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Let's Head West Gentlemen!

Surfingant

By Surfingant
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Surfingant Newbie

Surfingant

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I decided early on in the week that Murray Cod would be on the menu for the long weekend so I shot off a text to Milan to see what he was up to, oh going to some lake to chase some bream on bait was his reply, as soon as I mentioned the word cod his plans immediately changed. Not having a ute anymore I rang my cousin to see if I could borrow the trailer, well soon enough he was coming too so I then had to find another yak! Wayne D to the rescue again, thanks mate. With 3 of us now going we decided my little wagon and a trailer would no longer cut it so we loaded up Dad’s work truck (free fuel as an added bonus), piled in and set of early Saturday morning. The drive there was long and squishy but as always with the wogboys together, interesting and a load of fun. The drive is 300 kilometres so we stopped off about halfway for a feed and refuel before heading off again and eventually arriving at our destination.

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We were excited and quite hopeful, the day was looking very good weather wise and surprisingly was quite warm. After setting our respective kayaks up for the day we launched and immediately got into casting our arms off, the amount of drowned timber here really is amazing and it can sometimes be a struggle deciding what to cast at. We worked the first pool for absolutely nothing, not even a hit which didn’t concern me too much as I would expect it would cop a bit of a flogging being close to the launch site.

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Once in the second pool we worked over the structure and as I pulled up at the end to portage around a section I hear Milan in the backround yell out he’s on, typical cod fishing, I’d just worked over that snag…

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While not a big fish it was good that one of us was off the mark and all our spirits were lifted for what may be ahead of us. After the obligatory photos we decided to start making our way to the next pool, Richard at this point mumbled something about the rapids and I said we might do the short portage over this set as a precaution as it was running fairly hard, sure enough he ignored that and soon found out that kayak fishing can in fact be quite dangerous. Milan and I were stuffing around with a lure when Richie went down the run, Milan noticed he was in a bit of trouble but it looked as though he’d get out of it, well let’s just say he didn’t and things quickly turned nasty with the sit-in yak now full of water with Richard still in it and being pulled under a snag. Luckily he managed to pull himself out of the yak as we turned up to lend a hand and the three of us struggled to get the yak out of the run and back to safety, we got there but it was a timely reminder to always assess a situation before heading into it. With the yak emptied and Milan having done a rescue job on some things that had floated away we finally went down to the next pool. We worked our way through for nought and kept on going, after a lot of casting Milan and I heard Richie up the back call out he was on, fish in the yak and his Murray Cod cherry was popped, well done cuzzy!

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Richard cracked the pattern of staying well back and working the snags over slowly that we had already had a few casts at, patience and persistence paid off as always and he racked up another shortly after.

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And another a little while later!

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I was getting a bit grumpy by this stage, I was working the snags well for nil reward and the few times I did get a hit they wouldn’t return for another go. Finally towards the end of a long pool I put the heavy stick and spinnerbait down and pulled out the little bass outfit with a Damiki DC 200 on it, almost immediately it paid off and I managed to get off the mark with a nice Yellowbelly, but it was still not a cod.

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After a 20 minute lunch break we set off to the next pool, now my donut was broken I switched to the same spinnerbait Richard had been using all morning- a Damiki GPS in natural shad, and started throwing it around. I spied a nice snag that had a bit of an eddy to go with it and sent my lure in, a few turns of the handle and it got smacked with the hooks finding their mark. The poor thing didn’t stand a chance on my 10-17lb Dobyns and was quickly brought aboard, happy days.

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My next fish came not long after, about half an hour, and it whacked the spinnerbait as I was hopping it slowly off submerged logs, needless to say I was now a very happy and satisfied boy with 2 cod and a yella under my belt for the day.

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We pushed on into the next pool and decided to go to the end and turn for home, Richie managed a Yellowbelly out of that pool and I actually saw the bow wave and dorsal fin of a cod race from it’s snag for my lure but that was the only greenfish sighting we had there.

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On the way back we didn’t fish as many snags but we did make a point of jumping out of the yaks and fish a certain run from the opposite bank, it looked like prime cod country and I said to Milan, I’d love for a cod to drill my lure in here and sure enough next cast what happened? A very good cod came out from behind his rock and absolutely smacked my lure, my rod went over as I struck and that was it, he dusted me on his snag in a flash, I was not happy but hey that’s fishing.

Ignore the idiot in the photo, the run behind me is where I got busted off.

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The rest of the return journey was rather uneventful aside from seeing an Echidna burrowing away and we got off the water and packed up before the sun set and headed for home.

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Thanks very much for the company fellas, I’m already looking forward to the next trip and thanks for reading our report.

Cheers,

Ant.

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WayneD Newbie

WayneD

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Excellent. Good to see my mojo filled yak did the trick. That's quite a successful trip for this time of year. I am thinking about next weekend :)

BTW emptying my yak would have been a bugga. I haven't got around to putting a bung in it yet!!!

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Surfingant Newbie

Surfingant

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Yes thanks WayneD the inbuilt mojo is always appreciated haha. A bung certainly would be handy in it, especially now that it is full of water again after I forgot to turn it upside down before leaving home this morning.....

They are a special fish that's for sure Luvit Wayne :)

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