Trelly's Weekly Fishing Report - October 31, 2025
by Trellys 31 Oct 06:13 UTC
October 31, 2025
Yellowbelly © Trellys
With this magnificent warm weather come a continuation of amazing Yellowbelly fishing and trout fishing reports, along with an increase in snake sightings. We really need to be careful where we put our feet at this time of the year. I will have more on snake avoidance at the end of this report.
Lake Hume
The great Yellowbelly fishing continues at Lake Hume. As with recent weeks there have been quite a few big Yellowbelly caught in the lake.
Over the last couple of weeks I have seen a bit of an increase in the number of redfin being caught in Lake Hume which is great. Jeff Whyte shared a photo in the Facebook group "FISHING ALBURY/WOGONGA" of 3 decent redfin all over 30cm long with the caption "I nearly had to Google what they were, it's been so long since I've seen any good ones". Well done Jeff and thanks for sharing your catch.
Ovens River
The ovens River is still fishing OK. There's has been a few Yellowbelly caught, but not as many as normal. This could possibly be due to the cooler than average spring we have experienced here in North East Victoria.
It has been a dry spring, but also a cool spring. The upside to this is that there has been some quite good trout fishing in the Ovens River between Bright and Harrietville.
Trout fishing in that area has improved on last season but is nowhere near as good as it gets.
Mitta Mitta River
I have seen photos of trout caught both above and below Lake Dartmouth in the Mitta Mitta River this week.
The lower Mitta Mitta downstream of Lake Dartmouth is fishing much better than last season with quite a few nice brown trout being caught.
I was sent a photo during the week of quite a large brown trout of around 2lb caught near the junction of the Mitta Mitta River and Bundara River on a fly rod this week, with the words "This was the biggest of 4 trout caught today near the Blue Duck".
Lake Eppalock
There have been some lovely Yellowbelly and redfin caught in Lake Eppalock this week, as well as the many other small lakes in the Bendigo area. They are all fishing good right now and are worth throwing a line into.
Snakes
Let's talk about snakes. As a lover of snakes myself, I believe they are the most over stigmatised and feared creatures on the planet. BUT... They are dangerous and should be avoided.
To give you an idea of how much we fear snakes, a quick google search tells me that in 2024, two people were killed by snake bites in Australia. In that same time, there were approximately 1300 people killed in vehicle accidents. Yet none of us are scared to get into our cars are we!
Snakes do not want to hurt us. They have no interest in killing us because they can't eat us. All they want to do is sleep, eat, and reproduce. That's their whole life.
Spring time is when we see the most snakes. There's a reason for this. Males like to lay out in the open so that they can be seen by female snakes. They're looking for a partner. Because they're out in the open, we see them a lot more.
In summer and autumn we see them crossing the road, hunting along the river bank etc and in winter they are usually either underground or laying in the sun right beside their hole, ready for a quick retreat.
If you see a snake, walk around it. If you cannot walk around it, try and let it know that you are there. You can clap your hands, stamp your feet etc.. Be careful not to startle the snake though as they will become defensive and flatten their neck out or form an S pattern in their neck, ready to strike. If this happens, make sure you step back and give them plenty of room to get away.
Contrary to the many horror stories we hear, snakes do not chase people. They may move towards you in a confused state, or lunge towards you when provoked (Brown snakes do this a lot), but they won't intentionally chase you. The only time they will advance at you is if you are really provoking them.
If snakes just randomly chased people I would have died years ago. I'm not the fastest runner on the river bank!
The saying "They're just as scared of us as we are of them" is very true. They want nothing to do with us as we represent danger.
Most of the people that get bitten by snakes are usually trying to harass or harm the snake, or even pick it up. (That's a VERY dumb idea).
There is a small portion of snake bites that occur completely unintentional. This usually happens when people do not see the snake first and stand on it. Or as happened in Queensland this week, a man climbed into bed and got bitten by a brown snake that was sleeping in his bed. No amount of fear could prevent that.
The moral to the story is this: If you see a snake, give it plenty of space to move away. It's the ones that you don't see that pose the greatest risk so be very careful where you put you feet and always wear protective boots and pants when walking in high risk areas.