ONE of the keys of significance in all 'Man versus the Wilderness' situations, is the fact of changing seasons. How they help highlight the changing playing field is of importance if hunters or anglers want to get a handle on how to approach each day in the outback or every day on the water. I see many chapters that apply to all three of these interests; filming, fishing and hunting. Like it or not, our level playing field is not level; or if it is, it is not level for very long. We have our fishing tackle, our film cameras, our rifles, bows and so on. In all of those fields, there are countless types of tools that we call upon to use to our advantage. Not any single piece of weaponry is the right choice every time.
I remember years ago when I hunted an outback paddock. The grass was long, the pigs were fat, they camped in the long grass on the flats, and short range shooting was the key to success. In that example, if a hunter had returned to that paddock 12 months later armed with a pistol, and a brain that was expecting the same scenes to unfold, he or she would most likely be sadly disappointed. I did that exact thing, but this time around I was faced with drought, no grass, kilometres of open paddocks, no long range shooting equipment and no pigs in sight. What had happened, where had that scene gone, and lastly, how do I get it back? The truth is, that exact scene may never come back, not in 100 years, and the point of difference is that I had to search for the 'new chapter' that had been created by Mother Nature.
In this case, the pigs camped about 5 kilometres from this same point, high in the hills, returning to the low lands on dusk and after dark. To find them camped up by day was difficult in the heavy, noisy terrain of mountainous country. To sneak up close when they wandered into the open was a mammoth task to ask. Simply, I never had the ideal equipment required to put to use at that time. I needed a camera with a 30 X zoom to produce any kind of decent image, but fading light made that part a bit of a problem also. My results were poor until I changed tact, re adressed the situation and worked within the chapter. Why all this talk about feral pigs? Well, we can simply change suits here and apply the same thoughts onto our inland lakes, whether it is for bass fishing or for barramundi fishing. To race for a barramundi lake this season and expect to find the water and environment exactly the same as last season is way off track; hence why the changing seasons and changing dynamics of any waterway needs close attention on every visit. For example, Lake Awoonga is going through a chapter where mass weed banks are breaking down quickly and dissolving. There are no distinct weed edges or plants reaching a climax at this point in time. In a few months time, another chapter will unfold. Lake Monduran has recently had a small water rise and it is going through a phase where submerged land plants are decaying and rotting, hidden below a metre of water. Each lake has a different chapter in operation. 12 months ago, both lakes were operating in chapters far opposeed to what I just described, and their inhabitants, the barramundi were operating in modes that suited those situations.

This scene may just be a one off situation that never ever repeats itself in one hundred years. This exact water level, the air temperature, the water temperature, the plant life on the bank and the amount of weed in the lake may never align the same way ever again. Our lakes are new waterholes every season, the fish adjust to exist within, and new rules can apply in each chapter.

Basically, we have any lake's very existence as a standard given. Imagine it just like a book on the shelf. Within it are many chapters that are created by the changing seasons. Not only is it up to an angler to firstly identify the chapter, the next skill set is to be able to discover what page you are on. Once you realise the chapter and the page number you can then proceed to apply the tactics required to get the best out of that situation. Each and every new day represents a new page until finally after many days, that chapter will end and a new one will form around you. Survival skills of the human being start with a process of tuning in to what is going on around you and forming a game plan from which should best give you some kind of success. Like I have said for years, every chapter often deserves a new approach, which from a fishing angle means a new lure style, a new technique and a new way of thinking to get the best out of the situation. We have to blend in, and discover what the fish is doing, work out why the fish is behaving like it is and marking that down for future reference. To say that lake such and such will be in its prime in 6 months time is a wild call that could be so wrong. As anglers, we will discover that a different kind of lure will help in each chapter, some lures that have done extremely well in the past may just be useless in the up and coming chapters. To leave a lake and head home saying that the fishing was bad is sometimes another way of saying that as anglers we failed to discover what chapter was in operation.
Happy Reading,(Books, Chapters and Pages that is.)

Johhny Mitchell