Gail Force Bass

soft-on · December 5, 2008

You might remember that weekend a few weeks ago where we got some of the wildest winds we have had in a while, well I cherish my weekends too much to go and waste it sitting on the couch doing nothing so I packed the rod and lures and headed for a Bass spot I have not fished for a good 18months.

I did try and use some brains to nail down a few spots that I knew would be at least a little protected from the Gail force winds which hammered us on the day. So we headed south to a well known spot near Nowra. The river we were fishing sits neatly packed into a valley where on the day except for the odd gust down the mountain the wind blew straight over us. We were blessed with not much wind but it was patchy rain. Apart from being overcast and windy the humidity hovered nicely at about 70%. We geared up and started the fish/hike up river. The stream that we were fishing on the day isn't the best for a kayak or canoe as the flow isn't all that great and maximum depth is about 3m with an average of about half a meter.

I had been experimenting with the bass around my area whilst they have been fussy lately to actually hold on to any lure and 2 hookups out of 5 strikes had become a regular occurrence in the past month or so. I decided that a not so much more naturally looking lure might work but the feel and texture of the lure could entice a solid chew. You might call me crazy as bass will willingly smash any lure and headphone plugs (as I have experienced before as I leant over a bank and plunk! Gulp!)

I actually tried making some natural feeling lures but just couldn't beat the craftsmanship of a good old koolabung lure which looks like a carve out of Reg Reagan's thong.

We flicked all day with my mate Andy using a buggi pop crawler and myself the soft cicada fizzer. With not much room to move we took turns at casting at spots on the banks which looked like fish holders and taking turns at catching fish. We used a fair amount of stealth as most of the spots we were above the water rather than level with it. We hiked a good 3kms up river hooking up, busting off and landing some really good healthy bass. We reached this spot in the river where it turned to deep to wade or cross and we estimated this 8m wide part of the river was at least 3m deep.

It narrowed up wards from there where we scored a few fish out of the one pool and that continued. I was wading this one pool and Andy decided he would walk the bank ahead of me and being a smart ass cast his lure towards me and it bounced and went under this Rooty and muddy bank and shluurp! He pulled a fish from at my feet

It became slowly apparent that all the walking we had done upstream meant we cold only have one thing left to do….Walk back down stream so we toddled our hungry stomach 3kms back down stream having the odd flick where we had miss fired some bass on the way up.

arpie · December 5, 2008

Great report Cam! Funny your buddy got the fish at your feet!! What is the old saying?? FIsh your feet first!?? Not many of us do (include me in that!!)