Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
IT has now been more than six weeks since we have seen good rainfall in our neck of the woods.
Some rain to the tune of say 200mm would be more than welcome and give Glenlyon Dam a chance to rise from its current 28 percent capacity.
It would also help to get rid of the water weeds around the edge of the dam. The weed is at the stage where it is not quite thick enough to walk on but too thin to plough.
The water hens have been sacked because they can’t keep up with the growth rate. Only the fingerlings are grinning about the current situation.
This year we have released 10,000 lovely silver perch (yeah we know you love them), 200,000 golden perch (also known as yellowbelly, and presently punching holes through the weed beds) and 4500 Murray cod. More cod will arrive when the Mephan family’s Inverell cod are ready. Word is that when the thugs from Inverell are released all the other fingerlings take cover.
About 200ML of water is to be released from the storage for local crops. Some water will also be heading downstream from Pindari Dam via the Macintyre River. Cold water released from the dams mixed with the warm water already in the streams leads to the creation of that green slime we all love to hook.
But this is only a small worry when it comes to catching cod, and they have been on the chew, which is more than a good excuse to whack the canoes into the water.
The Ashford Fishing Club’s Peter Newell One Lure Fishing Competition has come and gone and 73 anglers entered. Bill Horsehell took out the main event and Terry Marshall won the one-hour comp on the Sunday morning. It was like Moreton Bay on Sunday, with over 30 boats lined up for the one-minute of silence in memory of Peter Newell the legendary lure maker prior to the start of the one-hour fish-off.
Then bang, every boat took off. I was sitting in my mate Terry’s small tinnie and we were getting smacked from all sides by the chop on the water. Back at camp for clean-up time, we had to go to Bunnings to buy a leaf blower to clear away the wood chips, fish scales and bull dust from around the campsites. I managed to catch up with ‘Tub’ too, and it was good to see him on the go.
I also chatted to Don Lawson, Chappie and a lot of the blokes who like me seem to have less time to fish each year as more work seems to pop up from nowhere. It’s a bloody never-ending nuisance. After the fishing there was a lure board raffle, with 38 lures to be won, all made and donated by the lure makers who attended the competition.
A very happy Belinda Finch was the lucky winner of the beautiful lures and you had to make an appointment to talk to her after the win. A special thanks needs to go to those who worked hard to make the event what it was. It’s always hard to please everyone but you did a great job. Also thanks to Kerry Erlick and his better half who sponsored the event.
Without their input and prize donations the event would not have been such a fantastic get-together for all concerned. Before I finish, there was a special award for the biggest boo boo of the competition. It was won by a father and son team in a tug of war event, with the prize lure donated by Bryan Power. It turned out that dad backed the V8 ute down to the water, the son hopped into the boat, dad pulled the support leg off the outboard motor and then jumped back into the ute before backing the boat into the water. Well the boat floated off the trailer and both motors started going – one trying to go forwards (ute) and the other going backwards (boat). Who forgot to release the boat’s winch strap?
“You did, you did, you did!”
Both winners.
