wazatherfisherman

Hi Burger thanks, these stories are all true! I started writing my own "memoirs" a while ago, not originally intended for others to read, but due to the current situation, decided to start putting them on. Have quite a lot, and there are some that really don't sound believable, regardless they're true, so have steered away from them, well, so far anyway You might notice that quite a few don't really have that much fishing in them, just trying to put things on related to fishing as an alternative read! Regards Waza

Roughly, a bit over 27 years ago, John, one of my best mates moved from Sydney to Murwillumbah on the far north coast. He'd done a little bit of fishing in Sydney and down the freshwater end of the Shoalhaven River near Goulburn, but although he liked fishing, was fairly inexperienced as a fisherman and rarely went out by himself. After he settled in, I went up for a holiday and of course we went fishing a few times, mostly lure fishing for Flathead in one of the many estuaries, or beach fishing, mainly for Tailor. At holiday's end, I returned to Sydney, but John had got the fishing "bug" back and started going again regularly. Networking with others he met, John started trying a few different types of fishing, such as live baiting for Mulloway, bobby corking for Mangrove Jack and fishing for Bass around the upper Tweed River and Clarrie Hall Dam. We both had a bit of experience catching Bass down near Goulburn on the Shoalhaven, which in fact were "bi-catch" when we were after the giant Carp that had infested the upper reaches of the river, but in general knew relatively nothing about Bass fishing, other than reading a few articles on them. As a teacher, John got time off with all the various school holidays and started to have plenty of success with catching Bass, mostly on bait. I liked going up whenever I had time off and we'd often do our "fishing trifecta" of Bass in the early morning, Flathead spinning through the day and either beach or Mangrove Jack fishing in the early evening- great days if you love fishing! The first time I went Bass fishing up at Clarrie Hall Dam with him, an early morning start was planned and bait needed to be caught before fishing the morning. The bait was to be live shrimps and we drove about 20 minutes west of Murwillumbah, to the freshwater end of the Tweed River, just outside Mount Warning National Park. I've read a bit about catching shrimps before, mostly with baited traps, using things like cat food and Sunlight soap for bait, but had never seen it done. John had 2 traps (one for each of us), but it was the location he chose to place them, that surprised me. A narrow, quite fast flowing set of rapids about knee-to- thigh deep, with small boulders and river-stones, a fair bit of white-water and reasonably fast current flow. After baiting the traps, they had to be weighed down with a couple of large stones, once in place, we left them in to be collected early next morning. On arrival at dawn the next morning, retrieving the traps revealed a surprising number of shrimp, of three different varieties. There were heaps of really small clear brown ones, ranging from about half an inch long to about an inch and a half, these look pretty much the same as the shrimp found near the sea-grass beds in saltwater. Next ones were very much the same colour but had long "spindley" arms with tiny claws- these were slightly larger, up to about two inches long, and finally the ones he got excited about, almost black ones with a caramel coloured stripe down the centre of their back. These black ones were probably twice as thick in the body as the others and reminded me of "rock prawns" -very similar to restaurant "Scampi", without the arms and up to about two and a half inches long. These he said, were the "gun" bait. We kept the black ones and the ones with arms and just a few of the tiny variety (they might be just immature "armed" variety, I don't really know), tipped the keepers into an aerated bucket and headed for the dam, some ten minutes from the shrimp spot. We drove through a foggy morning mist and the gate to the dam was open earlier than the stated 7 am, so we parked not far from the dam wall and a ten minute walk had us beside the water, well down below the spillway wall. Looked great, but we had to get wet to cross to the other side, so shoes off and across the narrowest water. Pretty cold wading across, shoes back on quick smart. Arrived at the spot, which was a nice looking pool about 30 odd yards long by about 20 wide, with a small faster flowing section coming from the dam. The rig was simple, 6 lb mono with a size 6 "mosquito-style" Hayabusa brand hook and a single split shot pinched on about a foot above the hook. Rods were 6 foot light Ugly Sticks with 1000 size spin reels. Method seemed easy enough, put a shrimp on and cast into the faster