queensland Maroon does have legal bass!

[tomca]

I went to Maroon Dam this afternoon to get my fishing fix for the week. Decided to do some bait fishing first and pulled up amongst the standing timber and floated down some worms. Little bass kept me busy while I watched a group of kids in tinnies fishing just over from me.

[img size=500]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/IMGP0157a.jpg

I moved over to one of the bays the wind was blowing into and started casting a 65mm popper over the weed beds. I had a couple of tentative taps so downsized to a bubblepop45 in purple.

[tomca]

Big smashes on the surface and bass diving straight down into the weed on hookup made for unpleasant fighting. I only had 4lb leader.

[img size=500]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/IMGP0158a.jpg

Up comes this fella at 35cm, my first decent bass from Maroon! Followed soon after with 2 more over 35cm.

The surface action went quiet as the sun dipped behind the mountains so I pulled out the flyrod.

[kiwifisho]

Well done mate :woohoo: Gotta be better than working

Dean

[tomca]

Never having caught a bass on fly, I was happy it was a good one. I'm so glad the reel has an oh-so-smooth drag, he went hard and fought dirty like the rest.

Being my first kayak based fly fish I have come to the conclusion 9' is way to long for a kayak rod. I'll have to hunt up a short flyrod somewhere.

[img size=375]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/IMGP0160a.jpg

All fish were released

And I saw some dodgy bloke with big sideburns in a kayak stalking those kids

:laugh: only jokes Gus!

[wesfish]

nice effort !! i think angus is there with the kids fishing camp!!! chunky lil spangle and a good bass well done

[tomca]

Yeah, I could hear the roar of the kids from the boat ramp on the other side of the lake. Angus was paddling around untangling lines, releasing fish and working bloody hard. The teacher was going off most of the time at the little darlings. Made for quite an entertaining afternoon.

[marlin magic]

I fish there all the time as i live just up the road on poppers you get 36 to 42 all the time

[Rocket75]

having been in Angus's position on one of these camps I know just how he was feeling!

re-rig,re-rig-re-rig etc etc :laugh: As long as the kids have fun

I have not had much luck on lures at Maroon, good to see you got a few, well done.

Rocket

[Dinodadog]

well done on getting few

[Angus]

Hahaha good to see you out there Tomca.

On a side note, one the kids hooked something huge, quite possibily a cod. It actually pulled the boat as well as the drag. It sadly got wrapped around a tree as we were fishing the timber. It was still pulling drag around the tree for a few seconds before it snapped. I have never seen a bass or yella do that!!! The rod was recieving long, powerful, slamming thumps the whole time. The poor girls arms were like jelly afterwards!!

Angus

[kriso]

hahaha see jimmy little girls hook up to more cod then you lol! just jokes mate! nice report tomca is fly difficult from the yak?

[tomca]

Cod eh? Maybe I need to take some shrimp and redclaw there with the big baitcaster on the boat.

Kriso, I just looped the fly line on my lap as I stipped back. The only problem was buttons on my shirt catching line as I cast, so had to strip down to a singlet. Next time I'll wear a long sleeve t-shirt. And as mentioned about the length of the rod was an issue. I didn't want to snap the rod at the tip from the weight of the fish when trying to land it, maybe a longer handle on the net would solve the problem.

[ellicat]

tomca wrote:

Cod eh? Maybe I need to take some shrimp and redclaw there with the big baitcaster on the boat.

Kriso, I just looped the fly line on my lap as I stipped back. The only problem was buttons on my shirt catching line as I cast, so had to strip down to a singlet. Next time I'll wear a long sleeve t-shirt. And as mentioned about the length of the rod was an issue. I didn't want to snap the rod at the tip from the weight of the fish when trying to land it, maybe a longer handle on the net would solve the problem.

Might have to try to catch your own crays there. DPI says you can't take them to waters outside their natural range (which doesn't stretch this far south)

[Feral]

Na Angus, it was a Maroon Bunyip!

[tomca]

Gee, ellicat is onto it!

It did occur to me after I made that post, that Maroon probably isn't a place for redclaw.

Lucky I rarely fish with bait anymore.

[ellicat]

I don't know for sure, but I'd be guessing they're probably already in there and if you did set some traps you'd get some anyway. I was just letting you know what you might not have known so you wouldn't get caught unaware. I even put a smiley in so you wouldn't take it the wrong way. A wasted effort perhaps ?:S

[James W]

some school girl hooked a cod! jeez! :blush:

nice catch on the fly tomcat

[tomca]

its all cool ellicat, I didn't take it to heart, but you are right to point out the dangers of introducing species to a new habitat. A huge fine would surely ruin a potentially good day out.

[Feral]

DPI are a bit funny that way, all the science points to redclaw not having any detrimental affect when introduced in to Qld waterways. They are extremely conservative with Redclaw. However they are happy as for silvers and yellow belly (also not native to the areas) to be stocked.

Maybe a few more years of data and they might change their mind. They are certainly a huge recreational attraction in the dams they are in.

[ellicat]

jimmybob wrote:

some school girl hooked a cod! jeez! :blush:

nice catch on the fly tomcat

It's alright, it was probably just a big eel jimmybob :laugh:

[Cowfish13]

We tryed getting some redclaw from there once and got nothing at all. But that's not saying much since we havn't caught too many before. Got about 10 total from NPD over 2 trips though :silly: