
So I'd love to go back 10 or 15 years whenhe was still very good and very strong
(08:42):
and Mobile and be able to go fishing withhim, taxing trout and lures and show him
what I've learned over the last few years.
And what's pop's name, mate?
Right, right.
Right.
Welcome.
I hope you're having a bit of a listeningto this episode, mate, and I'm sure you
are in fact, and I'm fairly proud of yourgrandson, but I do have to say, mate.
He's only 17.
(09:02):
He really should be able to piggyback you.
So if you want to get out onthe river, I'm sure he'll carry
you to where you can wet a line.
All right, so let's move on.
I want to talk about your,that PB trout again, mate.
And typically one of the thingswe do in this getting to know
you session is we will talk about
your favorite memory of catching a fish.
So tell us about that fish.
(09:23):
You're obviously not fromthe Warrnambool area.
So you were in Warrnamboolfor whatever reason, had a
bit of a fish above the wind.
Tell us the story of that fish.
Yeah.
So it was actually a specificfishing trip to Warrnambool.
I was there with my mate FinnTape, hopefully he's listening
in, and my dad, Frank Straub.
So we were there, three of us fishingand it was just in the afternoon and it
(09:45):
was actually, I had two fly rods on hand,one with a sort of intermediate sink tip
line and the other with a floating line.
And I was casting around the floating lineand I just left the sink tip in the water.
I thought I'll cast it out.
I believe it actually caughta fish doing the same thing, a
(10:05):
smaller one earlier in the day.
But I just cast out my secondfly rod and I was fishing in
an area that's quite deep.
So I let the flies getright down to the bottom.
And I picked it up and I startedjust very slowly figure eight
retrieving the flies back into myself.
And yeah, bang, big trout came,he grabbed the flies, it came
(10:27):
straight up, rose up, jumped out ofthe water and got him in the net.
And that's pretty muchthe story of that fish.
Amazing fish.
That one.
And it's a fishery where thereare some pretty big trout.
And it's one of thosethat breeds are stocked.
Fishery as well.
You can fish year round, but there'ssome pretty good trout in that
river system for a very small river.
Yeah, definitely somevery big fish in there.
(10:48):
And I've had some hits and seensome which are substantially
larger than the one I caught.
But it's definitely aplace that I like to visit.
when I can.
Do you remember what fly you were using?
It was a little zonker, a littlerabbit zonker that I've tied myself.
It was actually, I'd used it tocatch a good fish in Tullaroop
reservoir a little while before,and it had mucked up the fly.
(11:10):
So it actually stripped thefly and retied it basically.
And of course that fish on it as well.
Excellent stuff.
And folks, after this short session ofconversation, you can already, I'm sure
understand why, despite his young age.
Julian is the perfect guy to have onboard to talk about fishing some of
these small streams in the Dandenongarea because as you say, it's close
(11:32):
to your home, it's a place that you'vebeen able to fish from a very young age.
So just give us a littlebit of an overview, mate.
There's numerous streams in that area,isn't there, that hold decent fish?
Yeah, there's quite a few streams,and I won't talk too much about
the names, but I will give you one.
The Warriellic Creek is a greatplace to go, especially when you're
starting out the bigger systems.
(11:52):
So I don't mind sharing thename, and there's lots of areas.
You've just got to be careful.
There are some areas that are off limitsto fishing due to being conservation
areas and obviously private property.
Yes.
But there's, within 15 to 20 minutesof each other, there's at least five
or six different streams, two differentcatchments, you've got the catchment
that ends up in Dandenong Creek andthen into the Patterson River system.
(12:17):
And then the catchment, whichends up in the Wariyalik Creek,
which then flows into the Yarra.
And yeah, I'm in the Dandenong Ranges.
So not Dandenong itself, whichis obviously the suburbs, but.
Yes.
Just a bit higher up in themountains in the Dandenong
Ranges is where I'm situated.
Yep.
Yep.
And look, totally appreciate thatwe're not going to name the creeks.
Anyone can go and find them and jumpon Google Earth, jump on Google Maps,
(12:39):
get a topographical map, whatever youwant to do, you'll find places to fish.