flowing bit, letting the current take the shrimp into an eddy of calm water, where it would sink down to the bottom. As soon as a bite was felt, you strike straight away, so as to hook them in the mouth. Every now and then, the shrimp would get to the bottom, avoid the Bass and manage to make it to safety under a rock, where you'd get snagged. A few snags and we decided to try using tiny foam bobby corks that we use for fishing for bait like poddie Mullet and snub nosed Gar. This proved to be really successful. We set the tiny running corks about four and a half feet deep, with just a slightly larger split shot pinched on about fifteen-eighteen inches up from the hook. Cast out into the flow and the water would take it into the same eddy. Within a couple of minutes, down would go the cork and most of the time you'd hook up a Bass. Pretty easy fishing to be honest. We caught a heap of them, from about 7-8 inches up to about 14 inches long, one after another, until we heard a heap of cars above us on the road heading to the dam wall. There are often break-ins to cars left there, so John stopped fishing to run back and check what was going on. As he was leaving, I thought I'd better follow him, grabbed the backpack, rods and tipped most of the water out of the shrimp bucket, just leaving about an inch in there with the remaining 8 or 9 shrimp. By the time I'd crossed the creek and put my shoes back on, then walked most of the way back, John was coming back with the news that the cars were all fishermen from the original "Australian Fishing Championships Bass Tour" and were being filmed just standing on the dam wall, rods in hand. Not fishing, just getting a bit of footage for a show that they were going to film on the dam later. Since we had some shrimp left we decided to have a last go in the big pool below the dam wall, where the spillway overflow meets the outflow from the pressure relief flow, the two flows meet in this large deeper pool and there are quite a few fish in there, including really large Mullet, Catfish, Eels and of course the Bass. We had a few drifts each with no takers, then decided to set the corks about 6 or so feet deep. In the mean time, some of the Bass tour guys came down for a look and a chat, no rods though. They smiled when they looked at our set-ups and started giving advice on what would be a more likely way to get a fish or two. It was genuinely friendly advice and they were interested in what we were doing. We told them we'd already caught heaps, but I don't think they believed us, not at that moment anyway. Meanwhile no takers at 6 foot, so we went down to about 8 foot and bingo! a Bass each straight away. A double hook-up pretty well straight after throwing in. The other guys nodded approval as we got the fish in, slightly better size in this pool. Released them quickly, same as all the others, and re-baited. Bang! straight away, another double hook-up! Fought these ones in and one of the Bass guys said if we got another double, he'd love to have a fish if we didn't mind? "No worries" was our reply. Another two shrimp cast out, another double hook-up- it was too much for the guys and four of them literally ran for their gear. The four who remained, were impressed and started asking plenty of questions, which we were happy to answer. The guys returned with some gear and as we now only had a couple of shrimp left, and I was interested in seeing up-close what they would use, we stopped fishing and had a sandwich while we watched. The sun began poking over the hill and was just starting to hit the water on the far side of the pool while we ate our food and watched the Pro's do their thing. The Bass guys must have tried about half a dozen different lures each and tried different retrieves and techniques, without a single fish caught. It was decided that the sun must have stopped the bite, or the water-flow might have slowed or something. I couldn't help myself, I gave John the "cue" and we cast 2 of the last 3 shrimps in, just like earlier, double hook-up pretty quickly! There was stunned silence for a minute, then laughter all round! As a "teaser", I asked if anyone would like the last shrimp, "just so they'd get one" - "cheeky bugger" one of them said and as nobody dared take the shrimp, we made a "symbolic" gesture and let it go. We left the Bass guys there and went back to the house to change fishing gear for our next mission, the Flathead spinning. Over the years, we've fished those same two pools stacks of times and tried lure fishing there most times, but have never caught a Bass there on a lure- down further about 2 km, plenty of Bass on surface lures, just not up at the dam. We stopped fishing there when we saw 2 Platypus there three trips in a row, they are so rare for a city bloke like me to see, so we decided the "Platypus Pool" is now off limits for our Bass fishing trips.

