Full Dams & Detours

[A Marshall]

I headed off early Boxing Day on my solo trip north to Airlie Beach with the intention of spending a few days with some old friends & a bit of time on the dams of NQ.

Well it was raining when I left Rosewood & by the time I got to Gin Gin it was still raining. I called in & said hello to Foxy & see if it was worthwhile trying to fit a day in on Mondy on my way back .(little did I know, hope Foxy & crew all survived the floods OK). As I left Gin Gin the heavens opened & it started to really hose down, this kept up nearly to Rocky where it cleared & left me with a really good run to Airlie.

After a day or two of reunion drinks & meeting people I snuck away by myself & spent a day on Peter Faust Dam. The dam had started spilling for the first time since it was built the day I got up there & reports of Barra going over the wall were starting to spread. The water must have risen quite a way as I was boating among the tree tops in the valleys that I explored. I spent seven hours on the dam from sunrise on & trolled & flicked lures over a fair bit of country with not a touch. There is a lot of country to explore on this dam & I only saw a little bit of it.

 Did a couple of rust water trips with my mate Steve in his Bayliner, nice boat but not a fishing platform, almost felt guilty about boating a fish in it until his mate Richard brought a Trevally in let it bleed on the carpet. Spent a very wet & crazy new years eve in Airlie, made me realise how old I’m getting.

I left Airlie on the 2nd & headed for the Pioneer Valley with the plan to fish Kinchant & Teemburra Dams. I had booked into the Pinnacle Pub which I found in full swing on my arrival. The pub is very popular with weekend tourist traffic & has a real name for its home made pies, which I can guarantee are very nice. The new owners Tamarra & Corry (Ausfish member) are very good hosts & I can reccomend it as a top spot to stay if you are planning any sort of trip up that way. I spent the first day exploring Teemburra Dam which is only ten minutes from the pub. This dam had also just started spilling & more barra were seen taking the plunge, unfortunately this dam has a suicide drop & a lot of fish don’t survive. I sent all day on the dam again trying everything I could for not a bump. Talked to a few guys at the ramp & it was the same story with everybody, the fish had shut down since the dam had risen.
 The next day i went & checked out Kinchant, but with heavy storms & a heap of water lice on the dam I decided to give it a miss & headed back to the pub for another pie & replennish all the lost sweat.Went back to Teemburra for an arvo session, again to no avail, but I did get caught in a storm. I could not see a 100 metres in front of me so I headed for the bank to try & seek some shelter under some bankside vegetation. I tied up to a tree & proceeded to start bailing as the boat was fast filling with water, as I was head down ass up bailing, I got a funny feeling I was being watched, on turning around I came face to face with a young Brahaman bull that did not seem too happy with me invading his bank space.
 Fear of sharing my 3mt boat with a cranky bull saw me taking my chances back out on the open water. Soon after the rain cleared & it turned into a beautiful sunset, but still no fish.
 With the flooding further south I decided to spend another day &  decided to go & explore Eungella Dam. This dam is on top of the range & fairly remote with about 30k’s of very washed out dirt road to access it, but well worth the drive. This dam too had filled very quickly over the last week & was very dirty with a lot of floating weed. I trolled accross the basin & up into the trees, but after numerous snags & lots of weed I headed up valley to try the run in for a sooty as suggested by Dick, thanks mate, this resulted in my first Sooty Grunter & the only sweethwater fish of the trip. The fish was caught using a halfounce white spinnerbait.

With all the reports of flooding to the south I decided I better start thinking about how I was going to get home, so early Thursday morning I bid farewell to the Pinnacle Pub & headed west to try & find a route south. I made it to Emerald to be greeted by piles of rubbish in front of shops & some messed up roads but otherwise little evedence of just having gone through a major flood. I called into the local police station to check on road conditions further south, the young police lady just laughed & said go west youg man, so I did, all the way to Barcaldine, all roads heading south of the Capricorn hwy between Emerald & Barcy were closed either due to flooding or roads washed away. The country from Barcaldine all the way back to Toowoomba is just a postcard, I have never seen so much grass, once the pain of the floods receed the bush will be in for some bumper seasons.
So with a 2000km detour my trip north has come to an end, not the sort of fishing report I was hoping for but at least I got one & a new species as well, gotta be happy with that.

Cheers Andrew

[takrat]

Good one Andrew, another variation on the "wet bum and no fish" story. Got to give you big points for persistence. Better luck next time.
Cheers,
JD

[Bracey]

Great report Andrew, glad you made it home safely even if it was the long way round.

Congratulations on the Sooty too.

Dave