Bassin hard for nil result

[paul.kenny]

Hi Raiders,

It has been a while since I have placed a post as I have very busy at work and have not done much fishing. As a consequence I decided to take some leave and compete in my first Bass competition. Bassboy and I entered the NSW BASSIN competition at Lake St Clair in the Hunter Valley over the weekend 2 – 3 July. As we haven’t fished the Lake since January 2010 we travelled up early for a couple days of pre-fishing. This decision was quite fortuitous as the lake levels had recently risen over 1.5 metres as a result of recent flooding in the Hunter Valley. We were also hampered by the fact that our HDS & DSI sounder was being repaired under warranty and Lowrance had temporarily loaned us an older analog sounder .

We departed Sydney on Wednesday 29 June for a 6 day trip to Lake St Clair. Upon arrival it was quite apparent that the water levels had risen quite substantially and there was a lot of flooded grass on the verges. This also allowed us to launch the boat immediately off the bank in front of our campsite.

The intent for the pre-fish was to replicate the sessions for the competition, ie 7am – 11am and 1pm – 5pm. Our first session was am Thursday and we concentrated our efforts along the flooded verges, weed beds and cliff lines. The top of the weed beds were under 9ft of water and in many areas the actual weed beds were growing 5 – 10ft tall……it all looked very promising. We worked hard all morning, using SPs, HBs, spinnerbaits, ice jigs and blades and every technique for donut. Upon return to camp for lunch we had to reconsider our strategy. After a quick chat to the caretaker we decided to spend the afternoon session concentrating on the drops offs on the leeward side of windblown points in 30 – 40ft of water and using a mixture of small blades and SPs. This change of strategy paid dividends with Bassboy immediately getting hits on his 3inch grub. I continued to use blades and 100mm bloodworm wrigglers for naught, whilst Bassboy finally hooked two nice bass. Both of these fish were well feed and fought hard. The 37cm Bass would have come close to being the ‘Big Bass’ for the BASSIN Competition .

Not wanting to spook the fish any further we marked this location and moved onto alternate locations. We used the same technique in numerous locations for no further success. By 5pm we were confident that we had found a couple of excellent locations for the competition and returned to camp. Back at camp we noticed more campsites springing up with fellow competitors arriving for their pre-fish.

Friday morning dawned with perfect conditions and we headed out for another fruitless morning session. After finally working out how to read our loaned sounder we could see schooled and individual fish on the sounder but they weren’t interested in any of our offerings. Upon return to camp at lunch we spoke to a couple of fellow competitors who confirmed that the fish were hard to come by. We fished the afternoon session focusing on the drop offs again, for no success….this did not bode well for the competition .

After a cold night we commenced the competition full of envy as we were surrounded by big Bass boats, who were able to quickly motor off to their preferred fishing locations. There were 53 boats competing in the competition and I reckon at least 30 of those boats were big fiberglass Bass boats.

Our morning plan was to start the session fishing the flooded verges and weed beds. We worked hard throughout the morning for just a single strike that did not result in a hook-up. It was a depressing morning, which was tempered by the fact that we had not seen any other competitors catch a fish. At the first weigh-in only 35 fish were weighed in. During the afternoon session we focused on fishing the drop offs, including the location where Bassboy had success during the pre-fish. Once again we worked hard for donut . At the second weigh-in only 18 fish were weighed in……..it was indeed a tough competition.

Sunday morning dawned with no wind and extremely thick fog.

We decided to head straight out to a large bank of weed beds that we had found the previous day. We worked hard slow rolling SPs and HBs across the weed beds again for a donut. As we headed into the final weigh-in we could hear many other competitors complaining that they had finished the competition with a donut ….we were not alone. During this last session only 17 fish were caught. The winning team had clearly won with full bags during two of the sessions and had fished a single bank for all of their sessions. Surprisingly their approach was similar to ours , except they twitched their SPs as they rolled them over the sunken weed beds.

