A week at monduran dam

[bassboy888]

Gday Raiders

Here is the full sum up of Basscatcher and my trip to monduran dam so make sure youre comfy, as this may be a long one.

Getting to monduran dam after lunch on Sunday the 25th of September we set up camp and prepared all our rods and tackle for the following days on the water.

Day One of fishing:

Full of excitement and anticipation We hit the water bright and early getting up at 430. Not being at the dam since January 2010 we were shocked to see how much the dam had actually changed! So not knowing where to fish we made the call to fish by the books, find windblown points and cast at the weed rolling plastics off it. Starting in bird bay where the guide said he had sounded some fish, and nice deep weedy point we sent off cast after cast into likely fish holding spots.... getting nothing not even a catty so we decided to explore up one of the arms of bird bay and troll some hardbodies with the electric while we looked for some more likely spot... BANG Basscatcher hooks onto a fish, getting a little excited but quickly dies off when it stays deep and comes up the dreaded catty

so as he de-hooks the fish i hand him in all its glory the catty crown (an ugly green bunnings bucket hat to be worn until the someone else catches a catty, you catch 2 barra or the session ends). Coming in for a bacon and egg lunch at 1230. By 330 we hit the water again, with the wind up and blowing in the right direction we headed back to bird bay feeling good i fire of the first cast zzzzzzz, Im on straight away, you beauty!!!! But alas up comes another catty.....

on goes the hat, back goes the catty. This arvo pretty much ended the same as the morning for a big fat barra doughnut with the water still pretty cold around 22-23 we werent fully surprised....

Day two of fishing

With nothing going on in Bird bay we decided to find warmer water around better weedy point, heading to the B arm this time, finding a great weedy area not too far up and the water was already warmer at 23.5 to about 24, we started working around the point, and up around its bays. Not getting much we continued to work until we sounded what looked to be a school of big fish, setting the electric to spot lock and casting our the plastics after about 40mins we sounded back up around where we thought we saw the school and saw nothing, they had moved on. Going Back up to the point we started at Basscatcher got a strike on a B-52 but that was it. So we moved further up B arm trolling the hardbodies again in search of better spots, going over what appeared to be massive schools of bait assessing there could be barra pushing the bait up or following in behind it, we put the electric down and started casting until we could no longer see the bait on our sounder. Moving once again to what looked to be an extremely fishy weed island in an expansive bay with the temperature jumping up again to be 26 degrees. Here we saw lots of bait and it was looking very, very barra friendly so we stuck at it for a good hour, with our stomachs getting the best of us we headed home again with another doughnut.

Basscatcher headed into gin gin after our bacon and egg feed, getting some fuel and into the local tackle store to get some smaller plastics receiving some tips from the owner to where the fish were biting. This meant our afternoon was cut short so we decided to go into a spot we looked at earlier that day on the opposite side to white rock where we caught barra last time just shallower up, making the mistake of unfortunately staying till after dark and nervously weaving out of the timber and putting along on our GPS track home. For another day.... a barra doughnut.

Day 3 of fishing.

With our newly acquired plastics and knowledge from a local we headed further up today towards D arm where we went into shallow weeded and timbered areas. Casting Texas rigged 4inch berkley powerbait ripple shad and 4 inch hollow bellies around these areas, moving deeper and deeper into the creek we noticed that once again the further up we went the warmer it got reaching a max of 27. We finally started to get hits, however these were strange they felt like bream double taps, and we started to guess what could these be... Barra? Bass? We missed about 6 strikes that morning, when finally ZZZZZZ Im on wooooo! You beauty a little barra came up into the net, a feisty little 45cm barra went onto the mat. After a few happy snaps off it went back to its home.

For the rest of the day we missed 4 or 5 more and as the afternoon progressed the action dropped off, so instead of making the same mistake we did from the night before we raced back to the boat ramp before we ran out of light.

Day 4 of fishing

Waking up Thursday morning full of excitement we headed back to the same area we got my fish the previous morning, however this morning was a bit slow and had barely a follow. So a change of move was in order, nothing too drastic just into the smaller arm in D arm. Finding massive weed walls around some submerged timber so we pushed up onto the weed bed to cast into some deeper spindly trees, being quite shallow i fired a cast into the deeper water too see what was out there and rolling my plastic back up the weed bed i was on, a bigger barra peeling some line and fighting hard and dirty trying to get into the weed, but muscled him out pretty easily, on the brag mat and measured a neat 55cm.