But obviously these are small streams.
They are sensitive to fishing pressure.
And so we don't want to causehundreds of anglers to descend
on one or two of these systems.
So you need to do that bit of researchfor yourself, but tell us a little bit
about the streams in terms of their size,the types of structure, the flow, the
(13:00):
depth, summer versus winter, all thatkind of stuff gives a bit of an elevator
view from way up high of what thesestreams look like and how they fish.
So most of the streams, I would sayBetween a metre and a half to about three
metres wide, they're very small streams.
Most of them you can jumpacross in one section or another
fairly easily, if you're youngand nimble like myself anyway.
(13:23):
And so they're very small streams.
Flow wise, they generally,most of them flow fairly clear.
There are some which obviously dirtyup after some rain, and that can
be a fantastic time to chase trout,especially this time of year, as they
begin their spawning and migrating up.
Obviously, some fish, bigger fishyou'll find come out of a larger
(13:44):
river downstream and you'll getsurprised with 40 or 45 centimetre
fish in water where it probably reallyshouldn't be in a normal time of year.
Now, I remember, and this is deviatingfrom the conversation a little bit, but
I do remember and I suspect it was inthis part of Victoria talking to Paul
Wursteling back in episode, I thinkit was 208 or something like that, and
(14:05):
Paul mentioned that one of his goalsas a young fella was to catch a trout.
That was longer than the streamthat he caught it in was wide.
And so there are some pretty smallstreams that hold some reasonable fish.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah.
I remember that episode actually.
And it's a fantastic goal to have,and it's definitely achievable
in some of these streams andsome of the feeder streams where.
(14:27):
Normally throughout the spring and summer,I wouldn't even look at this time of year
I'll throw a lure in and sometimes you'llbe surprised at what you'll catch out of
a stream that's only a foot or two wide.
Yep.
And that's exactly whyI mentioned that folks.
So as I said, have a look at GoogleEarth, have a look at Google Maps, get
a topographical map and start mappingout some places or marking out some
places that you can go and check out.
And don't overlook those verysmall, very narrow streams.
(14:50):
You might need to fish them a littlebit differently, but yeah, at certain
times of the year, and as you say,Julian, when there's a bit of flow
at that time of year and fish aremoving upstream, they're quite likely
to be fishing some of those systems.
So tell us what you're looking for,mate, when you're, let's imagine
you're exploring the Dandenong ranges.
Let me start that again.
You're exploring the DandenongRanges for new fishing spots
(15:12):
you haven't been to before.
What are you looking for in termsof, this is going to be a good
spot to go and fish for trout?
Typically, I'll look for afew, at least a few feet wide,
maybe a meter wide, some depth.
You don't want to befishing a tiny trickle.
You want to have some depth becausemost trout, they're not dumb.
They're going to stay inareas where they feel safe.
(15:33):
You want to have some pools that are abouttwo feet of depth, I would say, minimum.
You will find them, like I said, inareas that are shallower than that, but
generally a couple feet of depth is good.
You want plenty of cover for thefish, overhanging vegetation, often
streams that are very small, that are,Right out in the middle of a paddock,
(15:54):
whilst they may have trout, they'reoften exceptionally hard to catch and
target because of how spooky they are.
Yep.
There's a few things there, and,just looking to make sure that
there's, if you're fishing a reallysmall stream, make sure there's
some form of larger water downstreamwhere larger fish can move up into.
Yep.
(16:14):
Yep.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Now there's both browns and rainbowsin these systems, is that right?
Yeah, there's both browns and rainbows.
So for example, the system that'sright near my house, Over the last,
traditionally it was just browns,but over maybe the last three or
four years, I've started to noticesome rainbows moving back in.
(16:34):
I don't believe they weresocks because all the fish I've
caught have very nice good fins.
It doesn't look like socks fish to me.
And so I think what's happened is, I thinkthe, that stream was affected by fires
quite badly, maybe 30 years ago or so.
And it's taken them that long to worktheir way up, maybe 10 Ks downstream
(16:58):
from where they're more stronghold inanother system that this system joins.
They've worked their way back up over timeand we've started to see some bigger fish.
