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I met up with Josh from AKFF this morning for our first session on the Bass this season, there was a bit of a break in the bad weather we have experienced over the whole long weekend so we were keen to make the most of it. We were on the water just after 7am and made our way upstream casting to likely snags along the way, i was working the west side of the river with surface lures while Josh worked the east bank.
I had a Lucky craft Bevy prop on, casting underneath overhanging trees and only a few casts into it i got a solid strike which missed the lure. Another cast into the same spot and the Bass came back for another shot and connected this time, the lure went under and as soon as i got weight on, the lure popped back up, it felt like a reasonable fish but after 5 or 6 more casts I moved on.
About 100m up from the last strike, i threw the lure in behind a shrub up against the bank and only got one twitch of the lure before it was hit, it was only a smaller Bass at 29cm but the first for the season so that will do. The surface hits went very quiet so i changed rods and started to throw the Spinnerbait around and got 3 more about the same size as the first, Josh finally caught up to me and we discussed the session so far and both had similar results, we were getting plenty of follows from bigger bass but none were striking the lures.
The water was clearer than ive ever seen it and the level was down a bit too which wouldnt have helped our situation, but we kept at it and decided to try further upstream in my favourite spot. To get there it involved dragging the yaks accross some rocks and shallow sections but we eventually got in there and no more than 5 metres in, in amongst the shallow weeds a school of around 10 good sized Bass scattered all around me which was quite a sight!
Josh was still getting his yak accross the shallow section and i fired a cast into the corner of the pool and as soon as i started the retreive with the Spinnerbait it got smashed, i forgot how hard these wild Bass fight, i hooked him close to a pile of submerged timber so there was a few tense moments but eventually got him in safely, Got a quick measurement of 42cm, and Josh took a few pics and we sent him back in to catch another day.
A few minutes later, Josh's lure got smacked hard but after a short fight the Bass won and got him behind a big log and managed to shake the hook which is a real pity, i reckon that one would have been the winner for the day. We kept at it, getting plenty of follows and some very small strikes but no more fish. A storm started to roll in and quite suddenly everything went dead, we hadnt spotted a fish, or had any follows so we pulled up stumps and started the very long paddle back just as the rain started.
It was nice to have a few hours without rain this morning and great to get back up to the freshwater after a long closed season...
