New PB, but where to now…

[Ragnar]

Growing up in Canberra I was lucky enough to have access to some great native inhabited waters, being LBG, Murrumbidgee river, Googong and the mountain lakes Jindabyne and Eucumbene (although trout aren’t necessarily native, they seem to fall into that category), but I never had the opportunity to chase what I would now deem to be my favourite species, Bass. 
Since moving to Sydney, around 7 years ago, I have dedicated countless hours fishing through rain, hail or shine (if you count moon shine) chasing Bass, in particular on surface at night time. Starting in a local smaller residential lake, honing my technique until I had the place wired. I had a circuit of about half a dozen spots around the lake that I would work my way through, I found some produced more numbers and others produced a better class of fish but I could go there on any given night and I would rarely walk away without netting a fish or 2. I remember the first time I took one of my mates to this lake. I told him ‘see those lillipads right there’ maybe 15-20 metres off the bank. I said ‘put your cast within half a metre of them’. My mate made his cast and it landed perfectly within half a meter of the lillipads. The lure wasn’t in the water 10 seconds, then boom, he was on to his first bass. It was this little lake the sparked the surface addiction for me. Since then, me and my mate have fished countless locations, always seeking new ground and of course bigger fish!

I’ll never forget this one magical session we had around 4-5 years ago at another lake. It was early Spring and we were lucky enough to time our session with a hatching of flying ants. We got to the lake that we were going to fish and I reckon every fish in that lake was smashing the surface. I have never seen anything in freshwater like it. We were using our tried and true lures for this spot, soft shell cicadas and what I would call my donut busting lure, the Taylor made Jimmy lizard. What we found though, is they were that focused on the smaller insects that we were struggling to get any hits. And this was so frustrating because we knew the fish were there, they were everywhere! My mate had just started tying his own flies and he had a couple in his tackle box. But the next problem we had was how are we going to cast these with spin gear. So we both tied on cicada lures and removed the back trebles and tied on another leader to the back point of the lure which we then tied these flies to. We then started picking up fish left right and centre.  Mate even managed a double hook up, one on the cicada and one on the fly! When we were landing the fish we noticed their throats were absolutely full of these flying ants. The biggest fish that we landed, well, my mate landed haha was 42cm. And we were both so stocked to see one of that size. That will be a night I’ll never forget!

Another night we fished this back creek, starting at our access point which was a bridge we managed to pick a few up and then we started to explore from there. Sneaking into paddocks and walking ages in the darkness finding new ground. We even got chased out of the paddock by horses in the pitch black darkness! That wasn’t fun Haha So we went down the other side of the bridge and climbed through waist deep grass to access this little spot where we had heard a big boof. We were fishing there for about 5-10 minutes and my mate screamed out, $H!t, a snake! I was jumping around looking at the ground going ‘WHERE, WHERE?!’ And he points to the tree next to him where there was a 2m+ diamond python sitting in wait for some unsuspecting possum to come walking past! We high tailed it out of there and left him to do his thing.

I managed to pull my PB from another spot on the same creek not long after this, it went 39cm. Since then, I have researched and fished so many places within reasonable driving distance trying to find the most likely spot where I would come across a 40cm+ Bass. And I sort of stumbled onto what is now my new favourite spot about 2-3 months ago. The first time I fished it, I cracked the 40cm mark and upgraded my PB to 43cms. I was stoked!! I remember thinking, how long is it going to take me to break that. Was it going to be another 4 year slog, or have I finally found a magical Bass haven.?!

This brings me to my last session there…

Where I upgraded my PB to something I never thought that I could achieve. I will attach pics/vids below.

Now this has created somewhat of a fishing philosophical conundrum for me.

Where to now…

Having caught a fish that I never thought was possible, knowing how much time and effort I dedicated, is beating it now insurmountable? How do I generate the motivation to fish for Bass where my fishing motivation comes from wanting to catch the next biggest fish….

[Ragnar]

 

[Ragnar]

 

[Ragnar]

 

[Little_Flatty]

1 hour ago, Ragnar said:

Having caught a fish that I never thought was possible, knowing how much time and effort I dedicated, is beating it now insurmountable? How do I generate the motivation to fish for Bass where my fishing motivation comes from wanting to catch the next biggest fish….

Easy! Find a 44cm model! 🤣

Or start fly fishing and get one on fly, if you haven't already! Could be a heck of a challenge, on those creeks, it probably will eventually involve 7ft rods and a lot of practice to get the accuracy, plus adventures on more conventionally fly-fishable waters. But it's fun! I can attest to that, both the grind and the fun.

Well done, that's a stonker bass.

[bessell1955]

Nice fish, well done.

[DerekD]

Hi @Ragnar,

Congratulations on cracking the half meter on a bass. 53cm will be a struggle to beat but the record on Fishraider is 58cm so they are out there.

Looking forward to seeing your PB increase incrementally.

I enjoyed the report and thank you for sharing.

