Fishing for Rainforest Bass

Hello,
I met up with a fellow yakker named Dan (he writes for Fishing World as the Kayak guru) in his secret spot in the Nightcap Ranges. At first glance I honestly felt sceptical, as the creek was dominated by rocks and shallow riffle, but that changed as we walked upstream and pool after pool opened up, some which I estimate up to 3m deep and 8m wide.

The first pool I was using a Predatek Spaddler and Dan an Ecogear SX40, he received a few solid strikes and eventually hooked up to a feisty bass of around 24cm. This made me change to an Atomic Hardz minnow in Ghost, the only lure I used from then on.

As we travelled upstream we each got some savage strikes, most failing to hook up but we ended up landing fish for fish.

Moving upstream in a creek sidelined by rainforest meant that we had to wade in some deep water, we both fell over a few times, a bit of trouble for Dan who was wearing waders! :) But I had even more trouble keeping my balance, so I ended up in the water a few times. Luckily I had my personals in a drybag (I inlfate them to provide flotation so I can 'float-pack' in deep waters.

About 1km upstream we came across the best pool we have ever seen, the opposite side was deep and had a rock face with the side we were standing on was a coarse sand/gravel and a small (3ft) waterfall spanning the full width of the head of the pool. This pool resulted in 4 fish, one after the other!

We walked another 600m further than decided to head back to the cars, on the way back we caught several fish each. One decided to play up when I was releasing it causing the second treble to flick into my finger and tear a small laceration, the pain akin to a paper cut.
"":(

As we packed our stuff, we had racked up a total of at least 10 bass each and the biggest a respectable 34cm.

Thanks to Dan for a great trip.