dirvin21

Nice work on the jewies mate, you've got me inspired to keep persisting

Just come off 3 weeks of leave coinciding with school holidays, and obviousy there was plenty of fishing done, this is the freshwater part. We spent a week camping at copeton dam, we bush camped on the upper end of the dam hoping to tangle with a big cod. The first couple of days we had aweful weather, cold winds, rain and just generally unpleasant, not to mention the fish were slow. We spent countless hours casting lures from the bank, kayaks and boat as well as soaking baits. We lost a few worms until finally one got properly eaten a solid silver perch to break the doughnut, we ended up with 2 for the trip both really solid fish. The struggle to catch fish continued, after the bad weather broke, the fish seemed to become a bit more active, we had plenty of follows from yellas but couldn't get them to commit. Finally the frustration was broken when Amy lets out a scream from her kayak with a loaded up rod gave her quite the fight a beautiful yellabelly, went 56cm certainly raised the morale. The lure fishing was very very slow in the end we decided to try for a cod on bait, whilst sitting around the campfire at night we lobbed out a big slab of chicken breast on a 10/0 circle hook, it was a bit surreal when the rod loaded up, I grabbed the rod initially to get the hurt on and clear the fish of the snags then gave it over to Amy to finish the fight, so we could share the capture went 99cm, it's more about the fish not who claims the catch, after some quick snaps we slid her back in the water to go back to terrorising the local fish. Apart from a couple of spanglies that was it for Copeton, it actually feels a bit out of balance the massive population of monster cod seems to be eating everything out of existance. My next freashwater session was a day trip out to the Dumaresq dam just outside of Armidale, I headed out with the aim of redfin, long story short i fished for over 3 hours without a looker to catch a lone redfin right in front of my launch site haven't caught a redfin in man years i certainly be back for another go, fished for trout on the way home with no action at all, finished off on the Bellinger river aiming to catch a catfish on fly, the catfish weren't very active by that stage in the arvo put cast after cast with the fly until finally got a hookup, knew it was no cattie a nice little herring for my first fish on fly, ended u switching to a plastic and after a lot of casts finally managed to tempt a cattie they really fight hard for their size, with the light fading came back a couple of days later again going for the cattie on fly, launched the yak and explored a bit of new water, certainly was scenic again the catties were playing hard to get probaby not warm enough yet, ended up switching to bass fishing which was also incredibly slow, then put a cast on a really active cattie couldn't believe it when he turned and nailed the jigspinner a beautifully marked fish to finish off the freshwater for my time off, the fishing was a bit slow but caught a few different fish in the next few weeks it'll all be about the bass cheers fro reading Dave

Spray under your shirt and shorts the nasty things find anywhere that isn't sprayed.... as previously stated bushmans is the go

7' would be a bit more versatile especially if you're gonna chuck poppers and cranks, something in the 2-4kg , shimano raider have a couple also samaki make some really nice rods My suggestion is go to a tackle shop and feel the rod in your hand ypu want something comfortable that you can cast all day, as far as a reel can't go past the stradic ci4

50:1 has half tye oik add the extra oil to make it 25:1

That's a solid bream... don't see them very often

Lots of bait, any type of fish frames work fine

Good stuff mate... hopefully next time it's a jack

put my rods in a rod tube acked in with bubblewrap,

no worries Frank

probably a bit early yet, need the water temps up and prawns around

got a message from James saying he's in the area, no other option but to make time for a session, the aim of the day Jacks and GTs. The river was looking great low tide with first push of the run in, and small trevs busting up along the edges, excitement building. James started out with a small plastic and me a 68mm tango shad, wasn't long before James got nailed by a above average GT but unfortunetly missed the hook-up. We kept the casts going with my aim of a jack continuing, I landed cast after cast along the timber for nothing but a small flattie, and then out of nowhere the brutal hit and run I know well, it was quite a fight the fish taking some solid runs but with plenty of pressure a flash of red the fist pumps, high fives and chants were going, a beautiful 47cm satan, with that James changed tactics to try for a Jack, he put some good casts along the edges didn't take long for a take we were hooping for a small jack but ended up with a nice flattie We moved to a new bank continuing on our jack quest, working some timber another solid take this time a flash of silver a nice GT, along the next bank the bait was thick on the trees but nothing chasing it then a perfect log with small butterfish all over it I got blown away but a big red beast, nothing like loosing a $21 tango shad. Re-tyed we continued on working the timber, another take and a dark flash I first thought small jack but turned out to be a small cod After a couple of missed trevs we did a quick run upriver looking for some more trevs, we hit the tree where James got his first GT last time and we weren't disappointed a saw the flash of solver come out and eat his lure A nice GT and a new pb for James well deserved he worked hard for it, we had a few dropped GT's along that edge, put a few casts with a small crank along a gravel bed looking for bream a reasonable bream, but with time running low we shot back down river to hit a couple of bait filled trees to see if the trevs had moved in once the current picked up, I pulled the hooks on a GT thinking that was it James kept casting while I put the gear away before heading in James gets hit this time the hooks stuck James had quite a battle on a locked drag another nice GT for James to finish the session, we didn't get a lot of fish but great quality certainly made for an awesome session. Hopefully the start of a memorable jack season cheers for reading Dave