A few casts later and more taps, a short time later I was on again this time the fish was fighting even harder trying to wrap me around a tree and straight into the weed, but the weedless hooks allowed me to get the fish in the air without too much worry of thrown hooks, it ended up being the biggest fish for the trip of 65cm.

It didnt take long for Basscatcher to be convinced thats where the fish were so we tied off to a tree and sent out more casts, and again more taps however no hook up this time, so i decided to take a leap of faith and try the bass gear with a beefed up leader of 20lb, still pushing it for barra in sketchy territory, but why not, this time using a Texas rigged 80mm squidgy fish, chopped down to allow for better hook exposure when pushed over the weedless hooks. It wasnt long before I nailed a 58cm barra on this light gear

and thought you beauty! How could it get better than this, well it did with 3 cast later me landing a 62cm fish which took me around a tree AND into the weed making me very nervous.... but we got it in the net successfully.

Basscatcher was getting a little frustrated getting taps but not anything hooking up, so he decided to go over to the light gear using the same small plastic as me and ended up landing a 45cm fish. So after more and more hits while I landed a few more small barra on the plastics Basscatcher got fed up and tied on something with a few more exposed hook points, his weapon of choice: a sebile 82mm magic swimmer, and it had interest straight away, getting smashed by another 58cm barra,

cycling though our bass lures that we havent caught fish on yet, still using the sebile getting 1 more barra and an awesome strike seeing 2 bow waves go for the lure exploding out of the surface. Fortunately I only lost one lure to the barra, unfortunately it had to be one of my more expensive ones! The sun came out at around 3 and the barra went off the chew, with us tallying up 12 barra for the day.

Edited October 5, 2011 by bassboy888

[bassboy888]

Day 5 fishing:

Today we went straight back to where we had caught the barra on Thursday however with no cloud cover the fishing was very slow today. I landed a tiny barra in the sticks on the heavier barra spin gear, missing numerous strikes all day, Basscatcher also caught 2 barra and his best for the trip a healthy 62cm fish that took him around a tree, lucky he was also using his barra spin gear he was able to free spool the fish till it came out and muscle him a little.

Other than those 2 fish it was a long day, we even went all the way up to I arm to find some warmer muddier water and found 27 degree water that looked to be constantly warm from the very green floating weed, we only spooked one fish along here but it looked to be a big one so we were hopeful for some other action but got zilch, no tap nothing so we headed back to where we knew there were some fish, getting a couple of taps but heading home before the sun went down so we could get out off the trees. Coming back to find heaps more boats in for the upcoming ABT event.

Day 6 fishing:

Leaving earlier than the other days, we headed back to our “honey hole” to claim it because of the comp. Getting hits straight away. It wasn’t long until I hooked onto a really dark little 40cm fish.

It wasn’t long till again we were on this time it was Basscatcher reeling in a barra, another one of the 58cm barra fish that were around.

Going a little quite for a while Basscatcher switched over to the lighter gear and a few moments later hooked up to a decent sized fish that snapped him straight off. I picked up another small fish but that was about it, after trying a few other spots for nothing we ended up heading in around 130 ish after a long wet drive back with lots of wind.

As we got back we packed up the camp and set up an overnight sleeping spot, a hootchie, mozzie net and roll out matresses. Once this and dinner was all done we decided to go for one last fish, grabbed our bass gear and headed down to the spill way, and what can i say but what an AWESOME experience. Both basscatcher and I broke our PB bass twice in one night!!! First ones were both on plastics, mine the 80mm squidgy fish

and basscatchers a 4inch white hollowbelly.

After these fish I tied on a 90mm cultiva tango dancer and lent Basscatcher a cultiva zip n ziggy. I got 2 miss strikes one which sounded like a large barra boof. Then moved up the pool a little more and with no time at all Basscatcher hooked onto another big fish the same size as the previous......

10 casts later (I know this as we got it on our “last cast”) Basscatcher hooked onto this 58cm+ fish, were not sure exactly how big cause we forgot the brag mat, but it was a hell of a fish who gave a hell of a fight on the surface.