Hi mate and well done on the Flattie's some tasty fish there and congrats to your mate's first on a lure. Look forward to reading your next reports. Maybe some Blackie's eh?

Hi JonD and thanks, glad you are enjoying them. It's funny how by reading other folks posts, different things "open-up" in the memory bank, a few times, I've not set out to do a story, but it's ended up that way!

Hi Rebel and thanks! Fishraider is my fishing mag. Just trying to put some things on to help entertain members while we're all in lock-down. I know I've strayed a bit from actually catching fish, but as long as readers enjoy what I've been posting, I'll keep it up. Thanks again

Hi Pete LOL iki jime! It wasn't conventional but was looking like dinner for six had it been real!

Hi JonD you certainly live in a beaut part of the country I reckon. The strange marks on the bottom in Nangudga were probably from a net of sorts, but they knew that the majority of fish were gone. Like I said, we didn't see any signs of them but concede they could well have been a few there somewhere.

Hi Neil as we were "tourists" we had to see the funny side, bet they were laughing about it for years.

Hi Yowie, that is probably a better word than lies!

Years ago, while on one of many trips to Narooma, the sea got too big to go outside fishing, or usual "plan B" of rock fishing at Mystery Bay. We were pretty keen for a nice feed of fish, so decided that if we wanted to go, it would have to be in Wagonga Inlet at Narooma. We went to the pub for a counter lunch and got the advice there, that the best approach was to have a go for Flathead around the edges of the main basin. Live Mullet or live prawns were the go if you wanted to get better size fish, lures were regarded as too "hit and miss" (soft plastic lures hadn't been on the market very long and there were only a few styles available in any case). The "advice" were 3 old feller's, also told us there were plenty of nice bait sized Mullet in the 2 lakes just south of the town- Nangudga Lake and the larger Corunna Lake. There were prawns as well they said, should be easy enough to get a few for bait. Try Nangudga they said. As we were camped at Mystery Bay about 8 km's south of Narooma, we decided to pop in at both lakes on the way back to camp to grab our gear, and decide which looked more promising. We'd get some bait and go for a fish in the Inlet early the next morning. We were in 2 cars (there were six of us) and those in car one knew where to go, as they'd been diving and then fishing Narooma for years and had wandered the area plenty of times. Nangudga was first lake on the way back and from the highway, there were a couple of options to have a look at. The main body of the lake is located on the western side of the highway and runs under a small bridge that separates it from the eastern side, which was basically just a fairly narrow, shallow channel that snakes around an "S" bend to where the lake usually spilled over the sand of Handkerchief Beach into the ocean. Channels are generally easier to prawn than the main bodies of lakes, as there is a concentrated water flow, either in or out from the ocean, bringing the prawns straight to you on the outgoing tide, rather than the stiller water of the main body, so we took the turn off to the eastern side of the highway and drove down to what should have been the entrance of the lake. On arrival, instead of finding an entrance to the ocean, we viewed a high sandbar, several feet higher than the channel's water level, there was practically no chance of water moving in or out of the lake. Regardless, we decided to have a scout around this closed off section, to suss out where if anywhere was worth having a fish or a prawn later that night. Besides, that's where the advice told us to go. Well, we hadn't walked more than about 50 yards from the car, along the sandy edge of this shallow section and I spotted it. Right on the edge, not even a foot from dry sand, in probably 2 inches of water was a really big Flathead! I stopped anyone from getting too close so as not to spook it, while deciding what to do next. As we'd only been to town for a feed and quick beer, we had no fishing gear with us, it was back at the camp. A quick look in the car boot's and the best we could find was a large flat head screwdriver- that'd have to do. Since I spotted it, I got the screwdriver and raced back to where the Flathead was, still sitting right where it had been when sighted. Before anyone objects to this, it was nearly 40 years ago and conservation of large Flathead wasn't even a consideration in those days- it was going to provide a great meal for us that night, if I could get it. Great! Now to try and stab it with the screwdriver. I had my "going to town" clothes on, so quickly stripped down to underwear (it was bushland and there was nobody else around) and crawled ever so slowly, right up to just behind the Flathead and then pounced! I stabbed the screwdriver down really hard, right into the back of the Flathead's head- those watching reckon the look on my face was priceless, as the screwdriver plunged hard and deep into nothing more than the impression of the fish- it wasn't there at all. I couldn't believe it, the impression was so perfect, so lifelike, how could this not be a fish? When everyone else stopped laughing, we all marvelled at the now speared impression, after all it had fooled the six of us, so lifelike it was. Then we waded around this shallow closed off section, wouldn't have been any more than thigh deep at the deepest and started to find literally dozens of similar impressions, mostly all close together in groups. These impressions or "lies" (never a truer word for them!) were all throughout this last section and they were all so "undisturbed" they MUST have been just made, surely? There were some other strange looking marks in the sand too, couldn't identify them though. Other than the "lies", the one thing we noticed was the only life around this section were those small puffer fish, the ones that blow up to about the size of a golf ball when captured. Nothing else. Where were the Flathead? There was a small section of reeds and marginally deeper water where the "S" bend curved around towards the bridge- maybe they were there? After spending a bit of the afternoon mucking around with the "Flathead" we decided to go to Corunna Lake and have a go for Mullet and come back later with the prawning gear, it looked good for prawns but no water flow. Maybe the Flathead only come down to the shallows of a night? After Mullet fishing at Corunna Lake (we only managed a few poddies) we went back to camp for a feed, grabbed the prawning gear and the torches and returned to the "Flathead" spot. We all agreed that we'd most likely spot at least some Flathead. After covering the whole section, neither a Flathead or prawn was sighted, should have been smarter regarding the prawns and known they prefer water movement. The only things we saw were heaps of toads and a fair few of those skinny sand eels, which would just "dive" into the sand and be pretty much buried in an instant. Mission failed, back to camp to get ready for the next morning. A big southerly blew up in the early hours of the morning, so fishing was canned. Back to the pub at midday for another tasty counter lunch. Same 3 old feller's were there again and they asked how we got on. They let us tell the story of the Flathead, eels etc and then burst out laughing. Turned out they were professional fishermen and had "got" the Flathead a few days earlier. The buggers got us a beauty, got to love the Aussie sense of humour. They did offer us some more "serious" fishing "advice" but we weren't game to try it!

