Hi all,
First post on the forum, been a reader for a while now and gained a lot of valuable info from you all. Thought I’d share my trip today on the mid Brisbane river with the Kayak chasing some “wild” bass instead of my usual impoundment fix. Warning of extreme anti-climactic adventure ahead:
I’ve read a lot about a healthy bass population on the river closer to the Wivenhoe spillway so thought I would give it a go instead of my local water hole, Lake Manchester.
I launched at Burtons Bridge at 8am (quite late in the day for my standards) and started my journey up stream, the water was probably about a foot deep for the first 50 meters with some faster flowing water but once it was a bit deeper I chucked a 1/4 spinner bait in to troll but had my doubts due to the heat/time of day/feeling that wild bass were probably more likely to be hiding in the shade and snags. Had to do a little bit on foot up some fast flowing shallow water but then the river opened up and was calm enough for me to slowly make my way along the banks flicking at every overhang and snag possible.
My main setup was a 2-6lb 7” Samaki Zing Xtreme V2 paired with a 1000 Stradic with 6lb braid and a rod length of 8lb fluro. Being a bit nervous of snags I mainly ran 1/16 EWG Ned rig jighead with 2.5” SP grubs in dark colours
There was lots of visual life with boofs here and there, turtles, saw a lungfish cruising along, but no bass biting. Sounder was quiet, usually with the dams the bass come and sit under the kayak and leave big long lines on the finder but non of that today.
Hours past, sun burn set in and nothing. Made my way through my tackle box with little hard bodies, blades, chatter baits, creature soft plastics, soft vibes, imitation shrimp, you name it it was on the end of my line. Throwing it in every single deep dark hole and tree overhang, every fallen tree, every piece of structure I could find.
Got to 1.30pm and called it quits. Landed 2 40+cm forkies (still a pretty fun fight on such light gear) but no bass to be seen in the landing net. One of the forkies was from casting into an eddie on some fast flowing water which was quite fun until I saw it was a forkie but better than a donut I guess.
My question to you wise and knowledgable folk, is the mid/upper Brisbane river still prominent for bass or was that all closer to the 2011 floods? Ive PB’d high 40’s in Lake Manchester but was excited at the prospect of wild bass. Would it be worth trying a little further up or is there anything you recommend for the next trip?
Cheers,
Nick