Secret Creek Bass

Hello,
Today I went out to a little known spot that large bass (50cm+) can be casually swimming in amongst swimmers for a fish to see if they reacted to fishing tactics.
Well first cast I hooked and landed this feisty little (16cm) bugger


The little tacker

I moved downstream to a larger pool because some 'considerate' kid came down and started swimming right there where I was and started throwing large rocks around.

The second cast I noticed a large tail fin idle past my lure, so I immediately threw the lure out again and the fish followed it once more, so I slowly twitched it in. Each time I twitched the bass became more interested. So another 3 casts and I resolved to dead slow retrieve which was nailed by a large fish.

A long fight ensued over rocks and through narrow gaps in the rocks, but I had the fish subdued. As I traced the fish to haul it up on the bank the leader broke at the leader-lure knot and I immediately grabbed the fish by the mouth as it still had my lure in its gob.



So I got the lure out and showed the nearby American tourists what a proper bass looks like, a few photos and away she went.



Measured to the marked spot on my rod, she went 43.5cm exactly what my original PB was!


The best lures I have used (the bottom one was the lure for this report)

Flathead in the morning, Bass in the afternoon

Hello,
Yesterday at 7:30am my mate Vincent and I launched his electric outboard powered canoe into Mobs Bay and began the pottering trip around the Bay. We casted our lures, both soft plastics and hard bodies to the edges of the mangroves, in hope of catching some bream and flathead.

After several missed fish, we had each landed 3 flathead to 40cm and Vincent several small tailor, we decided to pack up and we were off the water by 2pm.







Getting the rods and lure boxes organised for an afternoon bass session, Dad and I made our way down to Tintenbar to fish from the banks.

The first spot we went to didn’t produce any fish or strikes so we decided to move to the other side of the bank, but further downstream at the end of Crosby’s Lane.

After changing from a jitterbug to the ever productive Atomic Hardz shad, on which I landed a small 26cm bass which had some severe caudal and pectoral fin damage. On the 3rd cast I hooked up to a fish that fought fairly well and I hauled it up on the bank for a measure and photo, going 33cm and extremely well conditioned.





So flathead in the morning and bass in the afternoon, what a great day!

The Clarence Gorge

Heavy raindrops collected in the hollows of the granite and began to cascade over the polished surface as I clambered over the boulders, trying to escape the impending lightning strikes that were falling some half a kilometre away. The storm had started to move on and I kept moving upstream fishing the current eddies and boulders that make up the infamous character of The Clarence Gorge.

The weekend started on Friday 11:30am when a small group of blokes in 4WD’s headed off on the journey to the property where we would be camping for the next three days. We arrived at the campsite some 3hrs later, and began the process of setting up camp. In this first group were Brian and his son Nick; John; and Dad (my Dad) and myself.


Entry to the Gorge Property


The river on the way into the Gorge

Rigging up the kayak I made my way upstream to explore the river and to try and reach the actual Gorge. This was an easy pedal of about 40min to reach the steep granite cliffs of the Gorge and its first series of small rapids. This little jaunt rendered no fish but some huge surface smashes which didn’t result in any hook-ups.

There were hundreds of turtles in the river and they weren’t afraid of us paddling past. There were also plenty of eagles and hawks.





I left the Gorge in the darkness and made my way downstream under the moon of a smoke screened moon, to arrive to a dinner of steak and sausages.

Saturday
Arising at the magical time of 5am I organised my kayak and gear for a full day of fishing which was supposed to begin at 8am, but I was delayed after the arrival of my uncle Terry.

Meanwhile John and Dad had left early to walk up to the Gorge along the river bank, on their return they practically fell over in exhaustion as the 40°C+ heat and kilometres of rocks radiating trapped heat had taken its toll on them, apparently causing the 1.5km walk to become like 10km. Though making the walk worth the effort, Dad had landed a 52cm to the fork bass on a black Arbogast Jitterbug above the first waterfall.

Eventually I left after John and Dad’s tale and went for another journey up to the Gorge, but I was clever and took the shorter (and much cooler) route by kayak. I was able to drag my kayak up onto a gravel bay and anchor it with my paddle, as I donned a pack and began the short walk to the falls. I was surprised that even during the middle of the day I was able to draw surface strikes, which still didn’t hook-up; very frustrating. Near the falls I found a souvenir from a certain creature I didn’t need to encounter this far away from help. The skin from an Eastern Brown snake was as more than longer to my fishing rod which is 2.1m long.