Hi Macca02 the 8144 would be far better, the 7144 wasn't built for snapper leads, but there are other rods in the Gary Howard range that would be suitable, drop them a line via Green Hornet's info. It's only my opinion but the Wilson Snyder's don't have the same reputation as either original Snyder's or previous Butterworth's - what strength line and cast weights are you mainly using?

Hi KC The lacquered one is the before shot, Green Hornet has done a fantastic job in the restore- better than Alvey in my opinion. Super impressive

Also a bit off topic, sorry James, I was foreman for the painting company that painted the new (then) water filtering station at Prospect Reservoir. There is a large uncovered concrete canal that flows from the reservoir to the filtering ponds, which had two screened "paddle-wheel" type devices the water flows through to catch solid matter from the canal water. These of course catch all the fish and eels and drop them in big bins with a bit of water in them. The environmental ranger would go and collect the live contents of the 2 bins and return them to the reservoir about every hour or so and the few times I had a look there were all sorts of different fish in them, plus heaps and heaps of eels. While blasting near the shoreline, the construction boys got a 12 lb trout, didn't see it, but the foreman of construction told me they'd got quite a few really big ones and it was the largest, anything live had to be returned to the water, but the big Trout was supposed to be dead and it was cooked and eaten on site I saw a few in the 2 lb range in the bins along with plenty of small fish The environmental ranger would quite often "sneak up" on us when we were painting anywhere near the water and constantly hassled us about "where's your fishing lines?"- we never threw a line in there though

