Bass

I’VE had one hell of a month fishing Lake Borumba with multiple clients. At this time of year we experience some of the best fishing you can experience at the lake. The bass move into the deep water to school, just as they would in saltwater estuaries. But because they can’t get to salt water, all they do is school …

AS a freshwater angler, much of my fishing calendar revolves around the warmer months of the year, with hiking trips for cod, surface fishing for saratoga and sojourns into the tropics chasing sooties all being more enjoyable with higher water temperatures. One freshwater fishery that remains productive during the coldest months of the year is our local impoundment bass scene. …

THE water levels in our two dams are slowly dropping and this has been happening for some time. It’s hard to ignore but it’s a simple fact of life when you’re going through one of the worst droughts in quite some time. Boondooma Dam currently sits at 35 percent and Bjelke-Peterson Dam at 8 percent. Despite the low levels enough …

WELCOME to a new year of fishing. I am extremely excited because the new year gives us a chance to take last year’s experiences and use that knowledge to give us a better understanding and hopefully land a lot of new PBs. One of the main things I learnt from a young age is to keep a fishing diary. It …

LAST month I wrote about my pre-fish for the B.A.S.S. Australia Nation round to be held at Lake Boondooma. The pre-fish certainly paid off because I ended up in third place, which I was absolutely pumped about. So in this article I’m going to run you through how I went about the tournament. On the official pre-fish day I headed …

Cast the jerkbait up to the weed edge and crank it down a couple of winds, pause it and then begin a series of twitches as you wind. Remember that when fishing close to the weed you will contact it regularly, so just give the rod tip a quick flick to get the jerkbait free. Be patient with this technique …

Lately I’ve been catching my best-quality fish suspended in deep water. They have been sitting in the thermocline at 4.5-6m. I target these fish using a variety of baits, initially starting with a soft bait of a 1/2oz-rigged soft plastic. I cast this out and count to seven to let the lure sink into the strike zone. Once the plastic …

At this first spot we caught about 10 fish. No big ones but it was good to see the fish were biting. After this, we headed up the dam to the start of the trees. This is where the fun really began. We found two locations where the fish were thick. I had recently bought a Humminbird Helix 12 sounder with Mega Imaging. This unit …

Some fish have been hooked in 5m of water and deeper throughout the day, however the majority are coming from shallower water. The fish have not yet started to school in big numbers but several smaller schools of fish can be targeted. These schools have usually been found near some sort of structure, whether it’s a log or stump, drop-off …

I worked my way back to camp just after dark using a topwater approach but failed to entice any further interest. The others didn’t have any luck in the afternoon session but we were all keen to chase them early the next morning. Everyone was up and on the water pre-dawn the next morning. We were keen to make the …