Welcome to the Allans Flat Waterhole Fishing Guide. Allans Flat Reserve also known as Yackandandah Lake Picnic Reserve is a 10-minute drive from the township of Yackandandah, heading northeast on the Yackandandah-Wodonga Road. It’s 20 kilometers south of the more known township of Wodonga. The turn-off is easy to miss so keep an eye out for the unmade road that is the entrance to the Reserve. The lake was created during the gold rush days for mining today it’s a popular swimming, picnic, and fishing location. This Family Fishing Lake and stocked regularly with rainbow trout and native fish species by the VFA it’s also home to a healthy population of turtles, eels, and local birdlife.
Things to do at Allans Flat Waterhole
It’s a simple yet lovely spot to take the family for a picnic, walk, swim, or fish.
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Fishing at Allans Flat Waterhole
At Allans Flat Waterhole, you can catch ( see how to target each species below )
- Rainbow Trout
- Yellowbelly
- Redfin
- Silver Perch
- Carp
- Eels
A small family fishing lake that has been heavily stocked in recent years with rainbow trout, yellowbelly, and silver perch. All this is part of the VFA target of 1 million by 2020 and a target of 10 million in 2022 initiatives to improve fishing opportunities around Victoria. Simple fishing methods are very effective in this family fishing lake. Either using simple baits such as worms, corn, and maggots of a basic running sinker rig or float. Or working lightly weighted soft plastics, hard body lures, and spinners.
The lake is open and the water clarity is generally clean but can dirty up after days of heavy rain and wind. Certain areas of this reservoir are quite shallow and weedy. You will catch plenty of small redfin in the shallows, particularly on small soft plastics and lures and the odd large carp or trout. Many of the fish caught here are of a smaller size and it may take some time for recent fish stocking to flourish. Allan’s flat fishes well seasonally with redfin active in the warmer months and trout active in the cooler months. Most freshwater species have a tendency to feed more aggressively at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing sundown, particularly in the warmer months for redfin. In the colder months, you are likely to see trout surfacing in the early mornings.
This is a great location for lures and soft plastics. Check out our guide on the best lures to catch Redfin. There are 2 effective retrieval methods the slow roll and the hopping/twitching techniques. The slow roll requires you to cast your lure or plastic and do a slow continuous roll of the reel. The natural built-in action of the lure or soft plastic will create the necessary swimming action. Alternatively, you can use the hopping/twitching technique which requires you to add subtle lifts, twitches, and pauses to imitate a wounded bait fish. Both techniques work well here across a variety of soft plastics and lures. Long casting spoons and spinners weighing between 5 and 12 grams are great for land-based anglers. They allow you to cast a long way covering much ground whilst being able to target both trout and redfin at the same time. Work them back at a medium to slow pace slow roll and the flash colours and darting action will attract fish. You often see trout surfacing in the early mornings and evenings eating insects off the surface so insect imitations are also good options.
Watch our detailed video guide on our top 10 redfin lures and soft plastics
If you plan to fish with bait from the bank good options include scrub worms, maggots, or yabbies on a light running sinker rig or paternoster rig. You can adjust the sinker size to get the desired casting distance. Other good options include power bait in bright colours, minnows and mudeye suspended from a float. Ideally fishing with the wind at your back to prevent the float from coming back to you. We have seen many trout and perch caught using these bait and methods.
When targeting freshwater species such as trout and redfin we recommend fishing with a light spinning outfit. This will make the experience more enjoyable and improve your catch rates. We suggest a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo fishing rod, coupled with a 2000, 2500, or 3000 size reel. Spooled with a decent quality braid between 4-8 pounds and finished with one rod length of a fluorocarbon leader. If you plan on targeting carp from the banks then we would recommend using corn kernels, worms or bread as good bait options. Either on a basic running sinker rig or suspended from a float. It would also be wise to upgrade your fishing outfit to something a little heavier. Perhaps a 2-5 kilo fishing rod coupled with a 3000 size reel spooled with 8-pound line.
Allans Flat Waterhole Stocking
36,000 fish have been stocked here since 2020. ( Table below provided by VFA “Victorian Fisheries Authority” )
Recommended lures Allans Flat Waterhole
Need some help choosing lures & soft plastics. The video is a detailed guide to get you started.
- Rapala countdown floating minnow
- EcoGear MX48
- YoZuri pins minnow
- Daiwa presso minnows
- Nories laydown minnow
- Bluefox spinners
- OSP bent minnow
- Daiwa DR joint minnows
- Strike tiger nymph
- Daiwa bait junkie 2.5-inch grub
- Daiwa double clutch
- Berkley powerbait grub
- Tasmanian devil blade
- Bullet lures 5-0 minnow
- Tasmanian devil lure
- Zman 2.5-inch grub
- Bullet lures 3cm lure
Recommended baits Allans Flat Waterhole
The video below demonstrates the best baits for trout and how to rig them correctly.
