[Early season shoalhaven bass trip]

Yeah were fishing just around Grady's. Have heard they are still quiet at Coolendel atm

[Early season shoalhaven bass trip]

Hit the brackish waters of the shoalhaven with some mates in search of Bass (when not heavily intoxicated) last weekend.

Suprisingly, we caught a number of bass between us - even on surface lures at dusk.

Roughly 20 odd bass were caught over 2 sessions between 3 boats. Sizes ranged from 15cm to 35cm with around 4 being over 30cm.

Here are some pics:

[Dirty Water Nepean Bass]

Well done getting some nice Bass from that muddy water. It reminds me of the colour of some of impoundments four years ago when they we less than 50%....how things change.

Were you catching them from the weed beds or were they in close to the banks?

Hey Basscatcher,

I was catching them on divers under the trees and on surface lures adjacent to the weed beds on dusk

[Dirty Water Nepean Bass]

Been waiting forever for the water to clear up down the local and couldn't wait any longer so went out and scored a 30cm Bass 2nd cast to give me hope that they could still be caught after all the flooding.

Ended up with 6 Bass, 4 being over 30cm and the biggest going 35 on a surface lure on dusk

Heres a couple of pics

[First Bass of the season and on a surface lure?]

Great bass there, even better for the surface

I am Hitting up the nepean tomorrow and going to try to get my mate his first bass, seems to be his hoodoo fish. Were going to go from the airport up to the weir, have you heard of any bass taken from in there??

Cheers stu

Yep. The one in the photo hahaha

[First Bass of the season and on a surface lure?]

Hey ARP, love the report, that's a cracking bass. Do you know any good landbased spots around the area? A mate and I (both boatless) are thinking of going after them on the fly. Catch and release only. I'd appreciate any pointers on where we should aim.

I've seen people catching bass on fly at Menangle from the beach area near the bridge. Apart from that you'd probably need a kayak to make it worth while mate. Cheers.

[First Bass of the season and on a surface lure?]

What area were you fishing if you dont mind me asking.

I am hitting the colo this weekend and looking for some updates

Upper nepean - Camden area

[First Bass of the season and on a surface lure?]

Decided it was time to dust off the kayak and hit the nepean on Monday afternoon following a big grand final night to see if the bass wanted to play yet.

The signs were not good. It was cold, breezy and three fellow fishos with full bass fishing setups for these waters had been on the river for hours with only 'a few hits' to speak of

We fished shallow and deep divers for about 2 hours with nothing to speak of and were ready to give up approaching dusk when my mate lifted his SX40 out of the water to cast and a hungry bass launched at it. I thought hmmmm surely its too early for surface lures? theres no bugs around, we've hardly seen a rise and not even the water dragons had come out yet (a common bass fishing site in this area)

So third cast with my heddon torpedo and BANG - big hit but no hookup. Then he had a 2nd go at it before realising it wasnt food. Spewing I missed it but happy that the bass were hitting the surface so early in the season.

About 15 minutes later I cast into a very fishy snag and as soon as the lure hit the water it was engulfed by a monster who fought like a true bronze battler. I love these fish. I was stoked with my first bass of the season going 40cm and in prime condition.

[Burrinjuck Dam]

WELL done, great report....

NOW it’s time for you to crack the 1m mark

BTW do to cod that you caught around the 50cm mark, put up a reasonable fight....

NEVER target cod let alone caught one....

What gear where you using??

Suprisingly only 1 of the cod really fought at all? Its like they didn't even know they were hooked .... until they saw me that is

The 2nd one we caught at 51cm took a halco crazy deep 8m diver and screamed off into the snags then sulked on the bottom. It required a couple of turns of the drag and a bit of muscle to get him up into the net.

