Operation Shock and Pop X - Part 2

[5Zigen]

Onto some other fishies:

Lake Cania:

This trip was with none other that our new mate Trev. There’s usually the initial awkwardness, feeling out period and general getting to know you type of deal with new fishing mates, but with Trev, everything was easy and we were taking the piss out of each other pretty quick. Lucky for us, Trev loves fishing Cania, and also lucky for us, Trev was more than willing to play host to a couple of strange Sydneysiders. And he was all dressed up for the trip. Berkley - No 1 on the water baby! Seriously though, thanks for being so generous with your time and advice

Not so lucky was the kangaroo that zigged instead of zagged. Suddenly the night was split into two distinct times. Before-very very sleepy Matt. After – eyes peeled and completely awake and watching out for kangaroos and cattle.Funnily enough tho, a field rat running across the road got more of a reaction from Trev than the many 'roos and cattle we passed. Go figure!

The rest of the journey to Cania was thankfully, uneventful. Except for the rain yet again. What the overcast conditions was good for though, was an extended bite period for topwaters. All of us caught a bunch of fish on poppers (Pop X and Bubble Pops). Most of the fish were pretty small though, and not in very good condition. Completely missing dorsal fins, red sores and anorexic bass were the order of the day. The highlight of my day though, was my first silver perch and first Saratoga(woohoo!), caught on a TN60 of the Iyoken(re: very loud) variety. The lowlight was Darryl’s pb bass of abt 38cm, doing an excellent impression of a wet bar of soap, slipping out of Darryls hands, bouncing on the deck once, then sliding gracefully back into the water before we could take pics. So tragic and comical at the same time. Thankfully this fish would be irrelevant after Lake Gregory…..

Thanks for the company Trev.....and thanks for wolfing down all our Chicken in a Biskit mate!

The only Saratoga for the trip, for the one person that has never fished for or caught one, lucky me! What an awesome little fish....



The one that didnt get a away from Darryl.Note the missing dorsal fins...poor fella



Dang Kangaroo had the audacity to break one of Trev's Spotties.





Lake Wuruma:

This place is a sorry sight atm, water looks really really low and not a proper boat ramp to be seen. The makeshift dirt ramp ppl were using really is only suitable for small boats with 4wd…

One thing that I remember most clearly abt the place? Cow poop. Lots and lots of cow poop! All over the place.

Trev hoping against hope that this ramp would be serviceable



No Trev, we definitely do not want this poor dead turtle for turtle soup



Um,nope,scooters dont work in the mud




Lake Gregory/Isis Impoundment

Awesome! Another new place to go to! Darryl and I were on our own for this trip, as poor Trev had more mundane responsibilities to attend to, namely go to work bahahaha. This place is in the middle of Nowheresville. Took us an hour longer than normal to get to this place, the meeting with the kangaroo spooked us a bit so we erred on the side of caution.

This place is interesting to say the least. The ramp, if u can call it that, was just dirt leading into gravel. Darryl’s ute was into the water up to the door sills, and the exhaust was right into the water. Even so, we had to manhandle the boat into the water, at which point the prop was doing it best playing grinder to the gravel underneath. One quick inspection of the aluminium prop showed no signs of damage later, we were off.

3 friendly blokes were already fishing out of a tinny, and doing quite well thank you very much. They landed abt 4-6 fish whilst we fished a long way behind them. That didn’t do much for our confidence as to that point, we hadnt even had a touch on our lures. Tried everything, spinnerbaits (evergreen D Zone,OSP High Pitcher,TN60s and Cherrys etc). Not to worry, we did a quick sounding out of the area, and realized that this would be like no other lake that we’ve fished before.

Lake Gregory, atm, doesn’t really have an edge bite per se. Its really quite interesting. You can see awesome thick weed and lilypads right by the shoreline, but u just cant reach it as its too congested in there. So for the non locals fishing in the dam, its very much a random affair as to where u start to fish, at least initially. We pretty much just leccied and drifted right near the middle of dam, trying to keep our boat close to some nice looking weed, in around 10-15 ft of water and casting into waters around 3 to 10 ft of water (ie above submerged weed)where we hoped that bass would be socializing. No luck initially, but one move later and I saw a slightly different splash (as opposed to the other billion splashes u might see that’s just little batifish flicking around) ….quick leccy around to have the wind behind us Darryl shoots his Pop X in there and whammo…PB here comes Darryl! Not huge at 40.5 cm fork but at least Dazza is off the mark with a pb. Cania misery eliminated tyvm.