- Mudeye
- Powerbait
- Scrub worms
- maggots
- Earthworms
- yabbies
- live minnows
Targeting Trout at Allans Flat Waterhole
We would highly recommend that you read our detailed guide on how to catch trout which details our favourite lures, baits and techniques. You can follow trout stocking timelines by reading the Victorian trout stocking guide as part of the target 1 million by 2020 and 10 million by 2022 initiatives. When targeting trout with lures we recommend using shallow diving hard body minnows, metal spoons, spinners, Tassie devils and soft plastics which are also very effective on trout. If your bait fishing, then Mudeye, scrub worms, power bait, yabbies and minnows suspended from a float or a running sinker rig are great options when targeting trout at this location. Trout are more active in cold conditions with most catches on the first and last light of the day.
We recommend targeting trout with a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo fishing rod coupled with 1000, 2000, or 2500 reel spooled with a 4-8-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader. If there are larger trophy-size trout around then you can go heavier moving up the scale to a 3-5 kilo class spin rod spooled with a fine 8-12-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader.
Targeting Yellowbelly at Allans Flat Waterhole
Yellow belly AKA Golden Perch is a beautiful freshwater fish found in this system. With a rich food source available the yellowbelly here grow too thick and plump sizes. Good lure choices include curl tail soft plastics with the zman 2.5-inch grubz and Gulp 3-inch grub minnow both in black are standout choices. Soft vibes such as the Zerek fish trap, Jackall transams, and Samaki vibelicious are great options. lip-less crank-baits such as Jackall TN50 and TN60 continue to be very popular as do blades such as the eco gear ZX40 with stinger hooks. Other favourites are the reliable stump jumpers, spinnerbaits, bassman spinners, and large grub style soft plastics in dark colours.
Soft plastics are worked best on a 1/8 or 1/4 jig head slow-rolled along with any structure. This works particularly well when tying your boat or kayak up against trees and working the soft plastic slowly up against the tree and adding 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 down scan and side scan technologies on your sounder and spend some time moving between the structure to find the fish. Other lures can be worked amongst the timber but in general work really well in open water being slow-rolled or trolled. When it comes to rod selection we generally use a light spin rod around 7 foot in length in 1-4, 2-4 or 3-5 kilo class paired with a 1000, 2000 or 2500 size reel. 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 bait caster with a 2000 bait caster reel. When bait fishing a 7 foot light rod paired with a 3000 size reel. Good bait rigs would include a paternoster rig with a small sinker at the bottom or a running sinker rig with scrub worms or yabbies.
Targeting Redfin at Allans Flat Waterhole
We recommend targeting redfin with a light spin outfit. This will make the experience more enjoyable and improve your catch rates. A 1-3 or 2-4 kilo fishing rod coupled with a 2000, 2500 or 3000 reel spooled with 4-8-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader should be perfect. Redfin responds well to lures and soft plastics, check our guide on the best lures for catching Redfin When using soft plastics, we recommend curl tails, minnow imitations, and paddle tails in both natural and bright colours. Rigged with a jig head that’s 1/6 through to 1/20 in weight. 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 allowing you to cast great distances and targeting the bigger size reddies. Just remember they are quite heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.
Targeting Carp at Allans Flat Waterhole
There is a large volume of carp which can be fun to catch. You can learn more about catching carp by reading our guide to carp fishing around Victoria. Standard baits such as corn, bread, and maggots work great for carp. Use a simple running sinker rig or suspend baits from a float. We have also fished well using unweighted baits. You can also target carp with hard body lures and soft plastics, it’s a difficult technique that requires sight casting. This means spotting a nearby carp and casting right in there and working the lure of plastic slowly hoping they will strike. It’s a challenging yet rewarding technique when you catch a carp using this method. Selecting a 2-4 or 3-5 rod kilo rod coupled with a 3000 or 4000 size reel is suitable. We like to target carp on 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 is to thread a small running sinker through the mainline shown in blue, which is usually around 8 pounds. 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 6 bait keeper hook or 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 getting snagged up then 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 breeze which will stop the float from coming back to you. If you’re not getting bites then adjust the line depth and If necessary add a splint shot to add weight.
No fishing with waders fishing is only permitted from the shore, No boats, No cleaning of fish onsite, and Always carry your Victorian fishing license, Using berley is not permitted, FishingMad encourages ‘catch & release’ of all native species to help maintain the water quality within the lake however European Carp must not be returned.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All images and videos shown on this page are Fishing Mad originals.
Thank you for visiting the Allans Flat Waterhole Fishing Guide. If you feel this location guide is missing key information or needs any corrections made, then please let us know by emailing our team at enquiries@fishingmad.com.au with specific details in the email. Please also feel free to share any fishing pictures you have from this location with us. Thank you