Regards,

Derek

[Ragnar]

@Little_Flatty have a look at the second vid mate. The one I caught was 53cms, I was throwing 44cms models back in disappointment after lol but yea other methods like fly could be a possibility.

@DerekD cheers mate, definitely one I’m proud of achieving! It will be very tough to beat, bigger ones are out there though, might just be another million casts til I cross paths with one!

[big Neil]

Thanks for sharing your Bass journey with us Ragnar, I enjoyed reading it. Only you can decide "where to next" as you look to maintain the drive that keeps you fishing. You have certainly caught some excellent Bass and that has provided you with the enjoyment to stick with it. So do you chase the 58 cm Fishraider record or do you seek a new challenge? Indeed, do you take both challenges on board? Whatever you decide to do will be enjoyable for you, and enjoyable for us reading about it. 

Cheers, bn

[Yowie]

Great story, great fish. Records are made to be broken, and you have been having fun at the same time.

[Little_Flatty]

16 minutes ago, Ragnar said:

 

@Little_Flatty have a look at the second vid mate. The one I caught was 53cms, I was throwing 44cms models back in disappointment after lol but yea other methods like fly could be a possibility.

 

Apologies, 10pm is a very late night for me (!) and I was rushing to prep for an early morning session! Hence the numerical error…

That makes it even bigger. Well done, that’s a cracker bass. No more of them 44cm tiddlers😎

[Subtropic]

Really enjoyed reading your story. I am intrigued where the first lake is? It resonated with me as I have a number of spots locally which I fish for bass at night when I don’t have much time.

[Ganguddy Goodoo]

Enjoyed the story. Love bass. I've never had the patience and dedication to chase big fish. I just enjoy fishing new water ... so just another type of bushwalking for me. Have you considered changing things up and trying to catch fish in as many different places as possible ... maybe explore all those rivers coming into estuaries and rivers on the south coast. You might be able to keep things interesting and your motivation up and occasionally a big fish will reach the net. I've met a few local Canberra trout fishos who chased big fish in the spawn run when they were younger but as they got older prefer to avoid the crowds and chase smaller fish on dry flys in remoter water. 

[Ragnar]

@Subtropic cheers mate! It’s in Sydney, that’s all I’ll say lol If you have a look on the DPI website it lists lakes and rivers that have been stocked with what type and how many fish etc, so that should be a good starting point. 

[Ragnar]

@Ganguddy Goodoo I’d like to try some of the small back waters down the south coast, but I’m too far away these days. Maybe one day I’ll get back down there. I think if I was to travel to specifically chase Bass I would go north. Mid-Northern NSW has some amazing river systems to chase the bigger models so that might be my next adventure! Yea the spawn run can be interesting haha people get very territorial on their spots along the rivers up there, not really my cup of tea. Id rather go to NZ and have a chance to catch a 30lb+ monster trout, which I was lucky enough to try on my honeymoon a few years ago haha but wasn’t able to get onto one that size. Did pull a 10lb hen brown though which was cool, saw a bloke land an 18lb rainbow. It was ridiculous!! To think they get double that size really blows me away! 

[Ragnar]

@Yowie thanks mate! Yea I’ve had some funny nights out chasing them! From cracking cricket scores to getting mates and my missus on to their first top water bass has been special! I can’t wait til my kids are a little bit older and I can take them out to experience it with them as well! 

[Ragnar]

@big Neil thanks mate. I might spend some time to really nut out some other spots around where I picked this big girl up. I definitely think there are other opportunities for that class of fish in the system. Might have to take the boat out and do some exploring!

[Fried Rice]

The first time I went bass fishing was when I used to live at Dee Why, so I tried Manly Dam using small plastics. Got a couple of small ones in the first half an hour or so and was stoked.

Then I dropped a plastic to the bottom off the Dam wall. A couple of twitches and the rod buckles over and the drag starts to sing. Eel? Carp?

After a long hard fight a massive bass appeared on the surface absolutely buggered.

I jumped in and spent about 10 minutes reviving it. Never put it on a tape but it measured from my fingertip to my elbow, about 50Cm.

Haven't bothered much with Bass after that.

[Subtropic]

On 8/29/2023 at 4:39 PM, Fried Rice said:

The first time I went bass fishing was when I used to live at Dee Why, so I tried Manly Dam using small plastics. Got a couple of small ones in the first half an hour or so and was stoked.

Then I dropped a plastic to the bottom off the Dam wall. A couple of twitches and the rod buckles over and the drag starts to sing. Eel? Carp?

After a long hard fight a massive bass appeared on the surface absolutely buggered.

I jumped in and spent about 10 minutes reviving it. Never put it on a tape but it measured from my fingertip to my elbow, about 50Cm.

Haven't bothered much with Bass after that.

I live on the Clarence and never scored a 50cm model. Very jealous.

[Ragnar]

@Subtropic that’s wild, I know that river is renowned for big bass!!!