As for at least half the country, the last couple of months at Millbrook have been interrupted by Covid restrictions of varying severity. The upside?
Mark and Kiel have had time away from guiding to do some amazing work with the accommodation. The main cabin now has a new kitchen equipped with an oven and four burner cooktop.
 
The other upside is that trout and nature don't really understand lockdowns, and go about their business in blissful ignorance. With every lake full, it's all been happening. Midging trout of course, but also tailers and some fantastic polaroiding. In the district as a whole, the mythical cockchafer beetles https://flystream.com/cockchafer-time/ have appeared in the last week, providing champagne dry fly fishing. It seems downright sinful to be using size 10 dry flies at the end of winter! If only we had a few more guests to share the experience...
 
We have managed some guiding in the brief periods when eased restrictions have allowed, and we're looking ahead with everything crossed for more. The last couple of days have offered our first sniff of genuine spring warmth, with damsels and even dragonflies on the wing. Although it's something of an illusion and wintery weather is about to return, the fight between warm and cold will gradually be won as the days lengthen, and it shouldn't be too many more weeks before the first proper mayfly hatches. Hope we'll see at least some of our guests in time for those.    

June up here is always cold, sometimes wet, and occasionally windy. It’s the last feature though for which June 2021 will be remembered. On the 9th and 10th, an unusually deep low pressure brought destructive winds to many elevated parts of Victoria, and the Millbrook area wasn’t spared. The old timers say it was the worst wind they’ve experienced. Trees blocked roads and tracks for days, but fortunately, our cabin and homes were spared. And with more rain at the same time, the lakes just kept filling – with most now spilling.
 
The fishing has mainly been about polaroiding the edges for finicky fish; tailers (though these are patchy so far), and increasing midge action. As all the flooded vegetation starts to rot, the resulting midge food should see their numbers boom further – fingers crossed!
 
Meanwhile, our stocking for 2021 has commenced, and after their success since our first stocking last year, quite a few tiger trout have gone in this month. Hope we’ll be seeing them as big, pretty catches this time next year.         

Fishing is rarely predictable, and the last part of this autumn has proved the point. Following a deluge at the start of May, the month moved into a period of mild, settled weather. There were even trout caught on mudeye patterns! Then the weather flipped again, and suddenly we were back to rugging up in full foul weather gear. Fortunately however, midge don’t care about cold, and they’ve been out in droves, providing reliable evening action, and sometimes, A-grade daytime action too. The photos below include Cam with a matching pair of male and female monsters, both caught on Milly Midge during a massive early afternoon hatch.       
 
But what was that about unpredictability? The midge are pouring off on a couple of lakes where they’re normally not a feature, yet they’re sparse (so far) on a couple of lakes where we’d expect a lot more by now. And although the May fishing has been mostly consistent, there was a run of a few days in the back half of the month when it was tough. The guests were still catching fish, but it took more effort than usual. Then just like that, the trout are back again, in the usual cusp-of-winter spots, and behaving pretty much as we would expect them to.
 
In the background to all this, May rainfall has been well above average; temps for the month as a whole have evened out to bang on average – warmer at the start and colder at the end. The springs are all flowing now and the lakes are rising. Winter is looking promising.     

Was last weekend the turning point towards winter? For the first week or so of April, we fished in T-shirts and soaked up the sun. Then, last Saturday, flakes of wet snow drifted down in the rain. That might be it for T-shirts, but what about the fishing? Well, it’s still great. The duns have continued, and the trout have shown no signs of losing weight! Smelters have begun to show on some lakes. Midges have been patchy, though that may quickly change with the onset of cooler weather. Meanwhile, lake levels are fairly stable, and the water is clear on most, if not crystal clear. All up, a pretty good time to be on the water.    

Autumn is well and truly here at Millbrook. Whatever summer we had is gone, replaced by those beautiful settled days which start off cool to cold, then end up warm by mid-afternoon. Or, there’s rain – quite a bit of it – which is unusual for March. Either way, the fishing has been really good.
 
Two things are standing out this autumn: amazing dun hatches (more like the best spring hatches), and the size and condition of the trout. I know that sounds like ‘guide talk’ but it seems the cool summer and good lake levels, have kept the trout growing and thriving through summer; whereas in a hot summer, they can seem to hibernate. So, the word for autumn 2021 is ‘bust-offs’. Despite employing everything from 12lb tippet, to pre-fish trout-landing courses, to deliberately avoiding big fish lakes (not easy!) the carnage has been terrible. On occasion, the bust-off count has reached 8 or 10 fish a day, and Philip has just had his first ‘bust-off free’ guiding day since the start of autumn. Anyone know where we can buy some trout growth suppressant?
(PS: As the pics show, the women have been killing it!)   

