Welcome to the Lake Nhill Fishing Guide. This man-made lake was made in the 1960s not far from surrounding towns Dimboola and Kaniva within the Hindmarsh shire. It’s a great spot for fishing with trout and redfin the targeted species. There are BBQ facilities, bird watching and popular with skiing and swimming. A popular spot with power skis so make sure you keep your distance from powered boats and vehicles. In 2020 the lake was temporarily closed due to an outbreak of sick and dying birds around the lake. It is suspected this was caused due to poisoning which was investigated by local authorities. The lake was also temporarily closed due to an outbreak of blue-green algae. The lake has since reopened. In October 2018 a floating fishing pontoon was installed by the VFA providing an excellent location for some land base fishing.
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Targeting Trout at Lake Nhill
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 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. When using lures, we would recommend shallow diving hard body minnows, metal spoons, spinners, and Tassie devils. Soft plastics are also very effective on trout. If your bait fishing, then Mudeye, scrub worms, power bait, yabbies and minnows suspended on a float or a running sinker rig is a great choice when targeting trout here. 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 targeting trout we recommend 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. If there are trophy size trout around then 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.
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.
Targeting Redfin at Lake Nhill
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 targeting the bigger size reddies. Just remember they are quite heavy and very prone to snags in small inland systems like this one.
Trout and Redfin are notorious for feeding more heavily at Dawn and Dusk. My personal favourite is fishing the sundown.
Images of fish supplied VFA and DEPI. All images and videos shown on the Lake Nhill Fishing Guide are Fishing Mad originals.
Thank you for visiting the Lake Nhill 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