And in fact, last year I caughttwo 40 centimeter rainbow
trout in the same session.
Pretty much to the day, actually, Ibelieve it might've been the 22nd or 23rd
(17:19):
of April last year that I caught thesetwo, and they're the biggest rainbows
that I've caught in these systems.
I've caught some browns that areprobably a tad bigger than that,
and there are some bigger fish,but generally, yeah, about that 40
centimetre mark is as big as they'll get.
And these fish were in less thana foot of water, both of them.
Yep.
And sight fishing, do you see the fishoften or is it more blind casting?
(17:39):
Sight fishing.
It's a lot of blind casting becausea lot of the best fishing can be when
the water is slightly colored and whenit's overcast, but there definitely are
opportunities to site fish for trout.
So generally when those opportunitiesare about, I'll be fly fishing.
Yep.
Fair enough.
Yep.
Yeah.
But there definitely are someopportunities to fly fish
filly with small soft plastic.
(18:00):
Cool.
Now mate, you've probably, you mayhave already in a roundabout way
answered this next question, but.
I guess I'd like to explore the besttimes, those sort of bite windows, when
the trout are going to be most active, andstart by talking about seasons and water
levels, and then talk about time of day.
Year tends to be, the best time ofyear tends to be autumn by the sounds?
(18:21):
Yeah, best time of year,definitely the months of Autumn.
So April, May, particularly March canstill be good, but April and May, and
obviously normally in Victoria, our troutseason extends just into winter as well.
So the second weekend, so the Queen'sbirthday weekend, that's subject to
change each year as the date change, orsorry, the King's birthday weekend now.
But yeah, it's subject to changeeach year, but generally we get
(18:44):
a couple of weeks in winter and.
Anytime from mid February through tothe close season is the best time,
in my opinion, to fish these waters.
Okay.
And in terms of, sorry, you keep going.
No, you go.
In terms of weather patterns and thatkind of stuff, is there something that
you would say, if you were thinkingabout, you do lots of different types
of fishing, but if you were thinkingabout going for fish, Is there some
(19:05):
kind of trigger that would make yousay, it's time to go trout fishing,
this is the perfect conditions for that?
Just your classic conditions, overcast,maybe a bit of drizzle around.
If it's been low water conditions,which some years the water can be
low till that late autumn time.
If you've just had a bit of rain,you don't want chocolate melt water,
but if you've just had a bit ofrain enough to colour up the water.
(19:28):
The stream a little bit, that's afantastic time to go fishing as it
will often trigger those trout tomove upstream and you'll get these
trout that are migrating and they'reoften very aggressive because they're
getting in that spawning mood.
Yep.
And it doesn't seem to matter whatspecies, when you're fishing in river
systems, anytime there's a littlebit of color in the water without
going, as you say, to turning it tochocolate milk, there's a bit of green,
(19:49):
tinge of green or a tinge of brown,it always seems to improve the bite.
It doesn't matter whether it's troutor redfin or cod or up here, mangrove
jack and barramundi, that littlebit of color gives the fish a bit of
cover, allows them to hunt and getsthem excited and wanting to feed.
So definitely a good time to fish.
Anything else we need to know, mate,time of day is, yeah, does it fish
best in the mornings, afternoons?
(20:10):
Doesn't it really matterif it's an overcast day?
You'll find, generally speaking,afternoons and mornings, you probably will
find some more fish, particularly in theafternoons, as trout often are up on the
surface looking for bugs in the afternoonwhen there might be a hatch around.
Yep.
A lot of these streams are down in thebottom of a valley, so you can have a
(20:32):
twilight period that goes from, especiallythis time of year, it might go from three
o'clock in the afternoon till sunset.
So you can have essentially three,three and a half hours of twilight where
the fish are feeding quite heavily.
But I'll go any time of day.
I can fish from 11 o'clock in the morningto one in the afternoon and you will catch
fish, especially if it's an overcast day.
(20:53):
Yep.
Okay, cool.
Anything else we need to know aboutwhere to fish, when to fish, or the
kind of conditions that they're in?
I think that's it apart from justmaking sure that you are fishing in an
area where there's going to be trout.
