Looking back at my personal records for the year, 1999 was a good season on terms of numbers of fish and their overall condition with a good number of "residents" persisting from the previous year. Lines, flies and tactics were varied throughout the season and the only really noteworthy points were that the fish remained over deep water throughout and we did most of our fishing at the Top End (probably due to water levels staying high throughout the year).

Food species were limited to bloodworm/buzzer (the local species of chironomid midge), snail, perch fry and the inevitable daphnia (coloured both orange and green depending on which part of the lake they were found). Corixa featured for a limited period towards the back-end with appearances in May and June from the odd damsel/dragonfly nymph and freshwater mussel larvae.

Stocking levels were high during the year - at the peak of the season the fisheries team were putting some 1,600 fish a week into the lake. This, coupled with high back-end water levels (which reduced the normal back-end bonanza for the bank rods) has resulted in a large number of fish remaining in the lake to overwinter.