Awoonga donut 5/9

[Bugeye]

Just a quick report on a trip to awoonga yesterday. Fished mainly the Iveragh Creek arm of the dam, focusing on shallow bays as that was where we found the warmest water. Found water with temperatures pushin 22 degress, compared to bays in the main basin which were around the 18 degree mark. Didn make any difference for us though as we couldn get a hit from 6 hours casting. We fished with slick rigs, B52s, Classics, Richos, Berkley soft plastics, and even gave a tango dancer a whirl for a while.. just could not get a hit. Was a nice day though, reasonably hot, blue skies and a bit of wind. Caught up with a few boats at the boat ramp and it seemed there were not too many fish caught, with only one boat reporting a 570 and a 800, of which one was caught in the sticks and one caught in a shallow bay on a gold bomber. Down Iveragh Creek we counted 6 dead barra, all around the 80-100cm range. They looked like they had been dead for a while, a week maybe? I assume they died from the cold in august?
Good to hear if anyone else had any success over the weekend, and what yas did different?

Cheers Matt

[ethan1]

Very similar to our trip to monduran over the last 3 days. We had 4 sessions for approx 20 hrs of casting. For 1 catfish. Hard work but cant to get back when weather heats up things.

[mikooh]

Gee, I hope things warm up before the 5/10.... Thanks for the update.

Mick

[vet]

Hello Bugeye, We were out yesterday afternoon as well. Luckily for us we found a few patches of fish but we didn't fish them too hard because of the comp on this coming weekend. We landed 3 around a metre or just over on b52 and 1 on a soft plastic from a single submerged stick pile around 5 in the afternoon. Then we moved into shallow flats just after dark and had 5 hookups on soft plastics by 7pm so we decided to leave rather than sting them all. It was definitely better than the 3 consecutive donuts last weekend. The fish are very hit and miss at the moment with very little predictability about them so it is quite easy to go home empty handed.
cheers scott.

[Bugeye]

thanks for lettin me know how you went scott. we kept moving around tryin to find somewhere that had active fish, but obviously couldnt get one to bite. i think our main problem was that we focused mainly on the one arm of the dam? the theory behind that though was the wind blowing in that direction.. so we thought the warmer water would be there. anyway its good to see someone catchin em.. was quite frustrating for me being the first trip there in a while with big expectations. what part of the dam did yas fish if you dont mind? dont be too specific, just a general idea? and any reason why you fished there?

cheers matt

[Awoonga]

Iveragh Creek has been cold as of late Matt even the main basin is warmer.

[Bugeye]

Ah rito awoonga, as i said we didnt explore much... Straight up, went to a bay that fished well last time which is off the main basin but found the water there to be colder than the main basin itself.. so we moved on... down iveragh where we found warmer water... and stayed down that part assuming that was the wamest. haha wrong turn..
thanks anyway

[SeekingBarradise]

Hi Bugeye good on you for posting even if you didn't get the outcome you hoped for. Atleast by going on your trip you will learn a lot more than staying at home mate.

Your report lets everyone know what is really happening e.g. there are thousands of combined donuts every year on our bass/ barra impoundments, however in the media only fish caching reports get a run, hence the false fishing economy and high expectations from all of us which is followed by disappointment if we don't catch fish.

Having said this there are a few locals with much higher success rates because they have a great understanding of the awoonga system which is the result of a lot of practise and some observational learning from other boats on the water. (Guides & hard core social fisho's).

With all those guys on the water it's impossible for an angler not to learn atleast 10 tips a day from these smart fisho's. E.g. a couple of spot changes per day, changing of locations with each days different weather, how long an area was worked, techniques used and the many characteristics of the regions fished matched to the weather etc etc. Multiply this by a few years and all of a sudden it's possible to be armed with 10 000 small but important barra clues.

Multiply this by a few more years and in my opinion one could store limitless files of barra information in a few short years if observation and thinking is high on the agenda. Especially when you compare it to just fishing a dam by yourself as a travelling angler, where you never got to talk to anyone to compare results and find solutions to hard days etc. You can still learn, but not at the same rate.

Awoongs is still the number 1 place to serve a Barra apprenticeship for accelerated learning, that's for sure. It's still the Mecca.

It's good to see a couple of locals (Trev & Scott) giving you a hand on here mate.
Those 2 catch a lot of fish. You could do worse than to say gday to them when you are up there next.

Awoonga is a beautiful place, get back up there and have another crack.
Cheers Lyndon.

[Bugeye]

Thanks Lyndon. I will be back... maybe even this weekend, not sure though with the comp bein on. Im pretty fortunate and live at rockhampton so its a pretty quick trip for me. I have 3 day weekend every weekend so ill be making quite a few trips over the next couple of months to learn as much as i can for myself.
Cheers matt

[vet]

Hello Bugeye, Fishing right up the ends of the various arms is usually a good ploy at this time of year particularly ivereagh as they do warm up faster than the main basin. Unfortunately they also cool faster when it's cold so it can be a bit hit and miss until the weather stabilizes and we stop getting cold nights. I have been keeping an eye on that section of the dam myself waiting for the action to start because when it does it is definitely one of the best places to be in spring, it just wasn't happening there last weekend, but it could be this weekend.
One important thing to remember is that the hottest water in the dam doesn't mean fish will be there, even in winter. I demonstrated this to a travelling ausfisher yesterday. We went on a fishing tour of the closer parts of the dam because of the 20 knots of southerly, we found water up to 23 degrees C but we caught the fish in the coldest place that we fished where the water was only 20.1 degrees C. A fish living in 18 degrees C in the main basin doesn't know that it is 23 degrees up the top of ivereagh or the boyne arm, but what that fish knows is that it got a bit warmer today than yesterday so it feeds. The fish are everywhere, you just gotta hit onto a time and place that they are feeding, much easier said than done at the moment.
cheers scott.

[Bugeye]

Once again Vet thanks. Very helpful information for me (and probably a few others) right there. There certainly is alot to learn and think about.