queensland MONDURAN 2011

[bootyinblue]

Well this will just be an on running report for the week of fishing up here a Monduran dam.

Starting out at the very gentlemanly hour of 9 am we headed offon the pilgramage to Monduran dam. Stopped off at Foxys to find he closes at 1pm on Saturdays. Next stop was the servo just outside Gin Gin, home of the infamous esky incident in 2009.

Rocked up to camp, met up with Eug and Tina and set up camp for the week.

Will add some photos as soon as I work out how to.

First fish planned for day break in the morning.

[dansike]

Waiting for the report on this morning

[sehrguht]

Nice boat, looks like it must be pretty solid to need that style of trailer.

[rayke1938]

New boat Greg?

Hope you are doing better than us

Cheers

Ray

[bootyinblue]

Well our first day of fishing saw a long morning session and shorter late afternoon session completed without boating a fish.

The morning was an exploration up the dam and included some fancy map reading and Just a wee bit of guesswork to find our way around. We trolled for the entire time just to cover some ground and look for fish. I hooked up twice, both to trees resulting in lost lures and without such a bite we called it a day about 11am to get out of the heat.

Tactics were disbursed over an icecream with Eug and Tina about where to head for the sundown session with Craig and myself staying close to the ramp and Eug and Tina heading a little further up. Fish were seen on the sounder but none raised, with Eug giving a very promising report of watching fish on the sounder swim up to his lure in interest, but not strike.

Oh well as they say in the classics, tomorrow is a new day.

[aussie123]

You want to have a good session in god botherers bay as this time of the year it usually produces well with some real big barra.

I've always done exceptionally well in there with the smaller F18's especially in the gold with flouro orange back.

Lance

[dassa]

hey booty good luck mate and I hope you have more luck then we did in October,but with the floods they had last year up there reports were that 99%of the big barra went south for the summer so it may help to down size your lure's but up grade your hooks on the smaller lures.The only 2 fish that were caught for the comp were from the back of the dam about 3/4 the way up the dam no about 60mm lures again good luck.

[Zim man]

Throw bass lures, lipless cranks etc, that's what one of the guides is doing there at the moment, getting lots of hits and barra in the upper reaches. Lighter lines also gets more bites (15 - 20lb). Good luck. Maybe get hold of mr woods ( can't remember his first name off hand) at the gin gin motel and see what he charges for a half day to get an idea of what they want at the moment. Then after the charter replicate for further success ( hopefully)

[bootyinblue]

Could quite possibly be 2 reports today as I have a bit of time on my hands as you will see at the end of the report. Headed out at a more acceptable hour of 730am and fished in closer to the ramp (thank god). Found Eug who had found a nice weed bed so spent a while working that area. I got what was unmistakably a knock on the second cast but no hook up.

Bruised around on the electric knowing that with 2 batteries and a voltage isolater we youle be sweet. How wrong were we to be. The sounder began to play up so thought we would head in and click, no power. A few unanswered calls to Eug and then sent the park staff down to camp to find him, and here is the result.

[Eug]

Hate typing on the phone, so you'll excuse the bluntness and grammar.

sunday consisted of a morning session, where we went up to d bay going to find done shallow water. Had a potential tap early morning but could have been anything. Came back in for lunch and a bit of a snooze, headed out in the dusk to fish an isolated weed bed and found them on the side scan, sitting at 15 feet. Down sized to some shallow minnows and could see them coming up but couldn't raise a hit. Finished off with a bit of a troll back to the ramp to find some warm water but couldn't find any.

bit of a late start this morning and went straight back to the same stretch of weeds but no dice. Fished bird bay shortly after and had a bit of a skinny dip to cool off. Refreshed, we Went back for lunch and completely forgot about boots. Kelly came looking for us and said to give greg a call, back out on the water for a tow home.

Drinking night tonight, a discuss strategies for tomorrow. Thinking bass lures and 10-20lb. Might head up to jacks and give the south arm a hit.

Cheers eug

[bootyinblue]

An update of our fishing so......0

Yes that's it, we are still on zero. Fished yesterday afternoon in s d a bay and had what looks like some programing images on the screen. PLAyed around with auto pilot and auto tracks on the minn kota but the xines was making it work real hard.