that's it...... deadly on bass

add a TT jigspinner to the grubz effectively making it a tiny spinnerbait then slow roll it

Nice.... glossies?

A good mate and I both had the day off, we were planning on hitting the salt in the boat but with a perfect weather forcast we decided it was a perfect opportunity to fish a stretch of the Taylors arm of the Nambucca from private access I have to Grays crossing what I worked out to be about 9.5km, have never done this run before. We dropped a car off at the retrieve point and hit the launch looking quality as ever, and we got to casting didn't take long to be on the board a flea to break the doughnut, the fishing was a little slow but woring the familiar pools we put a couple of fish the board only small fish but still bass none the less, as we got the end of the familiar water we hit some portage into new water certainly looked the goods, put plenty of casts in each cast feeling the anticipation of a hit, eventually in the middle of nowhere I get slammed a bit better quality fish, we fished all the prime spots but the fish were playing hard to get, it's crazy how much the river changes going from deep rocky pools with cliffs to open stream we fished all of it we had a slow section for awhile with only a couple of hits and misses then we reached another big pool that looked fishy and very remote as far as river access goes got excited at this site the fish turned it on for me in this pool starting with ant size models but the size did improve with some more average sized fish, this is a standard Taylors arm fish the zman grub with a igspinner was doing the damage I offered 1 to Andy but he declined although he was struggling We got into some more skinny water portaging our way down, put a cast in a tiny bend and was instantly rewarded with a solid take the fish played hard in the small stuff but managed to extract him A nice high 30's fish, we bumped into the landowner who was friendly and stopped for a chat, if you follow the rules and stic to the river without taking paddock short cuts this is the usual greeting you get from a farmer. Andy was continuing to struggle with his plugs but he persisted and in an insanely shallow piece of water his lure was nailed it was a joy to watch an outstanding fisho expertly fight a cracking fish, we were pretty pumped when it hit the net a 45cm brute in outstanding condition and easily the fish of the day with that it was time for lunch, a beer and a swim nothing like stiing in the middle of nowhere having a cold one recharged we continued on our journey, we ended up in a long stretch of portaging We eventually hit another good pool and actually had a bit of a hot bite mostly smaller fish like this but a few slightly better models With the day getting on we realised we'd forgotton the GPS so we had no idea how far we had left, we made the decision to start pushing down as we didn't want to be going through the nasty portages in the dark, we pushed through good looking pools and absolutely overgrown amazon, we actually started to get a bit concerned when our presumed 6 hour day hit the 8 hour mark and I still hadn't recognised any of the river that's within the last km, going through some brutal overgrown river we came accross a farmer who filled us in on out whereabouts turned out we were about 1/2 km from the area I'd been to before upstream of grays but we had some brutal portaging to get through, the farmer was a top bloke and let us pull out on his property and walk down to the car which was only a short distance cross country. We were pretty relieved to be out next time we do this run we'll have a better idea on time frames but to anyone thinking of this type of paddle, it's amazing hard to describe how awesome it was but never underestimate how much fishing slows you down, we spent a lot of time casting pools that really left us a bit short at the end can't wait to have another crack when every muscle stops aching that is cheers for reading Dave

Not much public access around, best option is to get a kayak

Is that on waternsw, I think they haven't updated it for awhile, On the cudgegong waters site it says you just have to book in prior

got the second week of October off (starting the 12th) thinking of heading to windamere camping for 2 or 3 nights targeting yellas, I've got a boat and kayaks if anyone interested in joining for some camping, fishing and beers

worms work really well on trout, make sure you give them some slack line when they pick it up

the gulps certainly work but got sick of the mess, had the same experience with squidgies lucky to get 1 fish per tail, can't fault the zmans put a bit of sfactor on them and they catch just as many fish as a gulp

Topic now locked

they're like lollies to predatory fish

Beast of a pike..... they're definetly on my bucket list

We've got plenty of them on the MNC, past Macksville is where I mainly target them....... agro... they''re the nastiest most canny frustrating damn fish on the planet... can't get enough of old "red satan"