Obviously, conditions wise, theywill move up into shallow water,
(21:15):
but sometimes you'll see peoplefishing in just shallow water.
It's exceptionally shallow water inthese streams and most of the time
you're not going to find fish inthere unless it's that afternoon.
So sometimes you can throw a littlesurface lure in there in late afternoon,
you might get one, but generally speaking,only fishing those really shallow areas
in the late afternoon, early morning time.
(21:37):
Yep.
Yep.
And I think often they kind oftransition through those areas
and they're going to move undercover of darkness or semi darkness.
And then during the day they'regoing to hole up in slightly
deeper water where there's a bitof struck and a bit of cover up.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Okay.
Cool.
Mate, in, in terms of your strategy forphishing these systems, I want to talk a
little bit about access to them as well.
(21:57):
You've mentioned that some ofthem are on private property,
but let's start there actually.
Let's talk about what the sort ofprotocols and laws and that sort of
thing are around going and phishing thesesystems and how do you get access to them?
For the private property ones, ahundred percent always seed commission.
If there's a fence thatyou're going to cross.
Then get permission.
Maybe you might legally be able to fish.
(22:17):
I don't know the exact laws, but somesystems 10 meters either side or the
riparian zone or some laws surroundingthat, but always go and check with the
landowner just because you don't wantto, you want to avoid confrontation.
If at all possible, so go and talkto them and see if they say that's
their land and they're running cattleon it or running different forms of
(22:40):
livestock and they think you're goingto impede on that, maybe disturbing the
stock or whatever, then respect that.
We're not here to be pests.
Go find another spot.
There's hundreds of kilometers.
It's worth of system through here so thereare some areas in national parks as well.
Most of them are open to fishing, youcan fish in most of those national
(23:00):
park areas, but, do your researchand check the laws a hundred percent
and just be careful because you don'twant to give fishermen a bad name.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and you're exactly right, Ithink you absolutely nailed that,
and be respectful of the propertyowners, it's their livelihood.
We're out there justenjoying the recreation.
(23:22):
So yeah, we're going to haveto pay respect to those guys
because it's a tough life.
Without us coming alongand making it tougher.
Mate, in terms of your strategy fortargeting the trout, is it, do you
wade, do you fish from the bank?
I used to fish in Tassie a fair bit andsome of the streams I used to fish, the
common strategy was just to wade right upthe middle of the creek, firing cast out,
fanning them out as you moved upstream.
(23:44):
But other places, of course, the watergets a bit deeper and so you have to get
up onto the bank and work your way aroundthe edges of pools and that kind of stuff.
Talk to us a little bitabout what the strategy is.
Yeah.
That's pretty much it, Greg.
Mostly just walking inthe middle of the stream.
Most of them, you will find youcan walk straight up the middle
and not in too deep of water.
(24:05):
Yep.
You can wear waders.
If you've got nice extensive weightas I would advise against it,
cause you are going to come acrosssome blackberries and other stuff.
Generally what I'll do is I'll weargumboots and what I've discovered
recently is if you wear, sometimes, theproblem with gumboots is you invariably
go over the top of them at some pointduring the day and then you've got wet
(24:26):
and cold feet for the rest of the day.
So what I've done recently is I've gotsome relatively loose jeans and put
the jeans over the top of the gumboots.
And if you ever slip in, you've got afew seconds to pull your foot out before
your gumboot totally fills up with water.
But generally, yeah,generally I'll wear gumboots.
(24:47):
They also protect you.
We don't have too many snakes up here,but it's always good to be snake smart.
Walk around in crocs and thongs andstuff, which a few of my mates do, and
I always look at them and shake my head.
We were going for a fishing sessiononce about four k's up into this
river system and my mate rocks up incrocs and I'm like, you're wearing
crocs, look, what are you doing?
(25:08):
He's like, I'll be right.
I'm like, okay.
Not my problem.
It is if you've got to carry himback out mate, and you're already
carrying Ray, so I'm not sure you'regonna be able to carry three people.
Yeah.
Alright, now that's good advice and Ilove that idea of putting your jeans
over the top of your gumboots just togive you that little bit of time, because
as you say, you are going to step in adeeper pool or slip over occasionally,
(25:30):
it's just the nature of the game.