I rigged up using a medium action (4-8kg) hemmingway whipstick (i like the short rods in the kayak)with a 2500 diawa reel loaded with 30lb braid line and 20lb leader. Seemed to handle everything ok but it's untested against a real monster

[Burrinjuck Dam]

G'day all,

Headed out to Burrinjuck dam on the weekend with a mate and what a site it is now at 97.5% capacity as apposed to the 35-40% it has been at for the last few years

Got there friday afternoon and by the time we had set up everything it was too dark to think about hitting the water so needless to say we drank the night away instaed

The next morning we hit the water at about 7am. Straight up we caught a small redfin and I said 'here we go, another trip to burrinjuck with hoards of redfin and nothing else' .... but I spoke too soon. The water began to chop up so we headed over to Carroll's creek to get some protection. I was amazed at what I saw, the creek had gone from a narrow, shallow stream to a fully fledged river wider than the nepean where I fish for bass!

We had fished for around an hour with the only bite being the small redfin straight of the boat ramp when my line became snagged. I turned the yak to try to retrieve the lure and my rod started going banannas! I was thinking 'what the hell is going on here??? I soon realised that my line had become tangled around the electric trolling motor

After wasting 30-45 minutes untangling line, re-tying leaders and attaching lures, we were back out on the water but we caught nothing all morning except that lonely redfin. To say I was perplexed would be an understatement. We tried everything, trolling, flicking, jigging, big lures, small lures, bibbless lures, minnows, spinnerbaits ... nothing worked

We decided to head in at about 12.30pm for some lunch and a nap.

Resurfacing at about 3pm we hit the water again and tried some different tactics, mainly just hitting a different area and doing everything alot slower. I even ditched the motor for a paddle to ensure a slower troll. It payed off. Within half an hour I had hooked my first ever murray cod at 43cm. Not huge, but I was a happy man none the less

Within another hour we managed to land another 2 cod at 51cm and 52cm

I remember saying to my mate "this is outrageous!! we've caught 3 cod and a solitory redfin? what the hell is happening here?" I didn't mind that this was the case but I was so used to catching at times between 50-80 redfin and if I was lucky a yellowbelly here and there but not a cod let alone 3!!

We hit the cans VERY hard that night. We were literally very happy campers.

When the morning came around we were greeted by single digit temps which kept us in our sleeping bags until about 9am. My mate offered to pack up the camp so I could fish solo as he was too seedy to go out. I took up the offer and landed another cod at 47cm and a 38cm yellowbelly!!

That concluded a very strange but pleasing weekend away. Final tally 4 cod, 3 redfin and a yellowbelly.

Thanks for reading.

[The Swordies tackle the wild bass]

Well done Stewy and Donna, what a nice easy spot the have a cast.

I couldn't help myself either.....typical bloody fisherman hey?? I headed down to the Weir with Stuball over the weekend and managed one nice bass in the 40ish cm range.

Cheers,

Smitty...

That is a beast. Probably a big breeding female getting ready for winter spawning. Well done

[Joco & iMick on a mission to catch BASS (NEW PB)]

Well done! great bass there. very suprised to see a flatty like that at the weir whilst it was running so hard. Would have been fresh as! Must get back to chippo while its firing. Had two dull trips there this season but your post has inspired me!

BTW, I agree that most fisho's (especially the lure orientated ones) would return all fish to the system. In my opinion I wouldn't be eating anything from there anyway, although in saying that all the fish there seem very healthy?

[mid morning bass]

Great bass there boys! they are great fun thats for sure. The one on the brag mat is a BEAST

[Australia Day freshwater fishing]

Took the Yak to Kangaroo Valley for a yak fish with a good mate of mine.

In 4 hours we managed some good sized bass between 26cm and 33cm as well as 7 Carp between 45cm and 74cm (equal pb) all on Taylor Made Nuggets diving between 1.5m and 3m below the surface. This must be one of the very few systems where Carp readily take lures ... amazing.

Hooked a monster just before coming in which straightened the trebles. Who knows how big that sucker was......

[camden bass]

Love the buggy pop!!!

[Bass Time!]

therds like this one that makes me miss my dagger difter kayak and gives me more reason to look at a 2man canoe for me and my son now

fishing from a boat is great most of the times but nothing like getting up in the skinny waters in a paddle powered machine

Yeah, I love the double drifter. Its big enough for 2 people taking up to 250kg but the seats also slide so you can take it out on your own and paddle from the middle of the boat if you want. Very versatile and good fun.