Then as Basscatcher released his fish, he gave me the “5 more cast rule” 1st cast....nothing, 2nd cast....nothing, 3rd cast, you go it nothing, 4th cast nothing.... will I get an item off my bucket list? 5th and final cast, BANG i’m on zzzzzzzz I DID IT I can cross off catch a 50cm bass from my bucket list! Wanting to know exactly how big she was I cut a piece of braid head to fork of the tail measure that up and she was a HUUUUGE 55.5cm.

Walking back to camp we couldn’t resist the temptation to go out again the next morning

Day 7 fishing:

Well we woke up bright an early this morning and I wasn’t disappointed, Catching a tiny barra on yet another cultiva lure this time a mira shad, and 2 45cm bass who fell to gold 1/8oz tt spinnerbaits.

Getting late we headed back, packed up our gear had brekkie and off we went!

There concludes another monduran trip, hope i didn’t drag on too much with the report, and you all enjoyed the read

Cheers Stuart

[map_82]

Gday Raiders

Here is the full sum up of Basscatcher and my trip to monduran dam so make sure you’re comfy, as this may be a long one.

Getting to monduran dam after lunch on Sunday the 25th of September we set up camp and prepared all our rods and tackle for the following days on the water.

Day One of fishing:

Full of excitement and anticipation We hit the water bright and early getting up at 430. Not being at the dam since January 2010 we were shocked to see how much the dam had actually changed! So not knowing where to fish we made the call to fish by the books, find windblown points and cast at the weed rolling plastics off it. Starting in bird bay where the guide said he had sounded some fish, and nice deep weedy point we sent off cast after cast into likely fish holding spots.... getting nothing not even a catty so we decided to explore up one of the arms of bird bay and troll some hardbodies with the electric while we looked for some more likely spot... BANG Basscatcher hooks onto a fish, getting a little excited but quickly dies off when it stays deep and comes up the dreaded catty

so as he de-hooks the fish i hand him in all its glory the catty crown (an ugly green bunnings bucket hat to be worn until the someone else catches a catty, you catch 2 barra or the session ends). Coming in for a bacon and egg lunch at 1230. By 330 we hit the water again, with the wind up and blowing in the right direction we headed back to bird bay feeling good i fire of the first cast zzzzzzz, I’m on straight away, you beauty!!!! But alas up comes another catty.....

on goes the hat, back goes the catty. This arvo pretty much ended the same as the morning for a big fat barra doughnut with the water still pretty cold around 22-23 we weren’t fully surprised....

Day two of fishing

With nothing going on in Bird bay we decided to find warmer water around better weedy point, heading to the B arm this time, finding a great weedy area not too far up and the water was already warmer at 23.5 to about 24, we started working around the point, and up around its bays. Not getting much we continued to work until we sounded what looked to be a school of big fish, setting the electric to spot lock and casting our the plastics after about 40mins we sounded back up around where we thought we saw the school and saw nothing, they had moved on. Going Back up to the point we started at Basscatcher got a strike on a B-52 but that was it. So we moved further up B arm trolling the hardbodies again in search of better spots, going over what appeared to be massive schools of bait assessing there could be barra pushing the bait up or following in behind it, we put the electric down and started casting until we could no longer see the bait on our sounder. Moving once again to what looked to be an extremely fishy weed island in an expansive bay with the temperature jumping up again to be 26 degrees. Here we saw lots of bait and it was looking very, very barra friendly so we stuck at it for a good hour, with our stomachs getting the best of us we headed home again with another doughnut.

Basscatcher headed into gin gin after our bacon and egg feed, getting some fuel and into the local tackle store to get some smaller plastics receiving some tips from the owner to where the fish were biting. This meant our afternoon was cut short so we decided to go into a spot we looked at earlier that day on the opposite side to white rock where we caught barra last time just shallower up, making the mistake of unfortunately staying till after dark and nervously weaving out of the timber and putting along on our GPS track home. For another day.... a barra doughnut.

Day 3 of fishing.

With our newly acquired plastics and knowledge from a local we headed further up today towards D arm where we went into shallow weeded and timbered areas. Casting Texas rigged 4inch berkley powerbait ripple shad and 4 inch hollow bellies around these areas, moving deeper and deeper into the creek we noticed that once again the further up we went the warmer it got reaching a max of 27. We finally started to get hits, however these were strange they felt like bream double taps, and we started to guess what could these be... Barra? Bass? We missed about 6 strikes that morning, when finally ZZZZZZ I’m on wooooo! You beauty a little barra came up into the net, a feisty little 45cm barra went onto the mat. After a few happy snaps off it went back to its home.