And you also reminded me of my archenemy,the old Blackberry, it's been a long time
so we don't get them up here in Cairns.
That's been a long time sinceI've tangled with blackberries
and I can't say that I miss it.
No, I don't imagine you would.
They're terrible things.
Apart from when theygive you a bit of fruit.
That's true.
That is true.
Yeah.
(25:51):
It'd be rather nice to sit on thebank and eat a few blackberries
while you're having a fish.
Very good.
But let's take a change of direction here.
I'd like to explore the tackle thatyou use for this style of fishing.
So run us through first of all, we'llget into lures in a minute, but run us
through Rods, reels, lines and leadersand what you typically take with you.
So I am currently using, it'san older model Daiwa Preso.
(26:13):
I got it as a gift fromone of my dad's friends.
So thank you, Chris.
If you're listening, Ireally appreciate that.
So it's a, the model is a PSO 662ULF.
It's a six foot six ultralight and it'scast 130 seconds to one quarter ounce
and it's a two to It's a six pound rod.
(26:35):
Some people prefer ashorter rod than that.
A lot of anglers will, you'llfind, they'll use a 5 foot
5 or sometimes even shorter.
And that's great if you're going tohave a dedicated small stream trout
rod, but you'll find, if I'm fishing asmall stream, Then I might want to go
fish a slightly larger river and I don'twant to have to take two rods with me
(26:57):
to go and fish two different systems.
So that's a great size in myopinion, that six foot six range.
I do have some, I have fished sevenfoot or seven foot plus rods and I don't
struggle personally that much with it.
I think just because I'm used to managingthe longer rods of fly fishing and stuff.
But if.
(27:17):
And stuff like that.
A euro nymphing, you can fish a 10foot rod in a very small system.
Yeah.
And as you get used to it, itdoesn't bother you that much, but
definitely 6 foot 6 is a good size.
And the reel I'm using is a DaiwaTD Black, and It's a two thousand
size with a shallow spool and braidon that fish a six pound braid.
(27:40):
You can't fish straight for a six poundmono and I have done that and it can be
very good, but I like to use my reelsfor multiple different species and you'll
struggle to catch a good size F3 perchon four pounds straight through mono.
Yep.
So, I generally just fish a six, six poundbraid and leader wise, again, Typically
(28:01):
these trout aren't very line shy, a lotof them have probably never seen a lure.
I would go with just a6lb fluorocarbon leader.
You can go 4lb if it givesyou a bit more confidence.
But generally speaking, six pounds shouldbe more than adequate for these fish.
Excellent, excellent.
And leader to line connection,what are you using for that?
FG, not all the way.
(28:21):
I have experimented, you can do, anotherone is a slim beauty, and I do that
not, it's a bit quicker, but you cando a slim beauty if you're in a quick
situation where you've busted off alure or something on a tree and there's
a nice big brown sitting in front ofyou, you want to get a lure out there
quickly before he decides to move on.
You tie a swimbeauty or even a doubleuni off of these fish, they're not going
(28:44):
to try to bust you off in structure.
So you can get away with a doubleuni if that's all you can tie.
Yep.
Excellent.
Very good.
Mate, let's move on andhave a chat about lures.
And what I'd like you to do isnarrow it down to just three lures.
And if you're headed to the DandenongRanges, you're targeting trout in
these streams, both brown and rainbow.
These are the three lures that you'dfeel confident that most times when
(29:05):
you're out there you're going tobe able to catch fish on them and
then once you've nominated thoselures we're going to go through and
ask you how we go about fishing.
All right.
This truly is the, probably the toughestquestion on the show, isn't it Greg?
But I'm going to have to go withthe number one lure that I would
pick, which is not one thatprobably most people have heard of.
It's called a Dorado Stick 4.
(29:28):
5cm.
So if you look up Dorado Stick 4.
5cm, you can buy them on eBay.
I believe they're a Polish made lure.
I don't even know, I've only got oneof them and it's all I, if I tie on
one lure, this is all I use and Ihaven't lost it because fishing small
streams, you don't lose many lures asyou can normally wait and go get them.