[Bass Time!]

With the cicadas chirping yesterday my workmate and I decided to spend our lunch break loading the yak on my car for a quick escape at knock off time to the local for some Bassin fun.

Suprisingly they took much more of a liking to the shallow divers than surface lures, but even on the divers it was alot of fun.

We caught about 20 fish in the session ranging from tiny tackers at about 10cm to a little more respectable 30cm. Most were around 25-27cm, not huge but better than sitting at home or work for that matter!

One of the bass completely engulfed the lure. I did my best to remove the trebles without damaging the fish and felt I did a good job given how fragile their gill system is, however it began to bleed anyway?? I released it like the others just hoping the aussie battler is tough enough to kick on ....

[Monster Shoalhaven Bass]

Too right. 8lb braid with 12lb leader handled it well but felt like an eternity to get it in. Haven't felt power like that in a bass before. My heart was in my mouth when I saw that he had taken the front treble instead of the ususal rear one and the lure was an SX40 (very small lure with very small and slighly fragile trebles). Once he spotted me he let out a massive head shake and then went straight back down under the yak (the reel was screaming). Luckily that was his last run and I netted him when he came back up followed by a YAAAA HOOOO that could be heard in Sydney!

[Monster Shoalhaven Bass]

Fished one of the shoalhaven's stocked impoundments on saturday and managed 9 fish for the day, mainly in the shallows on ecogear SX40s and River2Sea static shads.

The highlight of the day though was scoring a pb Bass of 49cm on a drop off that showed a school of fish on the sounder. This particular bass resembled a football moreso than a bass...I couldn't believe the weight of it!

After a couple of quick snaps it was back into the water to grow even bigger.....if its still possible for this fish.

Made my day that's for sure....

[Nepean Bass After Work]

Nice bass, I've had a couple of sessions up that way myself. Numbers seem to be down after the rain, but the fish are in good condition.

Have you fished a lot this season, how have you found the fishing in general?

I have fished quite a bit this season and found the general size of the bass to be alot smaller than in past seasons for some reason? This might be a good thing though as it means the smaller fish are getting upstream and negotiating the weirs. Hopefully in the next couple of seasons there will be more big boppas.

Here's a couple from the last couple of trips:

[Nepean Bass After Work]

It is excellent to see a post about bass fishing. I am very envious of you...I am hoping to have a bass session in a couple of weeks time when I travel up to the Hunter Valley (Lake St Clair). I have never tried the Nepean River with a boat or a canoe....can you use a boat in the area you were fishing?

Yeah you can, i've seen tinnies before there and on the sounder I was seeing average depths of around 10m, but i'm not sure where they launch.

Good luck at St Clair. Would love to fish there one day. It holds some big bass from what I've heard...

[Nepean Bass After Work]

Well done.

I was down there last friday and noticed how much better it is after the rain.

Haven't had my yak down there though.

How do you find it in that part of the river with all of the boats?

We were the only ones out there yesterday. Must have picked a good day!

[Nepean Bass After Work]

Haven't posted for a while but haven't seen many bass posts recently either so I thought i'd add one from a short session yesterday.

Hit the nepean yesterday with two mates straight after work and we managed a few good sized bass between 30cm and 38cm on Jackall Tn 50s, River2Sea baby cranks and Viking talisman in purple. The fish appeared to be in excellent health/condition. Was happy to see the water levels and clarity had improved aswell following recent rains.

Here's a couple of snaps

[Carp]

Try throwing small shallow diving lures at them. They will hit lures on the pause alot of the time.

Here is evidence of a small diawa shiner engulfed by a carp on a recent trip to the shoalhaven

Cheers,

ARP1980

[Massive Hawksberry Jew]

Great report, loved every bit of it.

I'm glad we can now put the story to the pics we have seen of that giant fish. Thanks for sharing it with us.