Colo River Bass & Freshwater Flathead

[jdanger]

Fished the Colo with a retired workmate last Friday, spending a lot of time on the river flats, targeting shallow, shady snags.

Mullet were everywhere and plenty of rat bass were caught on shallow divers in the channels near the banks, often in a foot or less of water. Largest went to Chris and guestimeasured in the late 30's but the average fish would've been low 20's. The clear water made for some good visual fishing despite the cooler weather deterring a strong surface bite.

Highlight(s) of the day were us spooking a couple of healthy plate sized duskies right up in the fresh. Even managed to get one on film.

 

[Chaohuang]

Wow, such a beautiful and fishy place, nice video as well!

[big Neil]

Great video mate, loved it. Never heard of freshwater flatties before. Never too old to learn something. Cheers, BN

[fragmeister]

Very well put together.

Enjoyed watching that.

Cheers

Jim

 

[blackfish angler]

Nice video fished there many years ago top spot for bass .

[frankS]

Right up there, what a great way to spend some quality time with nature.

One of my very favorite places to be.

 

Frank

[PST115hp]

Awesome video guys, just the motivation I needed to get back out there.

[Day's Fishin]

A lot of small flathead get caught around the mouth of the colo opposite the ramp some of which venture up further under the bridge.

After a long dry spell the water gets a little salty and they go in further.

Be carefull walking in shallow water near the banks as snakes are in abundance along the colo, not long ago a little girl was bitten by a brown that swam out to her near the colo bridge that crosses the putty.

The Hawkesbury is very quiet at the moment due to the huge tidal flow, even the prawn trawlers are battling to fill orders.

Jeff

[exhail]

Favourite place to fish in sydney, favourite Aussie band and favourite video on fishraider. Well done champ ??

[GordoRetired]

Great video. Never heard of fresh water flatties. Always learning :-)

[NBFisho]

Looks like an awesome days fishing fun.. 2 thumbs up on the video work as well.

[rippinlips]

Thanks for the memories. Fished it 25 years ago and had some fun. You should hit the Grose river as well, always did better there...fly works well in that shallow water and little gutters  on the edge with short casts anyone can do it...

A little Colo story from back in the day...some mates i knew were fishing it and noticed a pump line and followed it up to a special plant set up!!! 

[jdanger]

Cheers guys, glad to get the seal of approval.

Definitely a very pretty stretch of water.

This was my first time fishing the Colo and as its the last seemingly pristine waterway within a Cooee of Sydney, it deserves some serious respect.

8 hours ago, GordoRetired said:

Great video. Never heard of fresh water flatties. Always learning :-)

On 16/12/2016 at 4:14 AM, big Neil said:

Great video mate, loved it. Never heard of freshwater flatties before. Never too old to learn something. Cheers, BN

The bloke I was fishing with has been fishing the Colo for the past 50 years, give or take. He's heard of one flatty caught up as far as we were in that time, so seeing two in a day was pretty special.

There were heaps of mullet around and as Day's Fishin says below, they move up during a dry spell and we were up there just before this week's rain.

 

15 hours ago, Day's Fishin said:

A lot of small flathead get caught around the mouth of the colo opposite the ramp some of which venture up further under the bridge.

After a long dry spell the water gets a little salty and they go in further.

Be carefull walking in shallow water near the banks as snakes are in abundance along the colo, not long ago a little girl was bitten by a brown that swam out to her near the colo bridge that crosses the putty.

Water was drinkable where we were so the flatties seemed pretty well out of place. Colour change was amazing on them - I knew they changed their mottles to suit the environment but I didn't realise the extent. White as on the sand, and by the time I found the second one in the snag, I thought she was a piece of submerged timber!

Chris alerted me to the snake danger as well. In the shallows, he's come across red bellies that look like sticks, basking on the sand bars in the sun. Lucky we were there on a cooler day!

9 hours ago, exhail said:

Favourite place to fish in sydney, favourite Aussie band and favourite video on fishraider. Well done champ ??

Glad to share, mate. Half the fun with these videos is listening to a good track on repeat through the editing process

2 hours ago, rippinlips said:

Thanks for the memories. Fished it 25 years ago and had some fun. You should hit the Grose riever as well, always did better there...fly works well in that shallow water and little gutters  on the edge with short casts anyone can do it...

A little Colo story from back in the day...some mates i knew were fishing it and noticed a pump line and followed it up to a special plant set up!!! 

So THAT'S what the giant hose in the middle of the river was! 

[edit] Got an order in for a Loomis fly rod due to land early Jan, a Tassie trout trip booked for Feb, and just got a second hand vice from another workmate.

Fishing is about to get a lot more addictive.

Edited December 17, 2016 by jdanger
missed a bit

[Surfacejunky]

Awesome read and watch. I have always wanted to fish the colo in my yak, where abouts is a good place to launch mate?

 

[DMG]

Nice video,nice flicking.

[josamill]

Caught a big flattie at Tuross in a metre of drinkable fresh water 20kms inland, but someone suggested the bottom 1/4 of the water column was probably brackish.

Beautiful video mate - who couldn't love fishing after seeing that!!