As the rest of the competitors headed home on Sunday afternoon we remained at Lake St Clair for an additional day and decided to try the winning technique. That afternoon we went searching for a suitable stretch of weed bed and used the winning technique for instant success. In a 2 ½ hour session Bassboy caught a nice 35cm bass and lost another two whilst I caught three well feed bass and lost another two…….a complete contrast to our experience during the competition.

Unfortunately Monday dawned with the frontal system arriving early and after a quick attempt to fish in the strong winds we packed up and headed home. Overall the five days of fishing were challenging, however we learnt some excellent lessons from the experience…we are certainly looking forward to the next BASSIN competition.

[cheder]

great post, practice makes perfect in the tourny game, u should have a bit of ammo now for the next one, u guys should do the australian yellowbelly championships in october, me and iMick are doing it again this year

[paul.kenny]

great post, practice makes perfect in the tourny game, u should have a bit of ammo now for the next one, u guys should do the australian yellowbelly championships in october, me and iMick are doing it again this year

Where do they do the yellowbelly championships? I have a Barra trip to Monduran organised for late September / early October and could swing by for the comp if it is early October.

[johnny doi]

Well done fellas on having a go.you certainly put in the effort during the comp but unfortunately went fishless.its amazing how such a subtle change in retrieve technique can get shutdown fish to bite.all it took was a couple of twicthes in your retrieve to get them to bite.if only you knew that during the comp.oh well thats fishing,we learn everytime wer on the water.good luck in future comps guys.enjoyed reading your post. Cheers johnny.

[Breambucket]

Bad luck guys but some really nice and healthy fish there ! its exciting seeing all the boats line up ready to go first thing in the morning isnt it

I could only imagine how many cast you guys put out over the week! i tried working it out last year on a 2 day comp with a full 3 days of fishing and it was close 800 or so

Where the plastic colours you guys were using naturals?

cheers

pete

[cheder]

Where do they do the yellowbelly championships? I have a Barra trip to Monduran organised for late September / early October and could swing by for the comp if it is early October.

well this will be round 4 of the comp and will be held at burrinjuck dam on the last weekend in october. look up australian yellowbelly championships on google

[paul.kenny]

Bad luck guys but some really nice and healthy fish there ! its exciting seeing all the boats line up ready to go first thing in the morning isnt it

I could only imagine how many cast you guys put out over the week! i tried working it out last year on a 2 day comp with a full 3 days of fishing and it was close 800 or so

Where the plastic colours you guys were using naturals?

cheers

pete

Thanks Pete - we used a mixture of natural colours, dark colour and bright colours throughout the trip. All of my success was with the natural colours, whereas Bassboy had some success with brighter colours....I reckon the retrieve was more important than the colour of the plastic. Cheers Paul

well this will be round 4 of the comp and will be held at burrinjuck dam on the last weekend in october. look up australian yellowbelly championships on google

Thanks Cheder, I will google it and have a look.

[pmak]

Great report Basscatcher - sorry about the results during the comp. I can't imagine the hard yards and endless casting put in for a full day's fishing! Must have been exciting during the beginning of the comp but disheartening towards the end with no fish to weigh in. I'm sure you've learnt heaps in the process and will make amends at the next comp.

[paul.kenny]

Great report Basscatcher - sorry about the results during the comp. I can't imagine the hard yards and endless casting put in for a full day's fishing! Must have been exciting during the beginning of the comp but disheartening towards the end with no fish to weigh in. I'm sure you've learnt heaps in the process and will make amends at the next comp.

Hi PMAK - it was certainly tough fishing and we must have made over a thousand casts during the competition. The most frustrating aspect was being able to see fish on the sounder that refused to take any of our offerings, but we definitely learnt some important lessons for our next competition. cheers Paul

[Lizard Boy]

Bravo dude I've never caught a Bass before but my dad has and he talled me that Bass can get really big but some of those are extrodenerlly big