Lake Eppalock

Things to do at Lake Eppalock

Lake Eppalock is a nice spot for the family. The Lake Eppalock holiday park is right on the lake and has a swimming pool, jumping pillow and playground to entertain the kids. Plenty of fishing spots with surrounding BBQ facilities and active birdlife also exist. There are also nearby caravan parks, boat ramps and toilet facilities. This is also a good location for camping. Nearby attractions include Redesdale Bridge, Mount Ida lookout, Turpins Falls and the Cascades. Lake Eppalock is a 30-minute drive from Bendigo and a 20-minute drive from Heathcote. Both are vibrant townships with plenty of shops, cafes, and restaurants. You’re also quite close to the Heathcote wine country. With multiple vineyards, you can stop in to do some wine tasting.

Watch Al from FishingMad fish at Lake Eppalock, and walking you through gear and techniques.

Fishing Lake Eppalock

At Lake Eppalock, you can target

• Golden perch ( yellowbelly )
• Murray cod
• English Perch ( redfin )
• Brown trout
• Carp

Fishing has changed a lot at Lake Eppalock in recent years. It used to be the go-to spot for masses of redfin and carp. Thanks to a great stocking program by the VFA over an extended period, it’s now thriving as a premier native fishery, with large yellowbelly and Murray cod common catches. Yellowbelly can reach up to 65cm, while Murray Cod can exceed a meter. Access to the lake is excellent for boats, with multiple boat ramps scattered around the Lake. It’s a prime location to fish with a kayak or small boat and has plenty of productive areas for land-based anglers. This is quite a shallow system, so keep an active eye on your sounder as you move around on your boat, as shallow areas can sneak up on you. Lake Eppalock offers excellent year-round fishing with redfin, golden perch ( yellowbelly ), trout, carp and Murray Cod. Redfin and carp are present in large numbers when water conditions are right. Regular fishing competitions are held here, so do keep an eye out for those. The fishing is generally excellent, although most redfin caught are pretty small. Also, blue-green algae are a problem in this system sometimes, so check blue-green algae alerts before taking fish home to eat.

When fishing here, concentrate your time and effort casting lures towards and suspending baits hard up against the visible structure and depth changes. Many of the largest fish are often caught amongst the timber. The trick is to present a lure or bait and tempt the bigger ones out of their structure for a reaction strike. You can catch redfin and carp in prolific numbers in warmer months. Cod and yellowbelly are the prized catches here, and although they are not as common as the other species, they can be caught. Concentrating your time on the visible structure, such as the submerged tree branches, is an excellent strategy for catching a few decent fish. If fishing from a boat, a great advantage is having an electric motor out the front with spot lock capability so you can work the trees out of the water heavily. I prefer vertically jigging soft plastics and vibes here.

Fishing for land-based anglers is also excellent. There are many spots around the lake where you can pull up a chair and rod holders. Some good options include near the caravan park, Mangan’s Lane, Bo Bay, and the Kirrang Point swimming area. You will be kept busy with the large number of carp around the shallows. On a particular occasion, we caught 50 carp, which was lots of fun. There are also so many areas where you can launch a kayak, and multiple boat ramps are listed below.

Lake Eppalock Boat Ramp

There are five boat ramps located around Lake Eppalock.

• Kimbolton Recreation Area also has BBQ, picnic tables and toilets
• Moorabbee Foreshore Reserve also has BBQ, picnic tables and toilets
• Sunset Drive Boat Ramp
• Kirrang Point Boat Ramp also has toilets
• Point King Bay Boat Ramp

Watch our detailed video guide on our top 10 Redfin lures below

Lake Eppaclock Fishing Gear Selection

Multiple target species are at this location, all requiring quite different setups. And even picking a setup for a specific species here can be tricky. When targeting yellowbelly, a light or medium baitcasting rod should be paired with a 150 baitcast reel, or, as we often prefer, targeting them with a 2-5kg spin rod paired with a 2500-size reel. When targeting redfin and trout, we recommend a 2-4 kg spin rod paired with a 2500 size reel. If bait fishing for multiple species such as carp, yellowbelly, and redfin, a 3-5kg spin rod paired with a 2500 reel would work great

Murray Cod here can grow over a meter. Targeting those giant fish with big lures requires much heavier setups to ensure you can handle the fish’s raw size and power and not break your rod tip when casting heavy lures. Cod lures can weigh anything from 20 grams to 200 grams. Generally, when targeting cod, ideally, a heavy baitcast combo around 6″6 in length and 8-15kg in class paired with a 150/200 baitcast reel spooled with 50lb braid. You can go a bit heavier here if you’re targeting huge fish with large lures or smaller if you’re casting smaller lures for smaller cod.

Recommended fishing lures for Lake Eppalock

• Gulp 3-inch minnow
• Small curtail and paddletail soft plastics
• stump jumpers
• Jackall TN50
• Soft Vibes and Blades
• Storm Gomoku 40mm surface popper
• Zerek fish trap
• Jackall transams
• Samaki vibelicious
• eco gear ZX40

Recommended baits at Lake Eppalock

At this location, we highly recommend the baits suggested below. There are several ways to present baits, including a running sinker rig, a paternoster rig, or a dropper rig. The rig and sinker choice will depend on the species you are targeting and the conditions, such as wind and tidal strength.

