Burrendong Dam

[lancer]

With all the rain, I had been planning a trip for the past 4 weeks to go to Burrendong Dam in Central Tablelands to chase Yellowbelly, Murray Cod and Redfin.

Everytime I was about to leave Sydney, there was rain and more rain and so on Tuesday I met up with a friend at Burrendong Dam ready to be washed out, however we did not get any rain for the time we were on the water. With the recent rains, Burrendong was rising and the last I noticed it was at 15%. I think it was getting toward 20% now and the main ramp has some water over it. Parts of the dam had nearly 100ft of water in it.

What was surprising was that the water looked like it had the algae on it, like we saw in Warragamba dam. It looked yuk.

Well at 8 am we decided to have a go anyway and see if we could find some clean water.

As we motored out we saw fish on the sounder under the murk and thought that this cant be right. Well we turned left from the ramp and started trolling and within 300 yards of the ramp I get a hit and up came a lovely 42 cm yellowbelly. Started trolling again and my friend Ron hooked up and this fish really put on a show. It turned out to be a 50 cm Murray cod. The cod was released for another day.

We then caught two other yellowbelly's in the next few hrs and numerous hits. The water temp was 24.3 and the sounder was telling us that the fish were sitting at 4.5 metres down so we used lures that dived to that depth.

We then moved down to the main wall and there was not as much activity there.

Then I had hooked up on a snag and spent a minute trying to get the lure off it by backing up the boat.

I had given up on my lure, when suddenly the line moved downwards and the fight was on with another yellowbelly again 42 cm and really golden in color. It must have wrapped me around a log and then swum back out, it was a real nice surprise.

Continued trolling and finally lost my favorite lure and gave up for the day.

What started out looking as being a crook day, ended up with being my best in lure fishing in freshwater for years.

It just showed that even if the water looks crap, have a go.

David

[pappy]

Good report David, I live in Gulgong, NSW a 1 Hr drive from Burrendong, the fishing looks to be improving

in the dam might have to dive it a go myself, the yellow belly have also been biting well in Windermere, should try that one day. Regards Dave

[sanger]

nice work mate!

Sounds like you guys had some fun!!!!

[Steve Mc]

What lure worked the best?

[lancer]

What lure worked the best?

Hi Steve

The lure that did that caught the most fish was a 6" storm deep diver. This was a long minnow type and you had to hold the rod because as soon as you felt a bump you let the rod go backward a little bit in case it was a snag. You didnt need to strike hard if there was a fish as they where hitting fairly hard.

The cod took a tilsan deep diver that was 4" long.

I was just told by my mate that Burrendong dam has just been closed because of Blue Green Algae last night.

This I suppose was to be expected but the fish are there and are in the mood to bite, so if you want to go for the sport, have fun.

I cleaned the fish we caught and they seemed very healthy and it seemed to me that the muck was just on the surface and fish were deep down.

Pappy if you can get hold of some small yabbies take those. I found yabbies in three of the yellowbelly.