Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained!

[Member]

G'day all,

It is amazing with the modern advancements of today’s fishing equipment such as marine electronics, rods, reels and an endless list of lures, to many anglers who venture into the fresh, upper reaches of creeks and rivers to target Australian native species such as Bass, Golden Perch and Murray Cod just to name a few, there’s no better tool that has given the angler an upper hand than Google Earth and Nearmap. Armed with these websites that can be downloaded on your home computer for free, you will be able to locate potential launching sites, get an outlook of where awesome structure is to target these fish prior to even wetting a line and visualise landmarks that can be used to navigate your way upstream or downstream without the use of a GPS.

With the information gathered from the use of these websites, we decided on fishing a stretch of river that we had never explored before. We had fished the lower and upper reaches of this particular waterway which is located on the lower end of the Sunshine Coast, however there was a section of river half way along that just looked so fishy, yet it is very inaccessible. This river stretches inland from the ocean for approximately 25 kilometres, making our way on unsealed roads into our launching site. This section of river would be less pressured due massive lay down trees that stretch the entirety of the river rendering it too hard for boats to access the area from downstream and private property where anglers can’t physically access these reaches except for the use of smaller water craft such as kayaks and canoes from the upper and lower reaches.

We were concerned and anxious to see how the river looked from the rain that the catchment area had received in the past few days, getting a glimpse of the river as we crossed it along the highway at 5.30am, still raining, driving to our launching site. Our thoughts were confirmed as we noticed the river flowing dirty water. From my experience and the experience of the anglers that accompanied me on our expedition we have found fishing with lures in these upper reaches when the waters are dirty to be tough, compared to when the water is much clearer. Using live bait such as worms or shrimps can be a more effective method in catching Wild Bass when the water is in this condition as other morsels get washed downstream with the flowing current. The weather was miserable to say the least with overcast conditions, 30 knot winds and squally rain periods.

On the water after launching, surface lures such as small poppers, Jitter Bugs and River 2 Sea Buggi Pops were immediately changed to sub-surface and deeper diving lures such as Chubby’s, small unknown sinking trout lures, River 2 Sea Gripp Crank’s and Static Shad’s as we made our way downstream to likely snags, submerged logs and backwater eddies which were frequently lining the edges of the banks. Every likely snag was worthy of a flick, however with the more than usual stronger water current flowing from recent rain, rendered it difficult to fish the one snag as well as we’d hoped to. It took a while before one of us got at least a hit with Shaun landing the first fish which was a very nice Bream. This section of water is still of tidal influence as we noticed the water had dropped about 30cm on our return upstream as the tide and catchment run off was making its way downstream towards the ocean.

It wasn’t long after we had released that Bream that Shaun had caught, when he had banged in another cast to a likely snag which resulted in another hook up which in turn found himself with what we had come for, a very healthy Wild Bass which was caught on the small sinking trout lure that found itself yak side. Further downstream I had lost confidence in fishing with the River 2 Sea Gripp Crank which is a sub-surface lure and switched to a Static Shad 60, a larger, deeper diving lure, gold in colour with a black back stripe which was what was needed, casting it to a mid-stream bit of structure as the fish followed the lure out away from it’s safe haven when the lure got slammed with the hard hitting gusto that these Bass are renowned for, pulling line off the spool trying to keep it away from the submerged snag , where it had come from. After a short fight I managed to finally get it safely on the yak measuring at 40cm, a few photos and a quick release. I was elated!

Time was getting on and Nath had dropped a couple, not landing any as yet. We knew it was going to be tough fishing with the conditions we were presented with and the pressure was on to land a couple more. We knew they were there as we had seen some huge boils in the water after they had followed our lures a short distance from their snags with one following one of my lure retrieve within 2 feet from the kayak in mid-stream, snapping at the lure before returning to the depths.

Becoming quite cold and looking like drowned rats from the squally rain, we came to a point where we decided to head back and return upstream. I cast out the lure mid-stream to no structure and began to retrieve the Static Shad to Nath’s and Shaun’s amazement, yelling, I’M ON! It hit like a freight train, towing the yak around, thinking it may have been bigger than the Bass I had caught earlier. Tightening up the drag slightly and not giving the fish any headway I bought it alongside the kayak, measuring at 38cm, I was pretty damb happy with myself, getting yelled all sorts of abuse from Nath who was really feeling the pinch to land one, knowing we were on our return home.

We had picked out some really nice looking snags to fish that we had left alone purposely to fish on our return back upstream due to the current flow and after much cursing and persistence we hear from downstream an elated Nathan, calling to us further upstream that he had finally got one, a small Bream that had managed to find his Chubby lure. Holding it up with pride I was stoked he had finally got a fish, he was talking earlier of a donut trip. Not on my shift! The Bream was released and with his next cast, he was on again, this time a nice Bass that had taken the same lure.

Cold and shivering, making our way back to where we had launched, we were talking about hot showers and hot Milo’s and couldn’t wait to get off the water. I really enjoyed the morning’s session, the adventure, the experience and the company and look forward to exploring more of this awesome river which is full of surprises with every trip.

Here are some piccy's of today's fishing adventure, nothing ventured , nothing gained.

Cheers Dave

[Member]

More Piccy's!

[Member]

Excellent report mate, very inspiring 

[Member]

Bracey,

Great Report!!!     I guess you could say it went from Nothing Ventured....Nothing Gained to  Something Ventured and Plenty Gained.  Well done they are the sort of trips you will remember for a long time!!  Be great to hear how you go on the same stretch once the water settles down a bit!!

Regards
Colin

[Member]

Great report Bracey. I love the enthusiasm to go explore new country. 

Thanks for sharing mate. 

fitz..

[Member]

Good onya Dave, sounds more productive than my trip to Borumba.

Cheers Andrew

[Member]

Getting very jealous of all the tight country and company that you boys fish nearly every weekend. Ill be up in the next few weekend bracey. so we'll have to get some bass yakk'n happening  till then its gonna be solo trips down the mary around gympie over my holidays, company is welcome to those that are keen.

Jackson

[Member]

Hey Jacko,

I'm keen to head up to the Mary R. again. I'm not going to be doing much over the holidays except for day trips as well. I have a mate coming to visit from Mackay who is also keen to get into some of the action as well. A trip up Noosa R. in the very upper reaches is also on the cards and a Mondy trip for a few days would also be a good stress reliever.

Keep in touch!

Dave

[Member]

Ill have to see if the boys will be keen to show you there secret spot on the mary. That would be a nice morning out. Great stretch of river that one 

you'll know if something is up thanks to the coopers

[Member]

All in all great day except for the rain
on another not my sweetwater got deleted so i had to make another

[Member]

on another note my sweetwater got deleted so i had to make another

Hi Cooper,

Welcome back. We had a database crash not long back,,, everyone had to re-register. Appologies for any inconvenience.

fitzy..

[Member]

and also dave fairly sure i caought the most with 2 bass 3 bream, ben cant argue... he doesnt have sweetwater HAHA