Hi Dan they are around, there have been a few caught- always nice to be up getting them before the crowds turn up. Often, early season they are a bit harder to target but if you cube burley for them, often you can entice the bite. Flint and Steel is worth a go on the run in early season as they come past in big schools at times before moving into Cowan Good luck when you go

Hi Pete reel looks FANTASTIC! Great job, looks even nicer than the new one you got if you ask me

Hi Dan have heard through the "grapevine" there are a few around at both Newcastle and Cowan but so far, they have been under 1 metre long. Anzac day used to be the "unofficial" start to the season

Hi Ron Great story! Hudspeth and Farrell were always in the news catching fish. How did you go in the Salmon Derby?

Hi Pete yes I had a 9108 which was awesome Pig rod but heavy, got stolen from that garage (had 2 of them stolen) FSU's perfect for the job, the 12 footer's are too long in my opinion and offer the fish more leverage against you. I also have a Silaflex FT 70 with the Aluminium extension (factory fitted) that was really good at stopping them but overhead mount -it was my live bait o/head rod, be getting close to 50 years old I reckon. Bought it 2nd hand for $20- bargain!

If you are just Pig/Groper fishing the FSU 5120 is the go- but you wont get the same distance you want opposed to the MT- really need a separate rod for each style

Hi Ron as an old Luderick fisher that would have been a great sight to see. Rarely hear of Cowanyoung any more, PaddyT gave a great explanation as to most likely reason on the previous page of this post

Hi New Signing I also bought some recently on ebay from USA, same deal it was a package deal of about 10 lures only really wanted the pearl heads

Hi Macca 02 have a look at Gary Howard range of rods- he has several that would be suitable and purpose built for Alveys. They also build specialised rods by order. You want something like a MT 8144 (8 wraps of glass 144 inches-12 foot) to do both. When I was still an active cliff-base fisher we used to get really big pigs but on 9 wrap super powerful rods or FSU 5120's both originally made by Butterworth then Snyder, they are still sold on facebook groups

The things I was told were mangrove worms were about 6-8 inches long, as thick as a pen, coloured like a blood worm, with a "nipple-looking" bit at one end that was probably twice as fat and about an inch long. Just tried finding them on the net but things that came up looked nothing like them. Never seen them anywhere in fishing books/references, might not even be a worm but sure look like them. An old Aboriginal fisherman up at Hastings Point told us they were mangrove worms and they were edible as well. We got them while pumping nippers. Great bait too Last I heard Con was pretty crook, top bloke though, hope he fulfilled his dream. There was a fair population of Scampi-like "rock prawns" in Queenscliff lagoon, twice as fat as a prawn and small clawed arms. They live on rocks as opposed to sand and are pretty common up the north coast on inner harbour walls like Coffs Harbour trawler harbour where there were stacks of them.

You and I are the only people I know to have caught 2 mantis shrimps in the harbour, both mine at the zoo wharf, where I also saw them swimming a few more times. Remember there was an article that was either on the front page or just inside on "New species discovered in Sydney Harbour" and they carried on like it was something alien. Con that used to own Drummoyne Bait n Tackle gave me and my mate Jonno about 50 small ones once for live bait when he ran out of prawns. Bought some giant ones from the old fish shop that used to be next to the railway bridge at Burwood and took them up to Murwillumbah for one of the "Greenback" comps but friends up there decided they were too good looking for bait and we barbecued them- really tasty! Those pink things sound like mangrove worms

Hi Dieter had a few big sessions on them during the day in the hole off Clifton. One year the guy in the next street to me (he's a Raider member) was consistently getting a few at high tide at night from both Birkinhead Wharf and Drummoyne wharf. One of my longtime mates has fished Valencia St for over 40 years, but reckons the starfish are really thick there these days. One of my first rods was a green Butterworth beach rod I bought from Jim Mitchell's tackle that was either at Rockdale or Hurstville. Fond memories