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Located in that part of New South Wales that is still referred to by some as “old town country”. By virtue of how it is accessed the lake is virtually split into three areas of public access. The only access point I have used, and consequently the focus of this post is via Burrendong State Park but you can also access the lake via Mookerawa Park and at various points at the Mudgee end of the lake. All three main areas have similar profiles being within relatively natural bushland and boast a diverse wildlife including abundant bird life, kangaroos and lizards. If your walking the bank which can be readily accessed from all three main areas and various other locations around the lake do be careful as you move around and also remember you are out in the bush and watch for nasties such as brown snakes … if you leave them alone they will generally leave you alone. The main downside of shore based angling as I see it is the presence of some unbelievably prickly non native weeds, including Noogoora Burr and the worst of them all Tiger Pear so take extra care as you push you way through any vegetation.

Built in 1967 to provide irrigation to the central-west region of NSW Lake Burrendong is massive even at low water levels and at full capacity has a surface area of 8900 hectares which is three and a half time as big as Sydney harbor. Being about 5 hours from the large populations of Sydney it's no surprise that you can always find space to fish without being impacted upon by other lake users. It is a relatively deep lake with a maximum depth of 50 meters and an average depth of 45 meters and is basically all fishable in one way or another.

Water flows into Lake Burrendong from:

• Macquarie River;
• Bell River;
• Cudgegong River;
• Streams and creeks servicing extensive native bush and rural catchments in the surrounding ranges

Safety first:

Being such a big lake and often deceptively glassy and inviting it's always worth remembering that with such long reaches that when winds come up they often whip up swells that are very dangerous so do keep an eye on weather forecasts.

• Keep an eye on the weather and always know where your going to retreat to.
• Let others know where your going to be fishing and your timetable.
• Always wear a life jacket. I recommend wearing a comfortable "yolk" style life vest any time your on the water..
• Never wear thigh waders in the boat particularly if your fishing by yourself.
• Take plenty of spare warm clothes and wet weather gear.
• Mobile phone reception is limited so don't think that it will work all the time.
• Only fish Lake Burrendong in suitable craft. This is not a venue for little dinghies with low sides.
• Always be on the lookout for submerges rocks, trees and fences and in times of rising weather also keep an eye out for floating timber.
• Don't think for a moment that you know the lake. Water levels are changing all the time and consequently where obstructions were below your propeller yesterday they can be right in your path today.

Open season

Whilst Lake Burrendong is open all year keep in mind that the feeder rivers and streams are subject to a closed season that runs from the end of April until the long weekend in October.
You should also check out NSW Fisheries for details and updated information.

Facilities

Each of the three main areas of the lake is serviced by a camping and caravan park, the main park is Burrendong State park (02-68467435) with Mookerawa (02-68468268) only twelve kilometers away to the south and Cudgeegong and is accessible from the Mudgee - Wellington road behind the sleepy town of Goolmah. Bush camping is also permitted around much of the shore of the lake with excellent bush camping sites located toward the back of both the Macquarie River and Cudgegond River arms of the lake.

I have only stayed at Burrendong State Park but understand that each of the parks have kiosks with basic supplies, ice and fuel. The closest bigger town Wellington has a good range of facilities and is only about half an hour from Burrendong State park.

Food chain

The food chain is dominated by yabbies, gudgeons to around 7cm, shrimps, worms, grubs and nymphs but that it is supplemented particularly in the warmer months by drowned terrestrials including hoppers, cicada, beetles and and ants.

Target species

Murray Cod, Golden Perch to 60+ cm and Silver Perch are currently stocked in Lake and are the primary target of most people that fish the lake. Because of the good eating qualities the pest fish Redfin is also a popular target species. You could also target Eel-Tailed Catfish and and Carp but these are regarded as unwelcome by-catches by most anglers. There are also still a few brown and rainbow trout showing up from past stockings but the numbers are so small it's not worth targeting them.

In winter yellowbelly (AKA Golden Perch, White Perch or Callop) school up close to drowned timber in warmer shallow water as little as half a meter deep and in the warmer summer months become more active mooching along the margins of the lake, just out of polaroiding sight, searching out food.

Silver perch are not as prolific as yellowbelly but are a welcome catch. They behave much the same as the yellowbelly and readily accept a fly.

Another welcome by catch for me are bigger Redfin. They are a great fly target and available throughout the year and if you get one on it's always interesting to let it swim for a minute to see if a second Redfin frenzied up by the action will take your second fly. In winter in particular they are good sight fishing prospects as they cruise the lake margins.