When reaching the falls I was greeted by a cloud of cooling spray of water, this brought instant relief as the rocks were so hot my rubber soled water shoes were starting to melt. At the bottom of the falls were hundreds of fork-tailed catfish either trying to climb the waterfall or feeding on algae, most of these fish were about 60cm long and well conditioned.



About four hours of hammering this short (200m) section of river I decided to escape the constant heat and returned to the campsite, to be greeted by Craig who had just arrived bringing along his daughter for her first camping trip.

With only 3 kayaks brought along, I had booked two hire canoes from the owners for the craft-less guys to use. So in that afternoon we decided to head up to the Gorge and allow the people who hadn’t visited it yet to have a look around and a fish along the way.

We went as far upstream as the first set of rapids impassable to all but Dad and John in one of the canoes. Brian attempted to climb it and was close to succeeding but was sucked under and over the yak went. I tried all of the possible routes through the rapids but wasn’t able to climb the 2ft drop. Portaging this rapid was not an option as it was created by large boulders trapped between extremely narrow and deep (12m) section of river.


The Gorge walls

As the sun began to slowly set behind the ranges, a storm that had been brewing all day finally let loose with heavy rain drops and lightning striking the mountains above us. Everyone decided to make the way back to camp, but I decided to stay behind and have another fish the waterfall one last time from the land.

I fished my way up to the waterfall for no fish and made my way back to the parked yak. I then made my way hiding along the cliff walls and keeping my rod low, as lighting continued to strike the nearby mountains and rock pillars.

Meeting up with John and Dad who were still fishing some way downstream of the Gorge, they had caught numerous freshwater herring and catfish on crickets. So I changed tactics and threw out a cricket on a small jighead and got a bass of 18cm instantly.



Returning to camp we were met with a trashed camp, as the wind had blown down our tent (first time ever) and some tarps. Seeing the tent was full of some water (all of my sleeping stuff was dry, yets Dad’s soaking wet. Haha there must be karma!) and the previous night Dad had kept me awake with his snoring, I decided to sleep in the tray of our Ute. A good night sleep was assured.

Sunday
Waking up after a solid sleep I had a quick fish around a drowned tree opposite camp resulted in 2 small bass about 20cm long on live crickets. The boats hooning past began to become annoying so I began the pedal upstream to the Gorge to try and meet up with Terry and Dad who left earlier this morning to try and reach the waterfalls, in the two canoes. Only meeting them about halfway we casted, trolled various lures with no result. The only fish caught during this session were caught using live crickets.

Eventually we made our minds up to go back to camp and have a late breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns and sausages. We feed like kings when we go camping!

Overall, I was pleased with the weekend but not particularly so with the fishing. Neil commented that this was a very slow November and that the best time of year to come for the fishing is September with an average of more than 1000 fish caught in that month. So next September we will be there again!

Thanks to Neil, Sue and Warren for running such a great place and we will be back for sure!

First Amberjack at Woody Head, Iluka

At 3:45am on Monday 16^th November I jumped in the car and made the 1hr long drive to Woody Head, Iluka to meet up with Sydney based kayak fisho “Avayak” or better known as Gary who was holidaying in nearby Yamba.



The plan was to try and help Gary catch a Cobia or maybe a snapper, so we headed out to the front of the headland and tried to find some yakka (yellowtail)/slimey (slimey mackerel) schools, so we could get us some livebaits.

On the way out to the headland, a pod of small Mack Tuna started to bust up next to me as I fumbled around for my camera in the hull. As luck would have it my rod wasn’t rigged up and by the time I had it rigged the school had moved about 600m North, regrettably I left them to catch up with Gary who had started to jig around a large school or what turned out to be a mix of yakkas and slimies.

After gathering a few baits, we rigged them for trolling and we set off in search of some reef to send down some plastics too.After about 6kms of reef searching we headed back into the shore around the base of the headland where there was more baitfish activity.



I rigged my new Team Daiwa Tierra rod up with a 3in plastic and started to cast it into the wash of the headland, this resulted in several strikes and hookups but each time the fish spat the hook.

Moving into a whitewashed alcove in the rocks, my plastic was bricked by something big, taking line at a fast pace while I tried to palm the spool of my little 2000 size reel to drag whatever it was I had hooked out of the rocks. After a while some colour appeared and there was what I thought were a school of salmon chasing my hooked fish (I also thought this was a salmon) and several other fish flipped out of the way of the net just in time as I netted my fish.

