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Lake Monduran Report 1st - 4th Nov

Genesis

By Genesis
in Freshwater

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Genesis Newbie

Genesis

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Ok.. here it goes.. my first ever AFO report on my first ever trip up to Lake Monduran. No fish landed but quite a number of VERY memorable hook-ups, spectacular headshakes and trembling hands....

Eug, Tina and myself left Brisbane early Monday morning hoping to beat the rush hour traffic and also get into a few hours of arvo fishing before night falls. Needless to say, we checked into Foxie's for a chat and updates on the currently fishing activities. He commented that reports were few and mostly quiet for the past 3 months due to the rain and all the hot spots are now at least 10m or so underwater. Feedback from recent fishos suggested that most of the fish caught were around the south side of the lake especially around SDA and Bird's Bay with soft plastics causing the most damage.

Finally arrived at the lake around 1pm, unpacked, a quick final check on our gear and we were off for our first ever session in Monduran. Now, my perception was that the lake would be like a massive fresh water swimming pool with the odd clusters of timber and weed beds but boy was I wrong! Because of the dramatic increase in water level (currently sitting at 82% compared to last year of 24%), Monduran has now become a whole new different playground. There were timber everywhere and every bay, and I really do mean EVERY bay, looked extremely fishy. We decided to give the north side of the dam wall our first go and after much skillful navigation with the electic by Eug, we found a spot amongst the timber and with much enthusiasm and good spirits, the 3 of us flicked out our virgin casts into the water. Eug and Tina worked their Slick Rigs and Hollowbellies while I decided to go the XRap. We worked hard and tirelessly into the evening with no real results before calling it a day and headed back to the cabin, plotting our course of action for the next day.

The next day we started early and decided to give Bird's Bay a go and it was then I hooked up my first Monduran catfish on a modified Slick Rig :laugh: The first 10 seconds got me REALLY excited but reality soon hit when the fish stayed deep the whole time. Nevertheless, the donut was avoided :P We kept going for the rest of the day into nightfall and tried almost every lure in our arsenal. Eug and myself had a couple of bumps during the day and quite a fair bit of time was spent trying to rescue our lures from the timber and thick weed beds :dry: We retired just before nightfall and planned to give White Rock and Jacks a hit the next day.

3rd day in Monduran and we all knew that we had to work harder than ever before because it will be our last full day session before packing our bags and heading back into Brisbane the next day. We hit Jack with great gusto and anticipation and whilst the place looked extremely fishy, we hardly get any taps or bumps thorough the session. We put a plan together to rest well during the arvo and fish the night instead to see if the situation will improve.... and boy are we glad we did :evil:

That last night out in the lake, we heard more boofing, splashing and feeding actions in 3 hours than we did in the past 2 days!! Eug immediately set the boat on electric with 3 lines out the back for trolling hardbodies and it was then I got my first real strike. I was holding onto my Egrell B6 / Blacksheep 250 combo and asking Eug about the lighting when I felt a strong hookup on my XRap. Everything that happened after that became a bit of a blur. To best describe the feeling, it felt like the end of my line was attached to a jack hammer running at full speed and even though I was reeling and trying to mantain pressure on the line, all it took was one jump, a massive headshake, a deafening splash and it went limp. I reeled the lure back in to inspect the Xrap only to find deep scratch marks on the back. This whole time, my hands were just tembling and it basically took me a while to regain my composure. To read about a barra strike and watching it on video do not even come close to verbally describing the actual physical sensation. I believed I just lost myself a very big fish.

20mins after, Tina had an even more spectacular encounter. She had about 8-10 metres of line out with a barra classic and her barra took it with so much power and rage that it snapped the 30lb Shimano Pro braid cleaned off. She was the luckier one between the both of us because her encounter lasted slightly longer with the beast jumping clear out of the water just 2 metres starboard of the boat. The 3 of us had a good look at the metre plus fish and it will be an image that embedded itself into our memory banks for a very long time...

I had 2 more hits for the rest of the night (barra classic and XRap) but were unable to convert the opportunities. We finally called it a night at 1am and even at the boat ramp, we can still hear the occasional boofing and splashing of the mighty barra and we promised ourselves that we will be back soon enough...

In conclusion, it is difficult for me to say if Monduran is a tough place because this is our first maiden trip and we dont really have previous experiences to benchmark this trip against. Guys from the neighbouring cabins and boat ramps were indeed complaining about how tough it was and even our neighbours, who were barra veterans, only managed to land a 94cm in their 4 days of continuous fishing, albeit plenty of hit and misses as well. The increase in water volume certainly made things more difficult but the presences of the big girls are definitely still well and truly there. Credit to Eug for making this trip possible and all 3 of us are definitely looking forward to our next trip back to the lake again in the not too distant future :)

Thanks for reading and special mention & thanks to Ray's old posts on Monduran because they have been most valuable.

glenn

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Genesis Newbie

Genesis

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Nice try boys dont be dis heartened as mondy is pretty hit and miss B) but any fish that scares a Daiwa Blacksheep must be a bit of a unit :woohoo: .

I had the Blacksheep on 90% drag and it was still taking line and bending the B6 at will. Definitely not disheartened and definitely will be back there again :evil:

Glenn thanks for a very well written report.

Barra fishing is very addictive so welcome to the club and better luck next time.

Cheers

Ray

Thanks Ray. It was super addictive. I caught 30-40cm barras before (pond fishing :P) and they dont even come close to what I had experienced in Mondy. Best of luck to all you boys next week and looking forward to positive reports and photos :)

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Genesis

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Great report Genesis, despite not landing the mighty barra. Very interesting read... now i feel like heading up there for a fish.

Did you camp or cabin?

Cheers

ty

We went the cabin option instead and I was suprise to learn that there are only 4 available. The cabins are pretty much self contained with basic gear for sleeping, cooking, etc and the nearest corner store is 20mins away by car in Gin Gin. The office only sells the very basic necessitics.

Mondy is really all about fishing and unless you have a spouse or partner who is really into fishing as well, they are going to find it boring after a day... or not even :P

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