Murray Cod are a great target species and can be up to 60 pounds in weight and problematic at best on an #8 weight outfit. Smaller cod however do turn up close to rock walls with deep drop offs from time to time and you can handle them on an 8# weight outfit. If your targeting big Murray Cod I suggest you step up to #10 weight with a 30lb or 40lb leader. The cod tend to hold in deeper water and as ambush predators are often under or close to old drowned timber.

Techniques

With such a diverse fishery it's easy not to know where to start. I have taken the approach that I am targeting mainly yellowbelly and treat everything else as a welcome by catch. Yellowbelly area great target on an 8# weight outfit and the bigger ones will definitely test you and your gear. My line preference is generally a type 5 fast sink but of course I do drop down to intermediate line for shallower water and fish floating lines when there is a chance of surface strikes.

The best fishing can be had an hour or so either side of dawn and dusk. At those times you can expect fish to be actively feeding close to weed beds and structure, such as the drowned timber and rocky points, and red fin in particular at the surface or at least looking up and quite receptive to dry flies.

Depending on cloud cover fishing will generally taper off the closer you get to the middle of the day. The fish will still be there but more often than not you will need to swap over to progressively deeper techniques to get results. Target drop offs, the deep cut offs and channels in and close to weed beds and of course water around rock and timber structure.

Approach target areas with stealth and where possible present your fly or flies with longer accurate casts into or toward selected structure and then retrieve with short jerky retrieves with plenty of pauses. Strip strikes are best as often if a hit is missed the fish or close by fish will come back for a second go. It’s very easy to get “weeded” or taken into vegetation in Lake Burrendong so I lean toward leaders around 10lb to 15lb.

Leader set up

You can use #6 weight rods upwards but I recommend using #8 weight fly rods with plenty of butt strength and tippet above 10lb so that you can keep the fish from returning to weed cover or into drowned vegetation or trees.

This is the set up I have settled on when fishing mainly from boats in coastal waters, lakes or rivers for other than trout. The main difference to my trout leaders is the fact that I only have one heavier section in the butt section of the leader and then of course the overall length of leader is less than I typically use for trout. For my trout leaders I use two sections in the butt of the leader but for this application I get away with just one section because I am using much heavier leader material and one section is sufficient to comfortably turn my heavier fly or flies over. The overall leader length is much shorter than my trout leaders because generally I find that my target species with this set up are less sensitive than trout, are in less than crystal clear water and of course I am casting bigger flies which are a pain on long leaders particularly when casting at short ranges into structure ... any way this works for me when targeting fresh water and salt water species such as Barra, Bass, Sarratoga, Yellowbelly, Silver Perch, Mangrove Jacks, Redfin, Trevally and Queenies.

I start by attaching a 20 mm long Maxima Ultragreen monofilament nail loop knot to the end of each of my fly lines. I like that loop connected to the fly line to be about 2/3 the thickness of the tip of an intermediate fly line which works out at about 30kg for 8 weight lines and 40kg for 10 weight lines. I use these monofiliment loops on all but my dedicated dry fly lines as they are stronger than the manufactured loops that come on fly lines are less visible than braided loops, allow neat leader to line connections without introducing any hinging effect and and of course allow for easy line or leader changes.

I tie 20 mm mono loops to the end of all my #8 weight fly lines.

Connection to the leader is an open loop locked with a blood knot.

For thicker line to line connections I use back to back uni knots but for thin lines such as for my dropper I use the surgeons knot.

The butt section of my leader is made up of one 60cm lengths of Maxima Ultragreen monofilament line. I use 25lb for my #8 weight outfit and 35lb for my #10 weight outfits. In either case the butt section is connected the loop on the end of the fly line with an open loop closed with a blood knot. I use this butt section set up for two reasons. First because the heavier butt section in the leader makes a better connection to the small loop at the end of my fly line than relatively thin tippet material and secondly because the slightly heavier butt section definitely helps turn my team of flies.

To that butt section I add 1.8 meters of my selected tippet material. My advice is, within reason, to stick with tippet that is as thick as you can get away with on the day. Bass, all of the Perch family, Jacks, Cod and other toothy critters that you encounter all seem to have the same penchant of retreating to cover once hooked and you can need every ounce of stopping power you can muster. At the other end of the spectrum don't go overboard with tippet weight ... it should still be the weak point in your set up. If it's not you run the risk of breaking a fly line or even a rod. I generally use 15lb Maxima Ultragreen monofilament or 18lb Riverge Grand Max for my #8 weight outfits and step up to 25lb when fishing #10 weight. When joining heavier tippet material like this I use two back to back uni knots. Tie the uni knots carefully and even if they are between two tippet materials of different thickness or between mono and fluorocarbon they wont fail. That's the leader complete if your fishing one fly either on the surface or deeper.