It was at this time I had landed a kingfish! Woo I yelled out and Gary made his way over to me. After a measure and photo I let the little bruiser go back to his mates who could be seen 6m below in the clear, blue water.



We fished this spot for about another 30minutes before we decided to move along the headland North, where we didn’t catch anything else but amused looks from some spectators on the shore, especially when I jumped out of my kayak to land into “2ft of water” which ended up being 6ft of water!

Later on whilst packing away our gear, Gary helped me identify the fish as an Amberjack not the Kingfish I thought it was, as it had sort of a keel on the tail wrist; something a Kingfish does not have and a stubbier nose.

Thankyou to Gary for putting up with me for the day and I’m sorry we didn’t catch many fish (besides the endless numbers of those yellow bait fish) and I hope it was better fishing for you during your holiday in the Northern Rivers.

Early Flathead fishing session on the Richmond

Hello,
With a 5am wakeup I made my way down to the Sailing Club boatramp at Ballina on the Richmond River to meet up with a fellow yak fisher and KFDU member Dwayne.

We readied and launched our yaks; myself a Hobie Revolution and Dwayne a Hobie Pro Angler, I have seen one of these kayaks before at the Lismore Camping and Outdoor show but to see one rigged up and in use for fishing was interesting.

The plan was to head over to an area called Mobs Bay, a bay enclosed by what locals call the 'Porpoise Wall' and try and land some flathead and possibly a bream on lures.

While fishing his lure Dwayne got the life scared out of him as a small pod of resident dolphins surfaced next to him, they hung around for a while most likely allowing their calves to chase the enourmous schools of herring that were present.

Pulling up at the entrance to Mobs Bay, herring were being busted up by small Tailor which shredded our softplastics.



I ended up landing a small flathead of about 28cm on a Banana Prawn Gulp Shrimp, a short time later a 24cm Tailor ended up joining the flathead on the catch list. Changing to a Nuclear Chicken Gulp Shrimp I ended up with another flathead of 31cm on the next cast.







We ended up moving over to the back of Mobs Bay casting our plastics near the small rockwall seperating the main Bay and the minor Bay behind it.

Fishing the bank side of the wall we snagged up several times on the wall and a nearby shipwreck, but no hits or fish. So we ventured onto the river side of the wall and began to fish the sand close to the rocks. With my 3rd cast came up tight against something with some go.

Landing a flathead of 52cm influenced Dwayne who was still on the bank side to come around and try his luck.



As I released my fish his soft plastic was smashed by a 64cm flathead, after a few pics Dwayne was struggling to choose whether to keep the fish for dinner. Deciding on let such a nice fish go, the fish swam happily away.



But again another fish decided to jump on Dwayne's plastic and he decided to keep this fish, the largest of the day at 67cm.





It was at this time Dwayne received a call and decided to return to the ramp and allow his children and relatives to have a pedal on the yak, so we said our goodbyes and parted, so I continued fishing.

Peddaling to the main training wall, I fished along the rock wall with a Gulp Shrimp which proved successful with a 40cm flathead which I decided to give to some nearby fisherman who said they were down on there luck when I queried earlier.

Another few runs to no avail and I decided to leave the fishing to the others on the river.

It was a great session and I was glad I went, thanks to Dwayne for posting up the Trip Ad it was good to meet up for a fish another forum lurker!

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.

2009 Wivenhoe Kayak and Canoe Fishing Convention

Hello there,
This year the 2009 Wivenhoe Kayak and Canoe Fishing Convention is being held again and I will be attending for the first time when it begins this weekend.

The Convention is a social event which includes two competition sessions; a show and shine exhibition where entrants can show off their craft to the crowd and social BBQ's.

The weekend has a small entry fee of $50 and camping is located at Logan's Inlet (at the dam).

Information can be found here on the Sweetwater Fishing and the official convention homepage here.

Wivenhoe is a renowned fishery with many Australian Bass being often caught up to a reported 60cm and also stocked with species such as yellowbelly (Golden Perch), Saratoga, Spangled Perch, Fork-Tailed Catfish, Snub-Nosed Gar, Silver Perch and the Mary River Cod. Though introduced species like tilapia, banded grunter and Redclaw Crayfish also make their home in the lake.

Hopefully Ill be able to get onto some of these fish.

Till next time>>>