While the coming spring's increasing warmth will lift trout activity, many anglers are already pleased with their catches, most browns and many rainbows in good condition.
Curries River Dam continues to reward, with several fly-fishers using wet flies happy with hefty browns and rainbows caught while feeding on nymphs.
Another angler afloat recently on Four Springs Lake found little early action but was kept busy from mid-morning on.
Casting a small hard-bodied lure basically coloured black and orange from a drifting dinghy, he boated five hefty brownies to nearly two kilograms.
The Inland Fisheries Service recommends Lake Echo. All boat ramps are now usable with good fishing reported along the deeper western shore among the dead trees with more action likely in spring as this lake fills.
Echo's power station is closing for renovation, and with water there rising for months, levels already equal those of last November.
As water rises to around four metres below Full Supply Level, tailers can be expected along shallow edges of places like Brocks and Teal Bays and Surveyors Marshes.
Northern rivers are still flowing high and many stillwaters are already full and spilling, including Lake Augusta and all North Western and Lower Derwent Valley lakes.
Meanwhile, bluefin tuna continue to come aboard from brine down east off St Helens and Eaglehawk Neck.
LAKE WATER LEVELS
Arthurs Lake 1.95 (metres from full)
Great Lake 12.09
Lake Echo 6.25
Bradys Lake 0.13
Bronte Lagoon 0.33
Little Pine Lagoon - Spilling
Laughing Jack Lagoon 3.31
Lake St Clair 1.05
Lake King William 4.56
Lake Meadowbank - Spilling
Lake Pedder 0.73
Lake Gordon 24.24
Lake Burbury - Spilling
Lake Plimsoll 0.51
Lake Murchison - Spilling
Lake Mackintosh - Spilling
Lake Rosebery - Spilling
Lake Pieman Spilling
Lake Mackenzie - Spilling
Lake Rowallan - Spilling
Penstock Lagoon - Spilling
Woods Lake 1.00
Lakes Parangana, Cethana, Barrington, Gairdner and Paloona - all spilling
