Devilbend Reservoir

Welcome to the Devilbend Reservoir Fishing Guide. Devilbend Reservoir is a terrific fishing destination within the Mornington Peninsula. The lake itself spans over 250 hectares. Recently Parks Victoria funded 1.6 million dollars of upgrades to the facility. The site now has renovated fishing pontoon’s newly established state of the art fishing platforms. The main floating pontoon is extended by an impressive 36 meters to give land-based anglers access to deeper waters and more space.

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Things to do at Devilbend Reservoir

It’s a lovely area, with walking trails, natural fauna, birdlife and picnic grounds. You can enjoy also the surrounding views. It’s a great place for non powered vessels. There is also ample car parking space between sunrise and sundown. It’s also become a popular fishing destination for kayakers. Thirty‐three hectares of Devilbend Reservoir have been zoned for non‐powered watercraft. This includes canoes, kayaks, paddleboards and windsurfers. There are yellow markers and signs to help people identify those zones. There are also two launch areas. The main launch area is near the picnic ground and car park. Fishing by land is only permitted in certain zones, so do make sure to look out for signs that identify these fishing zones. As with all rural areas always be mindful of snakes.

Kayak fishing for redfin.

Fishing Devilbend Reservoir

Devil bend has been heavily stocked with trout since 2010 and estuary perch since 2014. To date, fisheries have released 35,000 trout and 120,000 estuary perch fingerlings. In 2012 they released 125 brown trout with an average size of 1.8 kilos. Making this a great location to target a trophy size trout or perch. With picnic grounds, it’s a great fishing location to take the family.

At Devilbend Reservoir you can target estuary perch, redfin & trout. When bait fishing at Devilbend reservoir a good option is to use live earth or scrub worms on a size 6 or 8 bait keeper hook with a running sinker rig. You can also have success using crickets, power bait, yabbies or mud eyes with a small hook suspended from a float.

Devil Bend Reservoir is a great location for flicking lures. Surface lures such as small bent minnows and poppers are a great option when targeting estuary perch. We also like using spinners and soft plastics in this area which will allow you to target all the species at once. This is a great way by land or kayak of catching a prized redfin or trout. Click here to see our guide on the best lures and soft plastics to use when targeting Redfin.

When targeting freshwater species such as trout, redfin and estuary perch we recommend fishing with a light rod. This will make the experience more enjoyable whilst improving your catch rates. We suggest a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo capacity fishing rod. Coupled with a 2000, 2500 or 3000 size reel. Spooled with braid between 4-8 pound finished with a rod length of a quality fluorocarbon leader.

This is also a terrific spot for the fly fishermen who can drift nymph flies with great success for trout. Any time of day, though some fish will be more active at Dawn and Dusk

Recommended baits Devilbend Reservoir

• Surface Cicadas
• Bluefox spinners
• Daiwa DR joint minnows
• Daiwa Bait Junkie 2.5 inch grub
• Savage Gear minnow blade
• Berkley powerbait grub
• Daiwa Presso minnows
• Tasmanian Devil Blade
• Bullet lures 5-0 minnow
• bent minnows
• Bullet lures 3cm lure
• strike tiger nymph
• Rapala countdown floating minnow
• Daiwa Double Clutch
• Tasmanian Devil lure
• Gulp 3 inch minnow
• Zman 2.5 inch grub
• Dawia Bait Junkie paddle tail minnow
• Savage Gear Fathead crank shallow diving
• Squidges biotough grub

Targeting Estuary Perch at Devilbend Reservoir

Another highlight of fishing in this area is targeting Estuary perch with surface and shallow diving lures. The action can be frantic on warm balmy evenings with low wind. listen for the sound of breaking water which indicates EPs are feeding. The excitement an angler gets from an EP smashing a surface lure on light gear is something that truly needs to be experienced. It almost catches you by surprise when that aggressive strike comes. Small surface poppers, cicadas, blades, surface minnows and pencil lures work well here. So do shallow diving hardbody lures. Noteworthy options include bent minnows, Rapala countdown series, nories laydown minnows and shallow diving cranks. Basically, anything that doesn’t dive too deep and makes a good vibrating action will work well. You can use any colour choice we often start with silvers that mimic small baitfish or mullet.

EPs also respond incredibly well to a whole range of soft plastics lightly weighted. Including curl tails, paddle tails and minnow imitations. The trusty 2.5-inch grubs and minnows are an excellent choice. These imitate small baitfish that the EPs are actively feeding on. We would recommend mixing up the retrieval speeds and pauses and playing around with different colours. Where possible fish along the structure and stay alert for signs such as breaking water. Fishing for Estuary Perch requires finesse. We recommend an ultralight fishing combo consisting of a 1-3 or 2-4 kilo spin rod around 7 foot in length. Coupled with a 1000 or 2000 size reel spooled with 2-8 pound line and equivalent fluorocarbon leader. When bait fishing uses a 2-4 kilo rod around 7 foot in length. Coupled with a 2500 size reel either a float or small running sinker to a swivel and very fine leader.

Targeting Redfin at Devilbend Reservoir

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 respond really well to lures and soft plastics so do 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 both 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 allowing you to cast great distances and target the bigger size reddies. Just remember they are quite heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.

Targeting Trout at Devilbend Reservoir

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 a 1000, 2000, or 2500 reel spooled with 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 fine 8-12-pound braid and equivalent fluorocarbon leader.

We conducted a test to see which would perform better for stocked trout powerbait or lures. Watch the video below to find out the results which were interesting.

Map provided by Parks Victoria. Header image supplied by Allhiking.com All other images and videos are shown on the Devilbend Reservoir Fishing Guide is Fishing Mad originals.

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