Just had a weekend away with my son Pat chasing bass in the upper Hunter. It's hot and dry up there and the river was full of weed and algae so not ideal but we managed ten bass over the weekend, one yesterday arvo and the rest this morning. Casting at snags was proving unproductive so we turned to trolling which while not as much fun it got results. The fish were all fairly small averaging around 25-28cm with a couple of 30cm and a few tiddlers. They seemed to be in small groups and the very old and basic sounder on my punt proved invaluable locating the fish and we had hits and usually got fish whenever it showed a few around an area while many similar looking areas were devoid of fish.
We travelled down to the brackish water for an afternoon session and while trolling from one side of the river to the other had a good hit on the little bass lure, but this was clearly no bass as it did some long runs and had plenty of weight (at least when you're using 8lb leader on a little 2500 Daiwa Sol!). I was expecting maybe a decent flathead as we were now in semi salt water, then after a slow patient fight through the muddy water came a nice Jewie! After a few nervous moments we got the head and shoulders of it into the small net we use for bass and lifted it over the gunnel. We didn't have a measure on board but guessed it was between 65-70cm. After a few quick pics I sent him back for someone else to catch (maybe me) when he's a bit bigger. Quite a by-catch when targeting bass.
Cheers
Fil