Australia Day 2015
Fishing for natives in our impoundments can be tough. It takes a lot of planning, preparation, checking weather forecasts, organizing time off work, preparing tackle etc. But if the fish aren’t willing to play all the best laid plans go to waste. I am happy to say this was not the case with my recent trip to Clarrie Hall. One of the most beautiful dams in Australia.
It was an extremely hot and humid day and shortly after I put the boat on the water I had to seek shade for an hour or so. This gave me some time to collect some underwater footage and do a little research as to the bass’ potential food source. There was certainly plenty of bait fish swimming amongst the lilly pads. Probably Firetail Gudgeon and Gambusia. So I made a mental note to collect some next time for identification.
The other thing I noticed is there appeared to be more weed than usual. There has always been a thick perimeter of lilly pads around the edge of the lake with another rim of feathery submerged weed, I identified as Ambulia, leading into deeper water. I think this ambulia has spread since last I visited the dam and it is my theory that the extra cover provided by the weed has drawn the bass out of from under the lily pads thus making them more susceptible to angling. In any case the fishing was great!
I worked the edges of the ambulia with hard bodies, jerk baits, soft plastic frogs and dahlberg diver flies. I caught fish on all my presentations and finished the trip with about 12 bass. Watching the bass crash tackle the surface flies is always a highlight! As usual the bass aren’t huge in Clarrie Hall but they are a robust and hard fighting population with a very respectable average size of around 35cm. I also managed my personal best for Clarrie Hall dam landing a fish of 38.5cm.
Fitzy