CAlled it an early night with alarm set for 4am to head back there.

Straight back to same spot this morning and big knock first up on a plastic paddle tail but then nothing else. SOunded around a couple of other places looking for fish, then a big rain squall came through so we put the boat on the trailer and headed back for pancakes. It was only here that Craig pulls out a big bunch of bananas for his pancakes.

NO WONDER WE HAVE NOT LANDED A FISH YET!

[ellicat]

You'll have to give him a pat down before leaving in future ! :S

....or give big Brian an emergency call to arms :woohoo:

[ellicat]

Hate typing on the phone, so you'll excuse the bluntness and grammar.

sunday consisted of a morning session, where we went up to d bay going to find done shallow water. Had a potential tap early morning but could have been anything. Came back in for lunch and a bit of a snooze, headed out in the dusk to fish an isolated weed bed and found them on the side scan, sitting at 15 feet. Down sized to some shallow minnows and could see them coming up but couldn't raise a hit. Finished off with a bit of a troll back to the ramp to find some warm water but couldn't find any.

bit of a late start this morning and went straight back to the same stretch of weeds but no dice. Fished bird bay shortly after and had a bit of a skinny dip to cool off. Refreshed, we Went back for lunch and completely forgot about boots. Kelly came looking for us and said to give greg a call, back out on the water for a tow home.

Drinking night tonight, a discuss strategies for tomorrow. Thinking bass lures and 10-20lb. Might head up to jacks and give the south arm a hit.

Cheers eug

I've put two and two together and now know why booty's batteries were flat......stalker !

[shortie]

No Fish,

The moral of that sotry is dont go fishing with BOOTY

[bootyinblue]

I am seriouslm beginning to think I am cursed...

[bootyinblue]

Very quick report for yesterdays fishing and yes you guessed it still on 0 fish.

We got on the water early yesterday and fished from about 6am till 9am when the rain and storm front moved across. The wind was right up too so called it quits and went back to camp for pancakes.

Got back on the water about 3pm and fished thll 630 but the strong winds were again making things unpleasant so it was back to camp with Eug and Tina for some dinner and drinks.

When we launched Io the morning a local guide was already on the water and they were just retrieving when we came in the second time. Yes he had spent 12 hours on the water with a guy who flew up from Melbourne to catch a barra. And their score..... 0

Oh well tomormw is a new day.

[wesfish]

sounds tough going, have you tried trolling the main basin in front of the wall??

[bootyinblue]

We have tried everything, including sticking our hands down the chute of the fish cage, but they were cable tied off.

Apparently lots of bait fish around so no one is going hungry, so any bites will be territorial ones after casting the same lure at the same fish over and over. THis sort of rules out trolling.

[dassa]

sounds tough going, have you tried trolling the main basin in front of the wall??

G'day wes since the floods and the dam now at 100% they have installed bouys to keep people from going with in 200 metre's of the wall so it now a no go zone

[werewolf]

Keep at it guys, you at least deserve one fish with all your effort.

Different dam but similar issue, (heard second hand) the ranger at Wivenhoe said that the dam was chock block full of bait, more so than he has ever seen. No surprise that catching bass there has been hard work since it filled. Prehaps all the dams that have had big inflows are now suffereing from a bonanza of baitfish. It will make it tough fishing in the short term, but longer term it should fatten up everything eating the bait, which will become hungry as the bait numbers eventually come down

[bootyinblue]

It's Friday morning and we are on the road home. Lake Misery, the dam of a thousand casts has beat up into submission.

YEsterday we travelled up country and into north arm for a look around some areas that were in the 5 to 10m range. Found what looked to be 4 or 5 fish just sitting in an open area so peppered them for the next 2 hours with lures hoping to p!ss them off enough to attack but even that did not work.

Overall the dam fished too tough for all but one park resident who apparently landed a 44cm barra and that was it.

As they say in the classics, there is always next year.

Eug and Tina are great guys to hang with and for the guys with bigger boats if you are ever looking for a decky for the day, you could do a lot worse than asking them onto your boat.

[werewolf]

Booty I enjoyed reading your updates on your mission. I reckon a lot of dams are fishing harder after the flood due to the abundance of bait. No fish, but at the end of the day, I bet you have no regrets getting to flog a big barra dam for a few days with a few good mates.

