queensland Back packs and bush turkeys

[Little Grey Men]

Early to rise this morning with bass on the brain...especially topwater bass !!!

I hit the creek just before five and tied on the first lure of the day, a T Pivot. The lure was tossed all over the place and zig zagged lazily back to me for not even a sniff.

After about twenty minutes of nothing I tied on another. I'd found a little Damiki Saemi floating in the water the week before minus the hooks so I fitted it with some slightly heavier hardware and turned it into a slow sinker. Let's see whats under the surface !!! This had the first fish of the day climbing all over it from a cast sideways up the bank past some fallen timber. One nice little bass to start the mornings account on my free lure. It had done it's job so it was back into the tacklebox and time for something else...an Avocado coloured Squidgy bug on a beetlespin...looks OK. Working it steadily along the bottom drew a slow bite from something a little more lazy than a bass but nice and solid all the same, a nice coloured yella thought the Squidgy looked OK as well.

The rest of the morning was spent tying on various lures from Spros to spinner baits to Baby cranks, bit of a relaxed session with no real thought about lure choice...sometimes I'm happy just to be simply chucking any lure in the water.

Six bass were taken and the day ended with another grey coloured yella on my way back to the car...so grey that for a split second I thought I'd hooked the mother of all silver perch, as I caught sight of the fish I realised it was just my old friend Mr yella guts.

Hope you like the pics.

[Little Grey Men]

Yella

[Little Grey Men]

bass

[Little Grey Men]

Another shot of Yella # 1

[Little Grey Men]

Yella # 2

[elops]

Sounds like a pleasant day Michael I have spent most of the day staring at daphnia through the microscope but I will be there next weekend. I hope you euthenased those yellas ?

Regs Steve

[Little Grey Men]

The days best bass

[Little Grey Men]

elops wrote:

Sounds like a pleasant day Michael I have spent most of the day staring at daphnia through the microscope but I will be there next weekend. I hope you euthenased those yellas ?

Regs Steve

Yes mate, they'll be pig food by now !!! Unfortunately I saw quite a few bass being euthenased by the meat harvesters as well. I had a peek at their catch, in a very friendly way of course....you know, start a conversation which eventually leads into bag limits and sizes etc. Education I must have made them nervous because they offered me an eel tail cattie to take home.

[elops]

One thing I have noticed localy in the last 30 years is it seems the number of harvesters increases exponentialy with the number of bass. Will there be any left by closed season ?

Regs Steve

[wesfish]

great days fishing great shots of great fish!

[Angus]

Nice session mate. That is a cool looking yella!

[sehrguht]

I'm not a fish keeping nazi, just wondering why you would dispose of the yella's ?

[Rocket75]

sehrguht wrote:

I'm not a fish keeping nazi, just wondering why you would dispose of the yella's ?

good question that? !

anyone know the answer?

rocket

[ryanyoung]

Cool pics mate,

Sounds like a great day on the bank!

[Little Grey Men]

Rocket75 wrote:

sehrguht wrote:

I'm not a fish keeping nazi, just wondering why you would dispose of the yella's ?

good question that? !

anyone know the answer?

rocket

It has to do with careful control but I'll let Steve expand on this one as he knows a lot more of the fish and their habitats than I do.

[rayke1938]

From my conversations with Steve and other PRFMA members it is because they are not endemic to the area. They have not been stocked there and are escapees from a stocked impoundment. They compete with other natually occuring species for food sourse and do not have suitable areas to breed.

From memory the only eastward flowing waterway that yellas occur natually is the Dawson

Cheers

Ray

[toxic avenger]

elops wrote:

One thing I have noticed localy in the last 30 years is it seems the number of harvesters increases exponentialy with the number of bass. Will there be any left by closed season ?

Regs Steve

Unfortuantely the meat harvesters do not recognise the closed season either. They are generally scumbags who need to be reported to fisheries when seen to be doing the wrong thing, reports should generally be backed up with rego numbers etc if you get the chance. But in saying that there are also genuine fishermen out there who respect the rules and regs but simply take a feed of fish if presented to them. Is this morally correct for them to take a feed from these areas? Legally they are entitled to provided they meet size, bag and season regs.

Kev

[Little Grey Men]

If it's legal..no problem. But I sure wouldn't eat anything coming out of this water !!!When I say meat harvesters I mean the guys I used to see at the dam hoofing it back to their cars with net bags full of large bass and yellas. Bags so heavy that two blokes had to carry them. These net bags were tied to a rope which gets thrown into the water, if anyone happens to do a check they don't find any fish. The end of the rope is in the water weighted down with a rock. Very hard to see.

These were all reported and left up to the appropriate authorities to deal with.

I only ever faced them once and put a tiny little catfish back in that they had left on the bank to die. They followed me down the bank muttering some garbage.

I came across another group a few weeks back out there across the creek, I was wearing a bone fishing shirt with an olive cap and brown shorts...I must have looked a bit like a ranger, every time they caught a fish they held it up so I could see the size and they'd yell " LEGAL SIZE ", they threw everything small back in after telling me, kept two bass each and left. I suppose I didn't help by staring at them everytime I saw them landing a fish

I would usually never interfere but some things make me angry.

[elops]

According to DEEDI stocking and translocation regulations you can only stock local endemic species in private dams but stocking groups are allowed to stock golden perch and silver perch in SEQ impoundments.There is another regulation that states that you must not return non indiginous natives to the water. A good example beeing barred grunter the most invasive non indiginous native in SEQ. So once the yellas and silvers go over the wall they become non indiginous natives. Bass become wild bass and Mary River Cod become no take. A strange dichotomy of regulation but if adhered to may well see some recovery of bass and cod but unfortunately this does not happen as is evident in this thread and many others on the same subject.

Regs Steve

[BrisBassMan]

Nice outing there mate. Gotta try those beetlespins abit more me thinks !! Now all I need is time ;(

Cheers

[Dinodadog]

onya mate may have to join ya soon the school holidays must be on at the dam as I havnt found a school for a week now

[Little Grey Men]

Dinodadog wrote:

onya mate may have to join ya soon the school holidays must be on at the dam as I havnt found a school for a week now

How's the edge bite going mate ? I reckon it must be getting close to start dusting off the topwater lures and spinnerbaits.

[Dinodadog]

have to try the edges next time I go, talking about edges we will be able to start casting from the banks again soon as the water has gone down nearly a metre already.

[Little Grey Men]

Dinodadog wrote:

have to try the edges next time I go, talking about edges we will be able to start casting from the banks again soon as the water has gone down nearly a metre already.

Thats very interesting mate....I know your familiar with where this report was based. The water has risen about a foot and a half. Wonder where that lot came from ?