Some of the time and particularly for Bass or Redfin I fish two wets on this leader but it is equally at home with two dries or a wet under a dry. For the dropper for that second fly I use the same tippet material tied in with a surgeons knot, with the bottom 20cm tag end as the dropper tied in 1.2 meters from the point fly. When extended this leaves me initially with 1.0 meter between my two flies which I recon is just about ideal. As you fish and change flies you will gradually close the gap between your two flies, so I keep and eye on that, and generally tie a new tippet section onto the butt section as my confidence in the gap or length of leader overall wains. Too much closer than one meter I believe that the flies spook fish but too much further than 1 meter apart then the team of flies become harder to cast and when you do go to land a fish the bob fly (i.e the top fly of a two or three fly rig) is precariously close, or hooks up to, the top runner.

I suggest you experiment and come up with a leader compromise that suites your casting ability and style and of course the weather conditions. With this type of leader set up you can pull your point fly up close to the rod tip and swap lines via the loop to "locked loop" connection which at that stage will be half way down the rod. I am a strong advocate of using a lefty's loop knot to connect my flies (even dries) because that knot allows the fly to swing or swim freely and because it's dam strong when tied carefully.

Fly suggestions

Because of the dominance of yabbies in Lake Burrendong if your fishing for Yellowbelly, Silver Perch and Redfin it's hard to go past a woolly bugger or two for general prospecting. Brown, black and olive all work well but its always worth trying other colour variations. Orange is a great attractor colour for your second fly as is an olive MKII woolly bugger. A third fly that works well on Freshwater native fish and Redfin is a booby. These are very diverse flies and can be fished on the surface as a dry, can be stripped through the surface film as a cicada or of course can be fished on a full sink line as a yabby, small fish or just as a lure.

Dry flies

If there is a secret to fishing dry flies to freshwater Australian native species such as Yellowbelly or Silver Perch or introduces species such as Redfin, it has got to be putting your fly in the zone and keeping it there for as long as you can. With dry flies that is fairly easy. Cast it right into the sight path of cruising fish, into likely snags or above the margins of the weed beds and hold it there without drag for as long as you can. If nothing happens then just give the fly a little wiggle so that it creates rings on the surface of the water and wait again. Repeat this process a few times until your satisfied that the cruising or prospected fish your targeting has either not seen or has rejected your offering or structure you are covering is not interested in your offerings. If fishing static does not work than a great alternative is to position yourself so that you can fish along the structure and then strip the dry flies in using a variety of speeds twitches and pauses. I like to fish single flies mainly on size 1 hooks when targeting surface feeders and can recommend:

Wet point flies

For wet flies it is best to either find the fish on a sounder or have an educated guess where the fish are and then to dredge the fly through that zone at various speeds – locking into the speed and depth that works. In my experience if your not hooking up to structure occasionally your not in the hunt. I like to fish a team of two flies in deeper or less structured water but drop down to just one fly when fishing into into heavier structure or over shallow ground and can recommend the following flies as good point fly options

Wet dropper flies

When I am fishing a team of two flies these are flies I generally select from for my dropper which is generally around 25cm long and 1.2 meters above the point fly.

Other flies that work well include those flies in my Bass and Native Species fly box.

Hot spots

To the outsider the dam is a very daunting body of water for as you top the rise after entering the main entrance the main basin appears and stretches for miles into the distance leaving you scratching your head as to where to start in this intimidating place.
The same rule of thumb can be used in nearly all dams and lakes when chasing natives on artificial and natural baits, just look at your sounder if you have one and concentrate your efforts in water between six and thirty feet looking changes in water depth and old creek beds as well working your fly or team of flies over pronounced points at different depths and speeds.

The dam is a great draw card for the area with fisherman travelling from near and far to try their luck chasing some of the stocked native species such as golden and silver perch, catfish and the green legend Murray cod.
There is also an under rated eating pest fish the redfin that is a welcome by-catch to many anglers and the European carp has been targeted on light tackle and fly by some die hard sport fishos, I call them “The poor man's southern barra” as they can be sight fished in the shallow bays and go like the clappers when hooked and are willing to slug it out longer than most of the other fish caught in the dam.
To the outsider the dam is a very daunting body of water for as you top the rise after entering the main entrance the main basin appears and stretches for miles into the distance leaving you scratching your head as to where to start in this intimidating place.
The same rule of thumb can be used in nearly all dams and lakes when chasing natives on artificial and natural baits, just look at your sounder if you have one and concentrate your efforts in water between six and thirty feet looking for drop offs and old creek beds as well as trolling your lures over pronounced points at different depths and speeds.

• Aspects of Lake Craft

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