Cheers

wwolf

[BassTracker]

Anything new guys, any fish yet :pinch:

[bootyinblue]

Funny funny man...... no

[Eug]

Right, so I've been putting this off as I really detest staring at a small screen and pretty much hate phones as Boots and Craig found out the hard way (sorry). Some of the details may be out of order but I'll try to remember as best I can. I've included a few random images from both my phone and Tina's camera.

Day 1 (Saturday)

Left Brisbane at 05:00 to get a nice run up on the highway, managed to go non-stop to Gin Gin in pretty good time. Had a stop in at Foxies to get the latest news, and the word was small minnow lures were doing the trick towards the back of the dam. Since everything I had in the box was pretty much well over 100mm we picked up a small X-Rap and a B52 Jr. Some last minute supplies from IGA and we were setup by lunch wondering if Booty had gotten lost along the way.

They soon rolled in, introductions were made and both Tina and I had a good look at Craig's boat and Team Arafura's weapon of choice for the remainder of the week. With Team Slip lacking in the comfy chair department and horsepower we were the underdogs going into this.

We all retired for an early night for a planned early start the next day.

Clear run up the Bruce which is one of my most hated highways. I prefer early starts.

Tina keenly spotted this jetski with rod holders

Day 2 (Sunday)

Our plan of attack for the week was to involve; an early morning session, back to camp for lunch, quick shower followed by a nana nap then an afternoon/evening sesh.

We spent most of the morning sounding around looking for warmer water, finding patches of 28-29ºC (for those metric folk) we shot straight up to D and fished the shallow weed beds for a few hours and whilst keeping an eye on the side scan. Top water lures, frogs, slick rigs, hollowbellies and shallow diving

minnows were all thrown for zilch. Had what could have been a potential tap but really could have been anything. I saw what appeared to be fish holding in a row of trees but could not tempt them. Saw Team Arafura trolling past and we decided to follow suit to give the arms a break.

We met up with the boys down at B and had a quick chat about some cop fella who kept loosing his lures. Tina and I continued to troll back down the lake and had a quick go at an isolated weed bed before heading back in to camp to rest up. Back at Barra HQ we discussed tactics for the afternoon over an icecream and set off to fish the same weed bed for sundown.

We hit the weedbed hard for a good 2 hours and had promising shows of fish rising from 10-15 feet but couldn't entice a strike no matter what we did. Slow rolls, aggressive twitches, suspended pauses and fast burns couldn't entice them. On the way back to the ramp I was watching the sounder watching it go from over 30m to 3m in a matter of seconds, I was too busy watching the screen and blinded by the anchor light failed to see the trees coming up fast on the bow. A quick eagle eye spot from Tina and we were in reverse immediately with only the slightest touch of some branches to the bow mount. (I locked that drop off quickly into the memory banks to fish later in the week).

After recovering from that poo in your pants moment, we finished off trolling the main basin for 2 or 3 loops but couldn't find much on the sounder. The water remained warm well into the evening but could not find anything on the sounder, nor did we hear anything in terms of bait fish or the typical surface

boofing we were used to.

We retrieved the boat in pitch black and came back to Team Arafura relaxing comfortably throwing back cold ones. Jealous!

One of many bays of sticks we fished

One of the many weedy points we fished, with dinner in our sights (steak)

A regular sight on our early morning trips to the ramp

Some of them ended up a splattered mess, was a good excuse to pitch the need for a new ARB bullbar to Tina

Day 3 (Monday)

Our early morning session consisted of hitting the two weed beds in Bird Bay, Team Arafura joined in and muscled us out with their fancy GPS spot lock function as the wind was proving to be a pain. Both teams fished either side of the weedbed for a bit before we decided to drift off and fish one of the wind

blown bays for nudda and zilch.

The call was made to go further into to the new shallow area out the back of Bird Bay. We hit the wattle trees solid for 2-3 hours for nothing before deciding that it was too hot and went for a swim. This was when we realised that the sounder read the water temps only on the surface and that half a meter down the water was still a very cool low 20s.

