Episode 37: Lake Windamere Yellowbelly With Diamond Dave Welfare

Dave’s Top Tips For Yellowbelly Fishing In Windamere

• Yellas have amazing situational awareness and know when a lure is in their area, but you’ll often need to fish very slowly to tempt them.
• If there are fish showing on the sounder you can be confident they’re catchable but you may need to experiment with lures and techniques until you start catching them
• Yellowbelly are a schooling fish and it’s normal once you’ve caught one to catch a whole lot more, so stay on the spot and keep working it.
• The days of meat fishing are over and the days of sport fishing are in full swing, so fish light to get the bite. Yellowbelly are a lot of fun and you’ll actually catch more fish by going a little lighter.
• Use your sounder to find the fish (side imaging is a massive advantage), starting in depths of 15-25 feet adjacent to a rocky bank or the edges of weedbeds. Look for places where there are plenty of white “rice dots” showing, don’t fish where you don’t see fish on the sounder.
• There are land based options for yellowbelly fishing in Lake Windamere. Rocky shorelines are accessible from the road and offer good fishing using blades. Google Earth is a great help for finding access points.
• Windamere can be fished for yellowbelly all year round, but October is when the fish really start to fire up.
• If you miss a bite, keep the lure in the water and keep working it, no matter whether it’s 40m or 4m from the boat. Often the fish will take the lure a second time, or one of its school mates will.

Dave’s Preferred Yellowbelly Fishing Tackle

• Dave uses and recommends custom rods from Steve Duff and prefers rods around the 7 foot length.
• His lighter outfit is a 1-4 kg rod with a 2004 size Daiwa shallow spool spinning reel loaded with 3kg braided line and a 2-3kg leader.
• His heavier outfit is used for throwing heavier lures and includes a 2-5kg rod, 2508 Daiwa reel and 4kg Unitika braided line with a 4kg leader.

Dave’s Best Yellowbelly Lures For Windamere

• Ecogear ZX40 in dark knight colour is a regular Yellowbelly tournament winner. Work the lure around the edges or weed beds and rocky structure where fish are showing on the sounder.
• Jackall Transam and Jackall Mask soft vibes are very effective worked on the heavier rod and reel combo. Be sure to work slowly, with plenty of pauses to allow the lures to drop as most fish take the lure as it is falling.
• Berkley Gulp Grubs are effective fished vertically around submerged trees. Simply drop the lure to the bottom on a black Berkley Dam Deep jig head and slowly roll them back up to the surface alongside the structure.