An early start on the Goulburn this morning turned out to be well worth it.

We headed out expecting the river to rise, based on Goulburn-Murray Water’s earlier release forecast. Instead, the water eased back slightly, leaving us with almost perfect conditions and some very encouraging dry-fly fishing.

Quite a few good trout were looking up, feeding on adult caddis and emerging mayflies. We picked up fish blind-fishing dry flies through likely water, while others were rising freely enough to target. It’s another encouraging sign that the fish are beginning to spend more time feeding on the surface.

The weather was kind to us, too. The rain finally arrived while I was driving back to pick up the kids from school, but we’d managed to sneak in a lovely morning before the change.

There’s always something slightly eerie about the valley immediately after a long weekend.

One minute the place is busy, and the next it’s almost a ghost town.

Interestingly, the river itself was surprisingly quiet over the Melbourne Cup weekend. I saw one drift boat on Sunday, a few kayaks and anglers fishing around the bridges, but very few people elsewhere.

A lot of experienced fly fishers avoid these weekends because they expect the river to be crowded. Sometimes that works in your favour. Move away from the obvious access points and you can have long stretches almost entirely to yourself.

The big news this afternoon is the revised release forecast.

GMW’s latest update, issued at 3:15 pm, lists releases at 1,200 ML/day today, falling to 1,000 tomorrow before increasing rapidly to 2,000 on Friday, 4,000 on Saturday and 6,000 ML/day by Sunday.

That will change the character of the river considerably, pushing water back into the margins and across ground that has been exposed at lower flows. Hopefully, the additional volume will also help improve clarity farther downstream towards Alexandra, although we’ll need to see how the river responds.

More to come as the week unfolds. For now, today was another reminder that there’s some very good fishing to be had when conditions fall into place.

Hopefully this helps you plan the next few days.

Tight lines,
Anthony

Actual + revised forecast

Upper Goulburn · Eildon flow and releases

Observed gauge flows and GMW’s revised Lake Eildon release outlook through Sunday 8 November.

Click the graph to view the full-size image

Upper Goulburn River flows over the past week together with the revised Lake Eildon release outlook. The latest plan shows a short fall followed by a substantial increase over the weekend.