Team Tuesday - Winter Lakes and New Mates

I was lucky enough to find a day to spend with Scott Xanthoulakis and his bunch of goons. As winter options go around Melbourne, you could do worse.

"After a client cancellation last week, due to some feral weather rolling into the central highlands, it gave myself an opportunity to check out some lakes in the area. I quickly convinced a few guys to come out and brave the weather. Within an hour we had a small crew of talented anglers; Cory Hanes, Gus Lapin and James Norney.

As we headed west towards Ballarat, the outside air temp read 4 degrees on the car thermometer. Hail began to smash the windscreen and I could see the look on Cory’s face thinking, ‘why did I get out of bed for this?’ After checking out a few lakes with little success, we moved to a small gin clear lake. A nice rainbow was sighted by Gus cruising the edge, moments later the fish took a slowly roll and polled woolly bugger, a lovely 5 pound fish.

Photo: James Norney

After lunch we decided to try one more lake. I could tell the guys were more interested in visiting the pub five minutes down the road than heading back out into the cyclonic conditions. But with some fish n chips in the belly we all agreed that it felt like the wind was dropping and we could handle another hour out in the cold. As Gus and myself polaroided the edge of the lake, we sighted a rainbow cruising the edge. Gus quickly un hooked his flies as the same cruising fish swam into a pod ten or more fish. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! The next hour was mayhem, fish smashing flies and even a triple hook up at one stage. How things had changed from the quiet morning to an absolute blinder in the afternoon. We all walked away from the lake organising our next winter outing, a great day with some good mates!"

Photo: James Norney

Get in touch with Scott via Wilderness Fly Fishing