Pejar’s Back

Pejar Dam is about half way be-tween Goulburn and Crookwell in the NSW southern highlands. A picturesque lake with a surface area of 1555 hectares, it was formed in 1980 by damming the Wollondilly River. The main river and the inflowing Pejar Creek held trout prior to flooding.

As with many new lakes, the fish quickly grew to oversized specimens on a diet of flushed-out worms, snails and other high-protein food. As weedbeds formed, the mudeyes (dragonfly nymphs) and damsels became another food source for the already hefty fish.

Anglers soon cashed in on what fast became a well-known fishing haunt. One dedicated group from Canberra became so captivated by the lure of Pejar that they were travelling up after work to fish the mudeye hatch three or more nights a week. Unfortunately for my wife, I was an integral part of that group. Pejar was simply an outstanding fishing destination for great, big, fat trout.

MUDEYES & SMELT

In the first 15 or so years the main food source was the mudeye. Some amazing hatches took place. I can recall one evening in the late 80s when I counted 50 or more mudeyes that had begun to hatch on the hat I was wearing whilst fishing. Once I felt the undignified pluck of a rather large trout grabbing a mudeye off my wader leg as it made its way up to hatch under the cover of darkness. On another occasion a decent-sized brown trout had some 80 full-grown spider mudeyes in its stomach, and nothing else!

An amazing transformation then took place, as ‘smelt’—actually native galaxiids which originally inhabited Wollondilly Creek—began to appear in great numbers. This was good news for fly fishing. Much more of the action took place during the day rather than late at night, though the new food source required rethinking our approach.

Late one spring afternoon an old fishing friend, Jim Edwards, dropped by on his annual holidays. He had travelled down from Brisbane, after moving up there some years earlier, and was dead keen to fish his old stomping ground of Pejar. He even produced a fly box full of Muddlers and his trusty 6-weight just for the experience. A stiff westerly was blowing when we arrived, with a decent amount of cloud cover. And there on the sheltered shore, right in the shallows running parallel to the highway, were ten or more big trout, boofing on ‘smelt’. We naturally thought we’d clean up. How hard could it be? Unfortunately we didn’t. I think we covered fish all that afternoon, and the next day, for three or four takes and maybe two fish between us. We tried everything without success.

It took a lot of time, research and discussions with anglers far more experienced before the penny dropped. Eventually, with the assistance of locals Scott Tucker and Pat Kennedy, I began to hook some of Pejar’s leviathans during the day. I recall having a phone conversation with Pat one night after another visually exciting day for nil result. Pat relayed a fly pattern of his design to me, which I promptly tied. Even though, as it turned out, my fly barely resembled the one Pat had described, I next fished Pejar with renewed enthusiasm and far greater success.

CHUCK & CHANCE

While a reasonably viable option on extremely windy days, Pejar’s fish were easily spooked, so the chuck and chance approach became a last resort, when no fish were showing. We would choose likely looking spots, such as deep water near the tower at the dam wall, or perhaps near the blackberries about half way along the western shore. But at best, just throwing out a long line would only produce the odd fish. One such trout, I am told by Canberra taxidermist Glenn Stewart, weighed a tick over 23 lb and was taken mid afternoon, first cast, on a 15 cm olive Matuka!

WATCH & WAIT

Gradually we refined our approach.Having spotted a smelter, we would move closer, and wait. The bait fish would move away from the safety of the shallow water and, in doing so, soon provided another opportunity for the trout. We sometimes encouraged this by waving arms, entering the water, or even slapping the rod or fly-line on the water to herd a school of smelt into dangerous territory.

If a feeding trout was judged to be a fast-moving but small fish, say a kilo or less, we would present flies five or more metres in front of the fish, allowing them to sink. Rarely did we move them, as doing so seemed less effective. If the trout had not responded within about 10 seconds, we retrieved with a couple of sharp 20 cm pulls followed by another extended pause, then a slow figure-of-eight retrieve until the flies were almost on the bank. This accounted for several really large browns in water barely deep enough to cover their broad backs.

Alternatively, if we felt the fish was large—by Pejar standards that meant 2 kilos or more—we presented the cast almost on top of the fish. These bigger fish would fly up at speed and chop through the school of bait, then return to mop up any stunned fish. With this in mind, we didn’t move the flies until absolutely certain that the fish had moved on.