(29:50):
But I'm going to be buying a fewmore because for years and years
I didn't know what it was called.
It doesn't have any markings on thebody at all until eventually I found
a tiny little in tiny print on thebib that says Dorado and then through
the digging I found out what it was.
Okay.
How did you come acrossit in the first place?
How did it end up in your tackle box?
(30:10):
I couldn't tell you, Ithink I must have bought it.
Honestly, I've got somelures in my tackle box.
I've been fishing for a very longtime and I've got some lures that have
been passed down to me from people,so I think it was probably in a tackle
store somewhere when I bought it.
I think it was probably in HookupBait and Tackle and I bought it there.
Yep.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you for sure.
(30:32):
That's pretty normal.
So, so tell us about this lure.
So Dorado sticks 4.
5 centimetres.
It's a hard body.
It's a hard body.
Yeah, it's a hard body.
It's got a fairly decent size bib.
What you will find in these streamsis often, if you're not wading, you'll
be up quite high above the bank.
In a lot of areas,they're quite channeled.
So, if you fish something like aclassic Rapala with quite a small bid.
(30:56):
You're not going to get down verydeep and you won't really get down
in the fish's face Because a lot ofit is a reaction bite to these trout.
I really believe that a lot of thetime They're just reacting to it.
So you really want something to getdown too close to the bottom They're
going to see it and especially thistime of year, if you've got some dirty
(31:18):
water and fast current, they're notgoing to see a small lure that's a
meter above them in really dirty water.
So that's another reason, but yeah.
And I guess some alternativesto that lure would be because
you might struggle to get them.
So I think an alternative would beEcogear SX40 in the floating or Daiwa
(31:42):
Pro Double Clutch in the 48 suspend.
Okay.
Those are just a couple of, if youcan't get hold of those lures, the
Dorado 6, those are a couple of otherreasonably deep diving small hard
bodies that will get the job done.
Walk us through how to fish them,mate, in terms of where you're casting
them to and how you're working them.
I'll cast them up generallyto the head of the pool.
(32:04):
In larger rivers, you want to startat the tail of the pool and kind
of work and stagger your cast up.
If there's multiple fish in the pool andyou catch one, At the top, you're gonna
spook every fish throughout the rest ofthe pool, but if you catch one at the
bottom, generally, you'll be able tocatch a couple more fish out of that pool.
But in these smaller systems, generally,I'll just cast straight to the head
(32:27):
of the pool, because there's oftenonly one or two fish in the pool, and
no matter where you hook them in thepool, you're gonna spook the fish,
because they just flap everywhere.
So I'll cast it ahead of the pooland mostly I might give it a couple
taps to the rod tip to get it down.
And then just a slow wind and a fewtwitches throughout the retrieve, just
to, especially if I have one followingit, I'll give it a few twitches just
(32:48):
to hopefully get an aggressive responsefor that trout to grab the lure.
Obviously.
You've got to work that lure a bit fasterthan the current to give it some action.
I imagine that's going to determinewhat a fast, medium, slow roll is.
Yes, 100%.
And another reason why I pick the lureswith slightly bigger bibs is generally
it takes A slower wind to get them going.
(33:11):
Yes, you often have to pull over a parlouror something a classic tramp quite fast to
really get it going But with this lure itwill sit right down and it will sit there
and you can work it really slowly and keepit In the strike zone for a lot longer.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Awesome Anything else we need toknow mate you just fish them out
of the pack with standard hooks andall that kind of stuff Or is it you
(33:31):
don't need to trick them at all?
I'm not sure these hooks thatI've got on this one here
have definitely been replaced.
I believe these are just littleowners, little owner trebles.
From what I can see on their website,when I've looked them up, the hooks
look okay to fish out of the pack.
You're not going to, on smallertrout, generally I don't bother
with upgrading my trebles.
(33:52):
They're not going to hit youup too badly most of the time.
They don't generally straightenthem, but yeah, you never know.
Alright, so we've got three hardbodies, so the Dorado sticks, and then
you've given us a couple of optionsthere that, the IKIGIRA SF40 and the
double clutch, pro double clutch.