Feeling refreshed we retired to camp completely forgetting about Team Arafura, as we were at the kitchen having lunch Kelly came around telling me that Chris Bird had been trying to get a hold of me and that I should call him back. Who the frick is Chris Bird?? Got to my phone only to find that I had numerous

missed calls and a text from Booty (some of these calls were timestamped over an hour ago!). Boat back in the water and we decided to have a bit of a troll. Tina hooks up big time and lands over 4.95m of boat fish (decals on the sides count).

Booty and Craig headed into town and came back with some supplies and beers (thanks boys), we discussed more tactics and other rubbish before calling it a night.

Trolling out the back

Tina's on!!

Day 4 (Tuesday)

We fished a point early in the morning before giving the same weedbed a quick look, with not much activity on the sounder we went up the lake to find Booty and Craig trolling around the Cattle Yards. Sick of casting we decided to tuck in behind them and trolled a few Halcos, Super Barras and the B52 Jr. Marked quite a few arches on the sounder but they seemed inactive. Was chatting to Boots on the phone (because the Captain was having a bit of a snooze on the boat) when I heard the drag go off in the background. I instantly saw Craig stand to attention only to find that they had just snagged another tree. Team Arafura buggered off whilst we changed to some deep diving cod lures that I had and went for a few more loops before trolling back down the main channel towards the ramp. Nothing, zilch, nudda, poop, nothing...

Back at camp the boys mentioned eying off some shows down in SDA. For the afternoon we fished a protected bay before joining them down there for a bit of a troll. Could see what we thought were some fish on the side scan hiding in the trees but could not raise a hit. We scooted off back to the weedbed to find that it was too windy to fish, we searched around for a bit without finding much. I decided to find that drop off/point that I almost rain into the other day and anchored up with the wind pushing us back over the drop off. I worked slick rigs, rapalas and my trusty manns stretch for nothing. With plenty of shows on the sounder I was determined rubbing in (AS)S-factor over everything and even dipping some of the lures into gulp packets. I finally dug out an old school thready buster and managed to get a hit but failed hooking up.

Had readings like this for about an hour but couldn't tempt them

Day 5 (Wednesday)

Word from Boots/Craig was that the fish were hiding in amongst some wattle trees. The plan today was to fish B and do exactly that, I found some damn wattles and peppered every branch for a few good hours before searching for some shallow waters at the Junction of the North and South arms. Another uneventful day and not a hit, we were starting to get a little down with little motivation for the afternoon/evening sessions. We began finishing off the morning sessions with a swim just before lunch which was both refreshing and relaxing, whilst helping me get an idea on how the water temps fared below the surface.

That afternoon we decided to give the north part of Bird a good crack and worked some protected bays. Hoping Murphy's Law would come into play I began throwing my 6lb setup with SX-40s hoping for a bass. Found plenty of bait fish flicking about on the surface (actually this happened all week) and managed to

get a good look at a few herring sized fish and some gar getting about. We trolled back out only to bump into the boys, the plan was to fish that drop off/point from yesterday evening but we could not hold position with the anchor continually letting go and not much showing on the sounder. Both boats called

it an early night and back to Barra HQ for tomorrow's plan.

My newly purchased B52 Jr as most things I had brought up were in excess of 100mm

Craig's pimpin' boat with Booty at the helm

Day 6 (Thursday)

Booty/Craig's final day and they were determined to give it a red hot go, a bit of flirting with one of the guides the previous day saw Craig glean some useful information. We headed up deep into the North arm after some tree dodging and split up shortly after arriving at Greg's X-Spot (or was that G-Spot??).

Team Arafura seemed to stay in the same location for a fair while (found out later they had found a school), whilst we worked our way further upstream working the shallows. Tied off to a tree we began working a weedy point for a solid hour before noticing that the bait fish started going mental as ominous clouds rolled in, I could smell the rain in the air and the shift in the air pressure and felt confident in the calm before the storm. A call from Booty to check if we were okay and I mentioned that the clouds looked to be passing to the south of us and we'd be along in 30 minutes. Well 30 minutes turned out to be 90 minutes as I had two distinctive barra hits from about 10 casts shortly after that call. The storm clouds left as quickly as they came and the surface activity slowed and We slowly worked our way out before a run back to the ramp.