For the rest of the day we missed 4 or 5 more and as the afternoon progressed the action dropped off, so instead of making the same mistake we did from the night before we raced back to the boat ramp before we ran out of light.

Day 4 of fishing

Waking up Thursday morning full of excitement we headed back to the same area we got my fish the previous morning, however this morning was a bit slow and had barely a follow. So a change of move was in order, nothing too drastic just into the smaller arm in D arm. Finding massive weed walls around some submerged timber so we pushed up onto the weed bed to cast into some deeper spindly trees, being quite shallow i fired a cast into the deeper water too see what was out there and rolling my plastic back up the weed bed i was on, a bigger barra peeling some line and fighting hard and dirty trying to get into the weed, but muscled him out pretty easily, on the brag mat and measured a neat 55cm.

A few casts later and more taps, a short time later I was on again this time the fish was fighting even harder trying to wrap me around a tree and straight into the weed, but the weedless hooks allowed me to get the fish in the air without too much worry of thrown hooks, it ended up being the biggest fish for the trip of 65cm.

It didn’t take long for Basscatcher to be convinced thats where the fish were so we tied off to a tree and sent out more casts, and again more taps however no hook up this time, so i decided to take a leap of faith and try the bass gear with a beefed up leader of 20lb, still pushing it for barra in sketchy territory, but why not, this time using a Texas rigged 80mm squidgy fish, chopped down to allow for better hook exposure when pushed over the weedless hooks. It wasn’t long before I nailed a 58cm barra on this light gear

and thought you beauty! How could it get better than this, well it did with 3 cast later me landing a 62cm fish which took me around a tree AND into the weed making me very nervous.... but we got it in the net successfully.

Basscatcher was getting a little frustrated getting taps but not anything hooking up, so he decided to go over to the light gear using the same small plastic as me and ended up landing a 45cm fish. So after more and more hits while I landed a few more small barra on the plastics Basscatcher got fed up and tied on something with a few more exposed hook points, his weapon of choice: a sebile 82mm magic swimmer, and it had interest straight away, getting smashed by another 58cm barra,

cycling though our bass lures that we haven’t caught fish on yet, still using the sebile getting 1 more barra and an awesome strike seeing 2 bow waves go for the lure exploding out of the surface. Fortunately I only lost one lure to the barra, unfortunately it had to be one of my more expensive ones! The sun came out at around 3 and the barra went off the chew, with us tallying up 12 barra for the day.

mate good going. how long did it take you to get up to that d arm? we're heading up there on friday for the fishing comp. thanks, mark.

[bassboy888]

it took 20 minutes to get to D arm and then 15 mins to get through the timber to the back

[IVZ350]

awesome trip....monster bass guys well done

[Mike.]

Awesome trip guys, they are some monster Bass Bet they pulled hard!!

55.5cm might be a fishraider record!

[mark brown]

Nice report mate and great bass

[irongustavius]

Great report guys, thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Some monster bass there . . . my word . . .

[Guest]

Outstanding effort fellas and a great post those bass are monsters and I am very jealous indeed

Cheers Stewy

[pmak]

Awesome report Bassboy! You and your dad sure fish hard! Those bass look like small barra (or do the small barra look like big bass??)

So, after all those long hours fishing for barra, were those quick bass sessions at the end the highlight of the trip?

[paul.kenny]

Awesome report Bassboy! You and your dad sure fish hard! Those bass look like small barra (or do the small barra look like big bass??)

So, after all those long hours fishing for barra, were those quick bass sessions at the end the highlight of the trip?

Hi PMAK,

You should have seen the smile on Bassboy's dial after the night session. The surface strikes by those big Bass were just awesome.....I am surprised he even slept. It was so good we went back the following morning for a quick sesh instead of departing for Sydney, it was worth it. He was still talking about those Bass 1300km after we left Monduran.

[Jewhunter]

Great report BB!!!

The barra look in great nick & have a beaut dark colour about them. No doubt they will be 1mtr plus this time next year!!

How about those bass??!! They are HUGE! I must fit in a trip below the spillway next time I'm up there. What a great way to cap off the week.