So they're all hard bodies.
Did you have other lurestyles that you use mate?
(34:13):
You mentioned soft plastics earlier on.
Yeah.
So I'd throw in a StrikeTiger one inch nymph.
You can use different colors, butthree colors that will get you
through is olive pepper, blackand gold and the orange spawn.
They're three colors that will cover youfor any scenario in these small streams.
I'd generally fish that ona one 32nd ounce jig head.
(34:35):
Yeah.
Down to a 1 16th.
Depending on water condition.
If it's a bit faster, fisha slightly heavier jig head.
Yeah.
And how do you fish that one mate?
Similar again.
I'll often just throw itto the head of the pool.
Yep.
And, Either slow roll it back, whichyou can get a few fish on, but generally
it's a, it's weird if you fish thebent minnow, you'll understand, but
it's like a cast out and you generally,I'll let it sit there for a second.
(35:00):
Like you would have been.
And then obviously it's not a floatinglure, but work it in a similar way.
Just a wind and a tap, aconstant tapping of the rod tip.
And that just reallygives it a little twist.
Twitching action, because they don'thave a lot of action, inherent action.
You can also just do a sink to thebottom and a hop retrieve, but generally
speaking, in your average trout poolthat's only a foot or two deep, I'll
(35:22):
just cast it out and do that constanttwitch retrieve back, all the way back.
Cool.
Cool.
Right.
Is there any other lures youwant to throw into the mix, mate?
I will throw in a Hurricane Lures, whichis the 66cm minnow, which I've recently
started targeting these fish on surface.
And yeah, it's just, it's been the,probably the best lure so far for that.
(35:47):
It's obviously fishing.
In these smaller streams, the classicbent minnow often 76 or even bigger mil.
So just that slightly smaller presentationof the 66 millimeter bent minnow seems
to get a lot more hits and strikesfrom these often smaller trout.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay, cool.
So mate, we've got threebasic lure options here.
(36:08):
We've got the small hard bodies.
We've got the strike tiger, softplastic nymph, and we've got the
hurricane twitch 66 bent minnow.
Talk to us about When you would chooseeach of these different lures, do you
have particular conditions or situationswhere you'd say, I need the hard body
here, or maybe I need the soft plastichere, or is it just a case of rotating
through them and fishing all of themto see what's working on the day?
(36:32):
Generally, when I'm startingout, I will throw on a hard body.
It's the most reliable lure.
You have the, generally thebest hookup on hard body lures.
So sometimes the softplastics and the bent minnows.
And you can definitely struggle toget hookups on these smaller fish
because there's often not room tostrike or very short strike from
fish, but with two trebles, yougenerally hook most of the fish.
(36:54):
So I'll throw on a hard body, but if I amhollows and the fish aren't hitting the
hard body or they're just barely tappingit, then I'll switch almost straight
away to the Strike Tiger 1 inch nymph.
Because when they're being abit finicky like that, often
a soft plastic presentation.
We'll give you a lot more hits and eventhough you might not hook as many you will
(37:18):
end up landing more fish Just because morefish are actually connecting the lure.
Yep.
Yep With the bent minnow, if you'reout there to catch heaps of fish, it's
not something I'd suggest But if youwant a surface strike Or obviously,
and a bit more fun and sometimes itmight sort out a bigger fish, then
(37:39):
that's when I would choose that lure.
Okay.
And any time of day and night withthe bents or do you prefer to fish
them in the low light periods?
You can definitely fish them throughoutthe day, but yeah, the low light periods
are probably when I would mostly throwit on, particularly in the evening.
You definitely, the trout areoften looking up in the evening,
so throw that on late afternoon.
(38:00):
Perfect.
All right, mate.
Anything else we need to know about lures?
No, I think that covers it all.
Got it all nailed, alright.
I've got one more question for youbefore we wrap this up, mate, but before
I ask that question, I know that youdo a bit of work for one of the local
tackle stores, and there might be anopportunity for our listeners to come in
and have a chat with you as well, so tellus about who you're working with, mate.
(38:21):
Yes, I work part time atHookup Bait and Tackle.