Met up with some of the ABT guys putting in for their pre-fish and they had mentioned that the Awoonga comp was pretty tough going as well. We wished each other luck and returned back to base.

Team Arafura

Greg's dodgy brokeback hat

Day 7 (Friday)

As the days progressed we got up later and later. Booty and Craig were heading home today and we were going to give it one last crack in the morning session before slowly packing up. We said our goodbyes and launched at the respectable time of 09:00. After having hit almost every section of the dam I decided to give Jacks a go as we had not been there this week, we motored around and leccy'd through a weedy patch connecting two islands only to find that we could have motored around the damn island in the first place. I began tying off to trees as the wind was proving to be a royal pain and started methodically working the wind blown side of the point moving across to each tree as I progressed further along the bay.

Whilst working a shallow diving minnow I had a hit, despite tentative bumps all week and the distraction of Booty and Craig's images of sexi nuts and pancakes I managed to set the hooks. I immediately yelled out to Tina "Yeap Yeap get the net!" only to be let down a split second later as the non-existent shakes and non-existent drag pulling made me realise what I had on the end. A friggen catty and as per my rules catfish is always minus 1 (unless you are fishing for them of course).

So a photo to the boys and a further hour of trying to redeem myself it was not to be. A quick swim and we decided to call it quits and head back to camp.

Here's my poser shot for the week

Minus one for each catty, booo

Day 8 (Today)

A quick chat to another one of the ABT guys this morning and found that around 6 fish were caught amonst the 10 boats, nothing bigger than 60. It appeared that some inside information as to the location of where the fingerlings are released was the vital key point in securing those fish. The smaller fish apparently school up and do not venture far from that particular location.

On Craig's suggestion we stopped in for coffee and found some sexi cops.

Stop, Revive, Survive... good coffee Craig, cheers

Sexi cops?

We pretty much always stop in at Beefy's for a feed on our way home

Back home and I'm just glad to have a hot shower and to sleep in a proper bed this evening.

So this week we burnt about 75L of boat fuel and threw just about the whole tacklebox at them for a few bumps. Despite catching the only fish for the week, I'm down in the tally score with Tina, Booty and Craig all out fishing me.

Here's my new modular casting deck which worked out perfectly on the lake. All sections integrate with my 70L esky and are removable for when I want to head into the bay and offshore

In summary; the calm before the storm (drop in barometer) turned them on but wasn't enough to get an aggressive strike. The dramatic increase in water has seen a bloom in bait fish and thus the barra aren't interested in anything we had to offer them, most of the ABT guys were downsizing to bass lures and 20lb and even then many (including both the Taylors) couldn't raise a scale. Some of them passed on a few hints and tips which will be handy for the future.

It was nice to meet both Booty and his mate Craig. Couldn't find two nicer blokes to share the week with, both equally with keen sense of wit and knowledge. They might be from that place called Ipswich but they're pretty cool.

Not sure if we'll be back at Mondy quite so soon, but will definitely be back to even out the score.

Cheers

Eug

[tacklebox]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed report. I guess they don't call it Lake Misery for nothing. I'm keen to try for a barra off the yak one day. Maybe when the fishing gets better.

[attachment=43396]IMG_3925Large.JPG[/attachment]

btw I designed that box

[rayke1938]

btw I designed that box

Looks like I will have to drop in and have a coffee next time I am up that way.The name of thye place has always put me off I thought it was a comfort stop for randy truckies.

Cheers

Ray

[bootyinblue]

Looks like I will have to drop in and have a coffee next time I am up that way.The name of thye place has always put me off I thought it was a comfort stop for randy truckies.

Cheers

Ray

Indeed Ray, it was my initial thoughts as well. And I am no prude, but still think some of the marketing slogans in the store are not in the best taste....

Eug - Stonker report there with some good (and not so good) photos added in. It was going to be difficult to redeem yourself from a minus 1 score in a fishing trip, but you have done well.

[ellicat]

Good read Eug. Brought back my memories of last year (but others were catching then :blush: )

There are some suss looking pics of that booty fella

[Keen-as-fisho]

That bloke with the jetski was at Hervey Bay over he weekend, decent bloke, keen for a chat. And I'm the same with Beefies pies, I always stop there great pies. As for the Bruce hwy, hate it, the earlier the better during the night is best.