Trelly's Weekly Fishing Report - April 10, 2026
by Trellys 10 Apr 08:30 UTC
April 10, 2026
Snake © Trellys
April is here; the weather has cooled and now we don't have to worry about snakes, right? WRONG!
It's time to discard the long-believed myth that snakes hibernate, because they don't. Here in Australia snakes don't hibernate, they brumate. Brumation is different to hibernation.
Basically hibernation means to go underground until the warm weather returns, often taking food supplies.
When snakes brumate, they usually find a hiding spot like a hole underground or a hollow log, and spend winter there.
When the sun shines they will often come out and lay in the sun without venturing too far. This happens all winter. I call this "Sitting on the verandah" but the real name is brumation. They will then retreat into their hole as the sun disappears. Animals that hibernate, such as bears don't do this.
As a wildlife photographer, I have taken many of my best snake photos in the winter months because snakes are easy to find. I just go to their house! Unlike in summer, when they could be anywhere, even under your tent!
Last week I was fox whistling. It was 17 degrees and had just finished raining. The ground was cool and damp and I almost stood on a black snake. I wasn't expecting to see it and had lowered my guard.
So just because the weather is cool, make sure you continue to watch where you put your feet.
Now to the fishing report...
Lake Eppalock
In my fishing report last week I mentioned how my dad and his friends had been fishing at Lake Mulwala. Dad had caught a 70cm Murray cod and a few others had been caught.
Well after I wrote that report the fishing just died. Fish became very few and far between. So I will have to downgrade my Lake Mulwala fishing report to say that it is a bit "hit and miss" at the moment.
In saying that, April can be an amazing time to fish Lake Mulwala so I am expecting that the fish will catch fire very soon.
Waranga Basin
The Waranga Basin has been very hit and miss lately. Some boat anglers are catching a few nice redfin, but some are completely missing out.
Shore based reports have been very few and far between.
Lake Mulwala
Reports coming from Lake Mulwala haven't been as good as they usually are at this time of the year. There have been a few Murray cod caught there including a 109cm fish that was caught on a surface lure near Majors Creek boat ramp last week.
On the whole though, it doesn't appear to be firing on all cylinders. Maybe when the irrigation season ends it will fire right up?
Lake Nillahcootie
There have been some nice Yellowbelly caught at Lake Nillahcootie this week. Trolling medium sized lures in the timbered areas near the top end of the lake seems to be getting the best results.
Lake Hume
If there is one lake that is fishing well at the moment it's Lake Hume. Many anglers are catching redfin in Lake Hume. There have even been some cricket score catches of redfin up there over the last few weeks, with some lucky anglers catching over 100 Redfin.
I think the trick is to move around looking for schools of fish. If you find a decent school you may go from a fishless day to an epic day.
Trout streams
Upstream in the hills the trout streams are fishing well, provided they have enough water in them. Many streams still have a very low flow after the disastrous summer that we just endured.
Water temperatures are perfect now, so if you can find a stream with a few trout in it now is a great time to fish it.
Lake William Hovell
I fished Lake William Hovell on Easter Tuesday. I was targeting Redfin. The fishing was slow. The first Redfin that I caught was a lovely 30cm fish. That came after I had been fishing for 2 hours.
For the last 2 hours of the day I managed to catch half a dozen small redfin, nothing else big enough to keep.
I trolled around the entire lake with a variety of lures. My fish were caught on an RMG Crazy Deep, smallest AC Invader, Damiki Disco 38 and a Strike Tiger soft plastic grub in Bananashock colour.
The soft plastic was rigged on a dropper above my larger diving lures, similar to a paternoster rig.