Next move proved the most fruitful. Went to the end of one of the arms and what greeted us were lillypads. Lots and lots of lilypads. Darryl and I were debating abt what we were looking at. Darryl said it was just one long extention of a point (land), it looked like lots of lilypads to me….thats how thick and far out the lilypads were.

As we got closer and closer, the more splashes and flicks we could see. A couple of baitfish meeting their untimely end later, the leccy was down and we were throwing lures towards the weed,lilypads and bass's version of boofs, a long looong way from the shore. This was the beginning of a very cool bite, fish after fish were hitting our lures. It was something akin to a salmon bite, boils everywhere except on a smaller scale, freshwater style! We landed most of the fish we hooked, which were weren’t very big at all but it was so much fun. The one big fish I hooked, was the one fish that I lost. Also on the Pop X, and cast right after a big bass hit and missed a baitfish. The swirls had barely subsided when I cast right into the side of it, bass on! and it went straight into a clump of weed. Doh! I hooked up right at the end of the cast, so we were a long way from the fish. By the time we got there, all I could see was my lure buried in the weed and the fish was gooooone.

I was forced to do a corny rod in the mouth pic,Sorry! See the background? This place sure is purdy.....



One of Darryl's,yep, on our trusty Pop X



Only other boat on the water..parked kinda close to the middle of the ramp.Still has a very casual, low key 'local's only' feel lol. I hope it stays this way....






Doh! Moments for the entire trip:

Snake trying to climb on board via the prop at Awoonga. Note to self: no swimming too close to land.

Darryl dropping this pb bass from Cania like a wet bar of soap – squeezed out of his hand, one bounce on the deck and gracefully slid back into the water.

Driving off whilst the wheel clamp(cheap one from Ebay) was still on the trailer. The thing barely put up a fight and snapped off way too easily. This was probably a good thing, as there was no damage to the trailer whatsoever.

Defibrillator moment: Matt: Wouldn’t it be great if a fish smacks one of our lures right next to the boat, whilst its pitch black? A few seconds later….WHAM, Darryls frog gets smacked abt 2 feet from his rod tip.

Dolphin moment: A barra tried to absolutely decimate my lure but only succeeded in head butting my trusty Imakatsu Trairao, throwing the lure are 6 ft vertically into the air and I saw it all under the moonlight. It was so funny for the first few seconds, then it was pure grrrrrr that it didn’t hook up.


Misc:

Yep,barra dont mind big baits.On one day,nothing else drew any interest,except for this one.



Xmas Dinner - Prawns,Oysters, Hans Ham and Pasta salad



Didnt catch a whole lot of catfish (woohoo!) This was the smallest I've ever seen.



Check out how yellow this puppy was!




Anyway, thats all folks!

Matt

[Barry Ehsman]

Mate great report,,,,, sound's like a great trip...

Cheers Baz

[robersl]

one of the best reports i have read in ages on several different dams well done

shane

[NAGG]

What a top road trip ........ & great report to go with it

Chris

PS ..... Trevs certainly been in the wars in recent times

[leelee]

Nice work there guys.

What an awsome road trip.

Good to see Trev making a celebrity appearance.

Darryl where abouts are you located now? Are you up around the Ballina area yet?

Cheers

Lee

[Big_Ren]

Just as pleasureable to read as the barra report. Superb, and some oh no moments. Love the crazy big lure...it needs its own saddle.

[5Zigen]

Thanks guys.

Lee, Darryl's having issues joining the site...will have it sorted soon I'm sure. In any case, yep, he's in Ballina...

Ren...big as this LP is, my R2S Rover is even bigger....but I forgot to pack that along with the 10 billion other lures I took along doh!

[SeekingBarradise]

Another great report fella's, it should motivate people to go fishing, job done i reckon.

Cheers Lyndon.

[leelee]

Lee, Darryl's having issues joining the site...will have it sorted soon I'm sure. In any case, yep, he's in Ballina...

Thanks mate.

Let him know that i was asking about him and tell him we will have to catch up for a fish, that is if he can remember me ha ha ha ha ha

Cheers

Lee