Upper Tweed

[Member]

My mate Phil and I took his tinny for a run up the upper Tweed River yesterday. No petrol engines are allowed there so we poked along on electric power. We launched at the park next to the bridge upstream of the Murwillumbah weir and went up river until we came to a rock bar. We then let the boat drift back down stream using the electric to zigzag from one side of the river the the other depanding on what snag or overhang we wanted to cast to. Thing were a little slow to begin with and the water was still fairly grubby. But the weather was nice and the river was glassed out so dare I say it; catching fish was almost a bonus.
Phil drew first blood with a good cast into some very snaggy country and got hit after just a few turns of the reel. The bend in his rod indicated a good fish and we were expecting a whopper when it took him under the boat. When he bought it boatside we were pretty surprised to find that it only went about 28cm. Thereby underlining the saying that "it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog."
We continued along and came to a pile of rocks and gave it a good going over for one rat Bass and a missed stike the hit on the surface as the lure touched down.
I then got hooked up another Bass of the same class as Phil's and battled it into the boat with a comfort lift boatside. After that thing just went very quiet. We tried surface lures once 1600hours came and went but not a hit. Now I know that this part of the Tweed fishes well normally but I can only assume from the size of the fish caught and the low numbers that the combination of recent floods and cooling water has meant an early migration down stream.
There is now a fishway on the Murwillumbah weir and I would bet on most of the bigger fish having left the building. Anyway, we had a great afternoon on the water and learnt a little more about our target species, and that has to be good.
Cheers
John

[Member]

Thanks for report.
Maybe new minister in qld should learn about installing fishways on weirs in Qld.
Cheers
Ray

[Member]

I never really struck a good days fishing there but have had a fair few hits with no cigar.

Always seemd to be 1 or 2 lures that would work and nothing else... I dunno..... Denis seemd to have it sussed pretty well

Steve

[Member]

We were using hardbodies and reasonably decent sized ones at that. It's fairly shallow so you don't want to crank 'em down too hard. I had ona Bill Norman lure that has worked well for me before and cast righ in hard against the bank. I had one hit that failed to hook up right in uder some overhanging trees and sent another in straight after it and then I hooked up. It seemed to me that you had to be right in tight otherwise no cigar.
JD

[Member]

Try downstream of the bridge,  specially near the weir at the big bamboo clump.
Got my biggest bass abt 40cm , many years ago, like 35 yrs ago.
Got her in a big submerged tree, released.
Saw platypus  early in the morning mists.....

randell

[Member]

Fish are there

try the oxley reach as well.

Normans should do the job, good buying ex the usa and you can get them for under 5 bucks if you look hard enough.

[Member]

Correct Steve, that's exactly where they came from. At those prices you can afford to lose the odd one. Apparently the size of the Bass in the Tweed has improved due to the fish ladder on the weir plus a few escapees from Clarrie Hall.
John

[Member]

Pictures added for you JD. 

Great report mate. I live right on top of bass heaven up here in cane toad country & I'm itching to get down there......must be the "wild bass" as opposed to the "AWOL bass" I'm getting spoilt on here ATM.

Cheers,

fitz..

[Member]

Fitzy, I'm heading to Lucinda in May and will be away the whole month. However, I'd be happy to organise a trip after the Bass season reopens later in the year. In fact there's a possibility for a Sweetwater weekend on the Clarence Gorge; any takers. It's 4wd only where I go but you have access to both the top and bottom of the gorge. The campsite would handle a max of 10 vehicles. I went up into Bungy yesterday arvo and we boated and released 9 good fish including one the went 45cm. The new Samaki ros is awsome.
Cheers,
JD