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Ist ever!

fenelious

By fenelious
in Freshwater

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fenelious Newbie

fenelious

Posted
Posted

I took the canoe down to Nth Pine River this arvo on my Pat Malone to see if I could land a Bass or two or a Yella on lures. The barometer was well up over 1020hPa, it was a bit breezy and cloudy.

I found a snaggy bank where I'd pulled out a couple of nice fish in the past, and anchored up, clipped on a hard body and peppered that bank and a 360 degree circle around me. No luck.

So I clipped on another lure - a Berkley Frenzy FS6-S (floating shallow minnow) and started peppering that bank again. This one is a fairly recent purchase, pretty cheap, I'd only used it once before with a bit of success with a couple of Bass and a Tarpon. I was hoping to pull a Bass out of the shallow snag.

After a couple of casts I landed it close to the bank, let it settle on the top for a second then started to wind. The lure had just disappeared under the surface when I got a steady pull. Not a sharp hit like I'd expect from a Bass, but I set the hooks and was reelin him in.

The first few metres I made up pretty easy, then I got a glimpse of him - something long... could it be... it must be... with a half jump and a big splash of it's tail - It's a Toga!! :woohoo: That's when the fight got hard; he saw the boat and he didn't like it one bit, and I'll be buggered if I could pull him close enough to the side with my 6lb rig!

Every time I got the net ready in one hand he'd take off again and pull out more drag. I might have fared better if I'd had a net man! I was hoping against hope that he wouldn't break my line or spit the lure, and that my knots would hold. It was a pretty long fight by my standards, but I wore the poor old bugger out eventually and he came up into my net. What a beautiful fish!

As I was plucking the hooks out I was glad to remember how I'd changed the trebles on that lure to some better quality slightly larger ones, thinking the issued ones were a little too small and cheap. I've heard good hooks are important for snaring Saratoga, so who knows, maybe they were the difference.

The catch was especially satisfying particularly cos this was my first ever Saratoga, but also because I had a couple of very interested Asian spectators on the opposite bank who were using worms and pulling in nothing but a handful of Tilapia :laugh:

There was a downside though - I pulled out my camera to preserve the occasion, and wouldn't you know it the camera had just enough battery power to turn on and tell me the battery was low before it went dead :( Typical. And no one around with a camera. Luckily at least I had my crappy little phone camera, so i got a couple of dodgy little photos.

Here he is, measuring in at 62cm:

Photo0094.jpg

A better one:

62cmSaratoga.jpg

He went straight back into the drink after the happy snaps, much to the amazement of my spectators.

I fished on for another hour or so with the same lure, getting one hit and just on dusk I landed a nice 48cm Yella before calling it a very good day. I didn't bother taking a dodgy phone photo of the Yella. He got released as well.

No Bass with my Bass lure, but I'm not complaining.

-Steve.

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bigtez Newbie

bigtez

Posted
Posted

Well done.

The in flux of fresh water lately seems to have given the ol' pine a new life. We went from Bob Bell to Petrie in the yaks yesterday and saw lots of big mullet, hooked some unstoppables and saw a couple of old blokes who had caught what looked to be a 40-45cm Bream. Was the first time I had fish the Pine for about 6mths.

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