In case you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from us much over the last couple of months, Millbrook goes into a sort of hibernation in reverse from about Christmas until the end of February. Typically, this period of high summer is often too warm for good fishing on our lakes: we’d rather not guide at all, than have a guest book a day that turns out to be too hot for decent lake fishing.
 
But then, with trout and nature being what they are, we’ve actually had an unusually cool and (until recently) wet summer, so in turn, the trout have been unusually active. This means the odd random guiding day, booked at close range, has been successful.
 
More importantly, the lack of heat and good lake levels will see us start the ‘proper’ guiding season in great shape. As we get back into full operation next week, not only do we have a range of waters in prime condition, but it looks like the trout have grown better than they normally would over summer. Without the stresses of heat and low water to inhibit growth rates, we’re noticing many pre-summer ‘stockies’ are now approaching a kilo. As for the bigger fish, anything seems possible. For the next few months, small trout may be hard to find at Millbrook!  

In many ways, not much has changed since our last report. Right through November, and (unusually) even into early December, the duns and spinner falls been as substantial as ever, although the timing of both hatches and falls became more erratic later in the month. What is new, is an increase in warm days, and a resulting bump up in the number of terrestrials like beetles and termites. With the odd warmer evening, mudeyes have also started moving on dark, providing some explosive moments!
 
Meanwhile, trout condition is just amazing. Evidently, the fish have benefitted from the now months-long trifecta of high lake levels, good water quality, and an abundance of food. Even many of the browns now resemble spotted footballs. (Turns out 2020 has been good for something after all!)
 
The final highlight of the last several weeks has been welcoming back our Melbourne friends, and even a few of our interstate guests. These recent words from Melbourne regular Janet, back for her first trip in 8 months, sum up what makes it all worthwhile for us:
“The sight fishing was amazing and the size and numbers of fish caught also very impressive. I love to fish with a dry fly. Following a challenging year of lockdown and uncertainty, this new freedom allowed me to look at Millbrook with new eyes. I was mesmerised by natures beauty; the surroundings were exquisite.” Thanks Janet!

​Late October and early November have continued where early October left off. There’s been plenty more rain, the lakes are brimming and the trout are happy… well, at least they seem to be happy! The bug blitz has continued, with dun hatches and spinner falls the best in years, and the evening midge hatches have been huge. At some point, these events must begin to fade somewhat, but it hasn’t happened yet. Not so terrestrials, damsels and dragonflies which love the warm weather: these will feature indefinitely.
 
Did someone ask about the weather? Well, fair enough: despite the odd shirtsleeves day, it has been colder and wetter than normal. But time after time, days when the forecast had guests anxious, turned out to be rippers for the actual fishing.
 
Finally, with a bit of luck, we’re on the cusp of welcoming back our Melbourne friends. It’s been too long and, whether at Millbrook or anywhere else, we sincerely wish you great fishing – you deserve it!  

​At last! Millbrook is almost back to normal… well, COVID-normal. Thanks to incredible support from our regional Victorian guests, it’s been pretty busy here since we went to Stage 3 in late September. Fortunately, the trout are blissfully unaware of the pandemic and the fishing has been fantastic. Our love/hate relationship with mayfly is mostly love right now, with exceptional dun hatches and spinner falls which commenced significantly earlier (late September) than usual, and have been going strong ever since.
 
Meanwhile, with all lakes full, the flooded vegetation has continued the midge boom; some evenings to a silly extent. Be careful what you wish for though: Philip reports that on Wednesday evening just gone, the midges were so thick, there were at least a dozen big trout going flat out in a corner the size of a living room. Talk about a snowflake in a blizzard – it took guest Will countless casts to finally draw his fly right past a riser’s nose at the right instant. (At least it was a 5 pound brown!)
 
So the fishing has had the decency to perform at, or better than, the standard during lockdown. Now we just need to be able to share that with our Melbourne, Sydney and SA friends again…    

​Well, it’s spring – and mostly, it feels like it. The average temperature has definitely lifted in the last week or so, the days are noticeably longer, and bugs and trout alike are more active than they’ve been in months. Polaroiding, tailers and midge feeders have been the main game lately, and excepting a couple of days of gales, the fishing has been great. Of course, the problem is (as for much of this weird year) pretty much only us guides have been able to enjoy it!  
 
Anyway, we suppose it’s better for morale to have good fishing than bad, and is that a peek of guiding light we see up ahead? The next couple of weeks will tell. Meanwhile, happy fishing to those who can wherever you are, and to those who can’t yet, we’re really looking forward to showing you around soon.