Targeting Yellowbelly at Lake Eppalock

Yellow belly, AKA Golden Perch, is a beautiful freshwater fish in this system. With a rich food source, they can grow to thick and plump sizes. Good lure choices include curl tail soft plastics; the Gulp 3-inch grub minnow in black is a standout choice. Soft vibes like the Zerek fish trap, and Samaki vibelicious are great options. Lip-less crank-baits, such as Jackall TN50 and TN60, remain very popular, as do blades like the eco gear ZX40 with stinger hooks. Other favourites are the reliable stump jumpers and spinnerbaits. Soft plastics work best on a 1/8 or 1/4 jig head vertically jigged along structure. This technique works particularly well when using spotlock or tying your boat or kayak up against trees. Slowly work the soft plastic against the tree and add some noise to the action by tapping the butt of your rod or by hitting the jig head into the timber. This brings out the predatory nature of the yellowbelly. Take advantage of Livescope, down scan and side scan technologies on your sounder and spend some time moving between the structure to find the fish. Other lures will also work well in open water, being slow-rolled or trolled. Typically, we use a light to medium spin rod around 7 feet in length, 2-4 or 3-5 kilo class, paired with a 2000 or 2500 size reel and spooled with 8-12-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. Baitcaster rods and reels are a very popular choice when targeting yellowbelly. Good options include a 3-5 or 4-6 baitcaster with a 2000 baitcaster reel. When bait fishing, a 7-foot light rod paired with a 3000-size reel is used. Good bait rigs include a paternoster rig with a small sinker at the bottom or a running sinker rig with scrub worms or yabbies.

 Targeting Redfin at Lake Eppalock

We recommend targeting Redfin with a light spin outfit. This will make the experience more enjoyable and improve your catch rates. A 2-4 kilo fishing rod coupled with a 2000 or 2500 reel spooled with 4-8-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader should be perfect. Redfin responds well to lures and soft plastics, so check our guide on the best lures for catching Redfin. When using soft plastics, we highly recommend curl tails, minnow imitations, and paddle tails in natural and bright colours. Rigged with a jig head that’s 1/8 through to 1/20 in weight. The most effective way to use these is to cast towards visible structure and slow roll the soft plastic with lifts and pauses for the retrieve. Shallow diving hard body lures, blades and vibes are also very effective in this system. So are traditional spinners and Tassie devils in bright colours. Metal spoons also play a role in allowing you to cast great distances and target the bigger reddies. Just remember, they are pretty heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.

Targeting Trout at Lake Eppalock

We highly recommend you read our detailed guide on how to catch trout, which details our favourite lures, baits and techniques. You can follow when trout will be stocked using the Victorian trout stocking programs as part of the target 1 million by 2020 and 10 million by 2022 initiatives. We recommend shallow diving hard body minnows, metal spoons, spinners, and Tassie devils when using lures. Soft plastics are also very effective on trout. If you’re bait fishing, then Mudeye, scrub worms, powerbait, yabbies, and minnows suspended on a float or a running sinker rig. Fly fishing is a popular fishing method at this location. Trout are more active in cold conditions, with most catches on the first and last light of the day. We recommend a 2-4 kilo fishing rod, coupled with a 2000 or 2500 reel, spooled with 4-8-pound braid and an equivalent fluorocarbon leader. If trophy-size trout are around, you could go heavier, moving up the scale to a 3-5 kilo class spin rod spooled with fine 8-12-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader.

Lake Eppalock Carp Fishing

We highly recommend you read our detailed guide on how to catch carp fishing around Victoria. Carp will actively take simple baits like worms, corn, bread, and maggots on a running sinker rig with a small sinker. Suspending baits from a float also works well, as do unweighted baits. You can target carp with hard-body lures and soft plastics; however, this is a complex technique that generally requires sight casting a nearby carp, casting towards them and working the lure of plastic slowly, hoping they will strike. It’s challenging but rewarding when you catch a carp using this method. Most anglers, however, will stick to targeting them with bait.

A 2-5 kilo rod coupled with a 3000 size reel is very suitable. You could even fish a little heavier if the system is known to hold huge ones up to a meter. I have caught some monster-size carp using a 2-4 kilo rod and 6-pound braid for fun. But I am prepared to lose some good fish in the process. We like to target carp at sundown, particularly in the warmer months. This is often when you see carp swimming along the edges or jumping out of the water around September-November, which is their spawning season. European carp must not be returned to the water. A simple yet effective fishing rig involves threading a small running sinker through the mainline, typically around 8 pounds, as shown in blue. Then, tie a medium swivel to the end, allowing the sinker to run up the mainline freely. Then, tie on the other end of the swivel 50cm of 8-pound fluorocarbon leader (the leader is shown in grey ). Finished with a hook. I generally use a size six bait keeper hook or a size 10 long shank, which is perfect for corn kernels or scrub worms; however, you can also use small treble style hooks, which is a better setup if you use bread.

If you’re getting snagged, you can also use a float rig. Attach a quill or bubble float to your mainline. Thread the line through and adjust the length using a size 6 bait keeper hook or size 10 long shank to keep your bait suspended at a good depth. Ideally, cast down the breeze, stopping the float from returning to you. If you’re not getting bites, adjust the line depth and, if necessary, add a splint shot to add weight.