I've been working there part timefor a couple years now and I've been
going there for probably over 10years since I was only 5 or 6 years
old and it's just a great store.
We stock a lot of stuff that yourBCFs and Anacondas might not stock.
(38:43):
A lot of more specific luresthat are catered to BCFs.
This area, Melbourne area, andall the boys in there are very
knowledgeable, and between one guyin there is going to be able to tell
you about what you need to know.
Okay.
So, we got myself, Glenn, Billing,Casey, George, who you've had
(39:05):
on the podcast before, and Sean.
Billing.
And between us four, Sean does alot of fly fishing, Glenn, lots of
it, you've perched, Casey, the same.
Someone's going to be able to tellyou about what you need to know to
catch the fish that you want to catch.
Perfect.
And tell us how we can find you,mate, both physically and online.
Phone number for ScottBay and Tackle, 9758 4332.
(39:30):
business hours.
And the website is hookuptackle.
com.
au.
And we do some online orders, but youcan always order over the phone as well.
If you want, if you can't come into thestore and the address for the store,
is 718 Burwood Highway, Fantry Gully.
(39:54):
718 Burwood Highway, Fantry Gully, right.
Folks, obviously Julian knows his stuffas you can hear from this interview.
And these guys have got some pretty goodgear for this style of fishing in stock.
So make sure you go and check it outbefore you head into the Dandenong Ranges.
Chasing these trout.
So Julian, we're going to wrap thisup now, but what I'd like you to do
is finish up by telling us some thingsthat we can do on those days when
(40:18):
the trout are not playing ball, mate.
So we've all had those days,conditions might look perfect.
We might have all the right gear,know exactly where to fish and
know what techniques to use.
Cause we've listened to this podcastinterview, but sometimes the fish
don't listen to podcasts and theydon't do what we expect them to do.
So.
Leave us with some tips, mate.
What can we do if the fishing is required?
One thing which I would say is, ifyou're struggling to catch fish in these
(40:44):
systems, generally you'll get followsor some indication of fish being there.
If you're not getting followsand indications of some fish
or you're not spooking fish, Iwould move to another system.
It's such a small creek thatif they're there, you're going
to see some sign of the fish.
So maybe there's been someflooding and they've moved, or
(41:05):
the water quality is not great.
So they've moved orthey're not in that area.
So the first thing I would do is move.
Exactly.
You can have a secondhand water.
That doesn't happen all that muchup here, but it certainly can happen
sometimes and sometimes I'll be fishingand I'm like, wow, this isn't any good.
And then I'll call up one of mymates or I'll be chatting to them
(41:26):
later in the day and they'll belike, Oh yeah, I fished that today.
I was like, Oh, what time did you fish?
And I was like, Oh, I came through an hourafter you and caught absolutely nothing.
Yeah.
Especially when you're walking throughthe centre of one of these streams,
generally it's going to take quite afew hours before the trout are keen to
bite again after they've been spooked.
Yeah.
And one other thing would befish some hard bodies downstream.
(41:47):
You've got to be very sneaky whenyou're doing this, but go up to the
top of a nice looking run or pooland sneak your way off in the trout.
Obviously they're facing upstream away.
So you've got to be quite stealthy,but stealthy, throw a cast.
to the back of the pool and just superslowly work that lower back on very
(42:08):
slow wind, just seeing the current.
Okay.
And you'll be amazed at the resultsthat can bring sometimes when they're
just not in the mood to really chase,something sitting in the current in
their face, just giving a little shimmylike a hard body will very often get
them to eat when nothing else will.
Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Hey Julian, you have doneyourself proud, mate.
You've given us some greattips and some great advice.
(42:28):
You've been through all the tackle, thelures, everything we need to know to go
and target some Dandenong Ranges trout.
For that, we thank you, mate, andwe look forward to having you on the
show again sometime in the future.
Thanks, Greg.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to theAustralian Lure Fishing Podcast.
For free show notes, downloads,tools, and resources.
Please visit our website on doclures.
(42:50):
com or consider supporting theshow by joining Team Doc Lures
to receive exclusive members onlyepisodes, tools and resources.
But for now, tight lines andmay the fish be with you.
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