Bracey:
Looking forward to the report Pat! I was there briefly on Saturday not to fish however the lake looked sensational. :youbeauty
Dave
4weightfanatic:
OK lets try again. Spent roughly 5 hours on the dam yesterday launching just before six o'clock and yes Dave the lake did look sensational just wish the fishing was. The combination of the sun rising,surface mist and the smoke haze made the glassy lake very eerie especially as I was the only one out there and was playing tricks with my eyes as floating sedge stems appeared to be moving like eels on the surface. Weird !! I pretty well fished the eastern shore from the dam wall all the way down to the "causeway" (off Kowald rd) on the SW shore focusing mainly on the southern end trying to tempt a saratoga on fly. Alas it wasn't to be. Only heard 3 surface boofs 2 from a distance and couldn't work out where they were and one only 6 feet from the yak. I had just run my mouse fly through a clearing under some paperbarks and out over the tops of the weed and lilies when this fish boofed like a shotgun going off just to the right of my yak. This scared the cr@p out of me. I don't know whether it was a Toga or a Bass but it was loud and was probably hitting the numerous little baitfish that were everywhere. Shaking a bit I composed myself and quietly moved out to the open water and started to run the fly through the area but no luck. The water must be warming up as there are signs of new growth on the lilies and all the Cabomba have fresh tip gowth. I used a combination of lures and fly starting the day by trolling an SX48F but gave that away because of weed ,then changed to a Rebel pop and worked the gaps between the sedges. The two flies I used were a Venison fly (a Dalhberg with bead chain eyes and a purple zonker tail) which can be fished both on top and subsurface as it is just positively buoyant. The other fly is a spun deer hair mouse fly with double weed guards and was no hassle to chuck right up the backs of the weed beds and lilies without fear of snagging. I quite liked the look of the "country" down in the SW with all the paperbarks were all the shags were roosting. By about 10.30 it was getting pretty warm so paddle back along the western shore trolling a blade through the clearer water with no result. The swimming area was chockers when I got back and a total contrast to the mornings launch - you gotta love those dawn busters. I'll post the pics in another post as it gave me grief last time. PAT.
4weightfanatic:
Pics
Bracey:
Thanks for posting the thread, Ewen Maddock Fish Management Inc. like to hear reports good or bad so we can see how the lake is performing and progressing. As Binder (Andrew) stated we should start to see some smaller models come through soon from this years stock. We are prodomantly going to focus on releasing more Bass again this season rather than other species with the introduction of some Mary River Cod. That causeway you descibed in that last post, I have caught a couple of Toga from that area land based, but late in the day.
Best of luck next time and if you do decide to hit the lake again, with notice I'd be keen to join you if you wanted company, last Sunday morning I was at home tossing up what to do.
Dave
4weightfanatic:
Cheers Dave although I didn't raise any fish I thought the "state" of the dam may interest some even if it was just to gauge the state of the weed growth. Thanks for the offer to join me in the future your knowledge and experience would be greatly valued. I'll put a call out whenever I go and if it suits by all means join me. I may even try to get to Borumba this week but the thought of holiday numbers is a bit of a deterrent . The water temp. has gone up 3 degrees in the last 2 weeks so if that trend continues things are looking up. Do you fly fish at all ? I'd be interested to know what flies have been successful in Ewen in the past - I know the gun fly for Borumba and have nailed it's tie up so am confident in the fly it's the presentation that's the decider. On a related note how do I access any archived posts ? I'm interested to look up the fly fishing posts -I take it there are more than displayed when clicked. Thanks again for replying Dave . Cheers Pat.