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I met up with Josh (Koich) on Saturday around lunchtime for a quick session at Durras lake, at home the weather looked ideal but once i arrived i was greeted by a a decent wind and saw Josh already out on the water working the edges with surface lures. I unloaded the yak as quick as i could and got out to meet him, and was informed that he already had a fish on and a few follows in the few minutes he had been there so it was looking promising. The lake is still closed at the moment and the water level is way down compared to this time last year so most of the usual hot spots now have no water covering the flats, so we were fishing area's i considered a bit too deep in the past.
The Whiting seemed to be very quiet, we hit the shallows hard with no whiting even following the lure but it wasnt long into the session i picked up a bream that went just over 30cm. Working our way upstream drifting with the wind we were both getting good surface strikes and picking up a few smaller bream along the way, until i finally hit a good fish which ended up being a bream that went 38cm. A short time later, Josh got a massive strike and hooked up to a solid Tailor which spat the hook after a bit of a battle.
I wanted to see Josh get a big bream so i left him to drift the last of the weedbed where we were getting most of the action and crossed to the opposite side of the lake and put out a cast to the mouth of a small feeder creek and hooked up again to another good fish, after a good fight on the ultra light gear i boated another bream which measured the same as the last one at 38cm. That was pretty much the last of it for me, Josh managed a few more fish, including another bream, a garfish and a mullet all on the surface. Unfortunately we both had commitments and had to head back in after only a couple of hours on the water but it was a productive short session, and im just glad i could get out at all.
Today, i met up with Stewie (Blueyak) at St.Georges basin, i left home at 4:30am to arrive just before 6am with Stewie arriving about 20mins later. Straight out from the launch spot we found ourselves in some very fishy water and absolutely hammered the area with everything we had looking for Bream but all we could find were Tailor, and plenty of them. No sign at all of bream, and after losing my 5th surface lure to tailor, it started to get quite expensive so we decided to head further down and try a new area, but we kept coming accross such good looking spots and stopping to cast. Stewie hooked onto something that was definately not a Tailor with a soft plastic and pulled up a decent squid which seriously inked the whole front of his yak .
We eventually made it down to the next spot, and being a completely different area than before i flicked the surface lure back out and after about the 279th cast hooked a small bream that would be lucky to measure 20cm's. A few casts later my surface lure got monstered by a big Tailor and i said goodbye to my 6th lure, lure loss was really starting to hurt now, so i got the s#!ts and decided to try deeper water with blades, blades are one lure i have really struggled with in the past so i wasnt real confident but figured it cant hurt to get some practice in, since everyone else seems to do well with them they must work.
Not much happened for the first 10mins, which was not suprising to me, but eventually hooked onto a decent fish which dropped the lure shortly after the hookup. I flicked out another cast and hooked up again, decent weight and a good fight and i pulled in a 35cm snapper, then another the same on the next cast. I was happy to catch a few fish on the blade, but still had not seen any bream, which is what we were after so i pedaled back to drift over the same spot again and hooked up again on the first cast. Much to my suprise i actually landed a bream on the blade which went a touch over 30cm, then another a touch smaller shortly after.
I was really happy with that, so back i went for another drift and on the 3rd cast i got a good hit on the drop and applied pressure, and was pleased to feel a really good weight on the opposite end, this one was fighting hard and was a bit of work to get up off the bottom on the 2lb line, slowly but surely it came up and finally saw some colour and my jaw dropped when i saw the size of it, a very solid and heavy bream which measured 44cm total length and is a new pb yellowfin bream and one of my first few good fish on blades, so i was very pleased with the result and would have been happy if i didnt hook another fish.
It was only 2 or 3 casts later i hooked up again to another good fish which ended up being a 36cm bream, all from the same spot. My leave pass had pretty much expired so i took off to go find Stewie and found him fishing the edge of a deep channel, and was informed he didnt end up hooking any bream, even though he found some solid fish in the shallows but couldnt get them to hit anything. We agreed to head in, we came accross a fella fishing from a Ranger tournament boat, and i just commented to Stewie on how nice it was and how much i would enjoy having one for myself, we heard a familiar voice call out asking us if we were having a bit of a prefish, it turns out it was Steve Feilds, who was also out flicking around for some bream.
We had a quick chat then headed in to pack up and get on our way so we didnt miss our deadlines. We were off the water by 11am but very happy with the end result and i will be heading back again within the next few days for another look around.
(Posted on behalf of Craig '450' Coughlan)