Well done to both of you on the new p.b's. They are something to brag about!

Cheers,

Grant.

[Hodgey]

Extraordinary bass mate!

Congrats to you both, and thank you for taking the time to write such a great report! What an impressive trip!

Cheers

Hodgey

[GregL]

Awesome bass and barra pics, the bass is a cracker!

Tuff fishing but ya still got rewarded for your efforts.

Them barra bites are smaller than bream bites, freaky ay...

Last time I fished the dams we found sitting paralle to the bank/ weed bank and cast down along the edge worked alot better than sitting off it and casting to them. Lure sits in the strike zone longer/ whole retrieve then.

Top report and great reading.

Greg

[Breambucket]

Top work guys

The spill way is very surprising isnt it! and you can see how much erosion there was from the floods!!!

[bassboy888]

Thanks all for your comments, you guys arent wrong about the size of the bass i cant stop thinking of the size of then when we first saw them. I feel as if i have been spoilt now catching Bass averaging 50cm......... I think i might just have to start targeting more fish with silly string to get more of that rush..... If i wasnt enough of a light line junkie i deffinantly am now....

Awesome bass and barra pics, the bass is a cracker!

Tuff fishing but ya still got rewarded for your efforts.

Them barra bites are smaller than bream bites, freaky ay...

Last time I fished the dams we found sitting paralle to the bank/ weed bank and cast down along the edge worked alot better than sitting off it and casting to them. Lure sits in the strike zone longer/ whole retrieve then.

Top report and great reading.

Greg

Your not wrong greg its crazy how fish much bigger than bream can feel more subtle at times.

It does make sense though fishing parrallel to the bank, it really does give the lure more time in the strike zone and covers more water. But we found sitting up on the weed we werent spooking the fish that were working from the deep channels to the weed walls and cycling through.

Top work guys

The spill way is very surprising isnt it! and you can see how much erosion there was from the floods!!!

Where its eroded is insane! i went for an explore when i first checked it out the path of water and fallen trees just shows how much/strong the water flow was!

[slinkymalinky]

Awesome report boys. In about 2 hours I'll be in the car heading up there for my own 3 days of hope and pain. Since Jewhunter has piked out to catch up on work I'll be there fishing with all my friends . Not quite sure what I'll do about getting photos if I manage to do anything like as well as you did.

Cheers, Slinky

[brendong]

I reckon if FR had a section for 'Trip of the Year'....that would have to get my vote....well done fella's....I've never caught a barra, but I'm not sure how much sleep I'd have got with Bass like that on chew each night....incredible....very jealous....

[map_82]

mate i just got home from the monduran family fishing comp. i don't know what power you had working with you, but to say the fishing was tough is an understatement. the only barra registered in the first day was 59cm, and on the second day it was 68cm. 2 registered for the 2 days. couple of bass were registered. couple of catfish. it was a poor performance to say the least. i caught nothing, didn't even have a strike. not even a catfish on a prawn. oh well, try again next year. at least i wasn't the only one that caught nothing!

[bassboy888]

I reckon if FR had a section for 'Trip of the Year'....that would have to get my vote....well done fella's....I've never caught a barra, but I'm not sure how much sleep I'd have got with Bass like that on chew each night....incredible....very jealous....

Cheers Poddy, it was an outstanding trip. Unfortunately we didnt make the choice to go down to the weir until the last night, actually maybe it was fortunate we left it, i would have got even less sleep if we found it earlier and would have become very spoilt with bass that size.

mate i just got home from the monduran family fishing comp. i don't know what power you had working with you, but to say the fishing was tough is an understatement. the only barra registered in the first day was 59cm, and on the second day it was 68cm. 2 registered for the 2 days. couple of bass were registered. couple of catfish. it was a poor performance to say the least. i caught nothing, didn't even have a strike. not even a catfish on a prawn. oh well, try again next year. at least i wasn't the only one that caught nothing!

Sounds much like the ABT comp, but even harder! Thats really unfortunate that the wind didnt stir the fish up! i thought along with many other anglers that the water would become dirtier and cycle the warmer water up shallower bringing the big fish with it.

[Joco]

WOW what an adventure, days and days of fishing

Some great looking fish, must have given you some stick....

The smile in the photos say a thousand words...

Hope to catch my first Barra some time in the near future.

Well done, great report.