This was exciting stuff! I became totally addicted to this highly visual style of fishing.

I recall one afternoon spending some 45 minutes trying to induce a particularly good fish to take. On about the fifth or sixth cast, I realised that I hadn’t been letting the flies sit for long enough. As soon as this strategy was employed, bingo! That particular brown measured 65 cm in length, had a girth of 53 cm and weighed well over 10 lb. We happily released that beautiful fish. The following week, I took a close friend out to show him the site, and there, in exactly the same spot, was the same thumping big fish, working the exact same beat, harassing the same school of smelt! He hooked, played and broke off that fish.

On another occasion, I hooked the same trout 7 days apart. I know this because on the first occasion it broke the line more or less on the take, and on the second occasion it had two identical smelt patterns side-by-side on its tongue.

When it was absolutely calm, and I can tell you that this was and still is a rarity at Pejar, we sometimes employed the ‘indicator smelting technique’, with the indicator being a largish floating smelt imitation with painted eyes, made from cork or polystyrene strips. Others used Muddler-style indicators, which in hindsight were just as effective. Six feet or so underneath was a standard smelt pattern on a dropper. Every so often, a fish would come along and take one of the flies. It was like bait fishing with a fly rod.

LOCATIONS & CONDITIONS

The best conditions to see and catch these great fish combined a strong westerly breeze and overcast or broken cloud, though any stiff breeze was good, even the Beastly Easterly. The other important factor was to find the fish. Sometimes they were right next to the picnic area beside the highway, other times you had to walk some distance. There were occasions when several large trout would herd the smelt into a wind-blown corner of a bay, appearing to take turns feeding on the trapped bait. The equation was simple: find smelt, find big trout!

Time of the year was also critical to success at Pejar. Late winter and early spring were best, when water and air temperatures were just right. The smelt were then most active, and there was less other food available to the fish. There were exceptions to this rule. Most years saw a resurgence of smelters in mid-April.

Pejar regularly produced trout, both rainbows and browns, well above the magical 10 lb mark. I managed to land a couple that big and perhaps 30 or more fish in the 7–9 lb bracket during its heyday. While numbers and size of fish are irrelevant to many, these figures suggest the quality of trout that can be encountered at this wonderful fishery.

But even when everything appeared to be perfect, it was easy to make one or two small mistakes and go home fishless. I guess that’s what made this place so alluring: there would always be another day.

LOST & REGAINED

So what happened to this paradise? Sadly, from 2001, the following years brought drought conditions and this once beautiful lake all but dried up. You may recall several television news programs devoted to the lake, the local people and the effect the lingering drought was having on the communities of Goulburn, Crookwell and the surrounding region.

But now for the really good news—PEJAR’S BACK! Very good rain late in 2007 and in the spring and early summer of 2008/09 saw the lake replenished and it has since been stocked each year with brown and rainbow fry.

Recent trips have produced several rainbows over 50 cm in length and in superb condition. They appeared to be full of smelt and, once again, happily accepted our smelt offerings. Several of the browns taken have exceeded 3 kg and are short, fat fish. The fishing has been a challenge, but the size of the fish and the highly visual aspect of the fishing has more than made up for what the lake lacks in numbers.

Following several blank days, it all came together one afternoon in late September 2010, with multiple rainbows to 54 cm landed and one brown in excess of 4 kg. The fish were extremely localised, smelting hard up against a shore slightly protected from the strong westerly wind, and were all hooked within a 50 metre stretch of shoreline. A local man bait-fishing the same area believed the brown most likely came from fry stocked in February 2008 and the rainbows from the Feb ’09 stocking! Despite being equipped with no less than four bait rods, and fishing in close proximity to a dozen large, actively feeding trout, he did not touch a scale. They were totally focused on the smelt.

It’s hard to say what the future holds, but at this point, things look extremely promising. Could it be that the whole process of a newly formed lake has begun again? Trout eating worms and snails, moving on to mudeyes once weed beds re-establish in the lake, and finally, outstanding daytime fishing to smelt feeders. The grapevine tells me that mudeye hatches have started and the trout are highly aware of this fact. Could we once again have the opportunity to sight-fish to browns and rainbows well above double figures? Has it already begun?

I can tell you one thing for sure: I will be checking Pejar out regularly just to see how things pan out.