Quick Bass session to recover from Valentines Day

[slinkymalinky]

Jewhunter and I get to do man stuff today... a great way to recover from Valentines Day, in-touch-with-your-feelings, girly skirt day. Although Jewhunter reckons he looks ok in his skirt.

We were headed to the archery range for a shoot at 8:30 so that gave us a couple of hours on JH's local water from just before first light. The river level was up but not too dirty so we felt pretty confident. In the pre-dawn gloom we came across a line of trees along a bank, full of Ibis. Both of us were fishing surface lures and first cast into the bird-poo infested water and JH's black Jitterbug got smashed. I immediately turned it into a double hookup on a Cicada walker. Lots of yahooing and excitement as we both got towed around by hard pulling good fish.

2 good fish in the low to mid 40s. Both fighting fit and in good condition. I love the sound of squealing drags before the sun comes up. What a way to start the day. JH got another one near the same class shortly after while I picked up a 'micro Bass' a little over 20cm.

We continued to poke into all the likely snags and overhangs, although some of our favourite snags from last time we fished the area together, had completely disappeared. The surface bite switched off like a light as soon as the first edge of the sun touched the horizon. I managed another fish on a spinnerbait and JH finished with a tally of 4, bringing us up to 7 for a short sharp session.

Now just as an aside, I service a lot of reels and I get the dirts when I see people post advice to put reels in a bucket of fresh water if they get dunked in the salt. NO NO NO NO NO!!!! I dunked one of my spin reels today.... in fresh water. True to the advice I give others, as soon as I got home I completely stripped, cleaned and re-lubed it.

This pic is what the inside of a spin reel looks like after immersion in FRESH WATER (salt is a million times worse but fresh will still kill your reels). Bear in mind that this is maybe 5 or 6 hours after the dunking. The creamy looking goop in the reel is grease that has emulsified. If I'd left it for 48 hours, the bearings would already be well on the way to being stuffed, the gears would be starting to wear as the grease broke down and the reel would eventually seize.

If you dunk your reel in fresh or salt and you want it to keep perfoming... it has to be pulled down and fully serviced. You can spray all the innox or silicone lube into it you like (I know you're out there are you swear this works) but its not going to be anything but a bandaid on an infected wound.

Cheers, Slinky

[Jewhunter]

Nice wrap up of a very short & sweet session mate.

The quality of the fish was very good. They hit & fought very hard for wild river bass.

The river may take a while to recover after the flood that's on the way!

Cheers,

Grant.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Jewhunter

[Dave_]

Couple of real quality Bass there. They really pull hard above 40cm! Nice work

[Robinsoi]

Great pre-dawn session guys and congratulations on the quality of fish caught.

Thanks for sharing and thanks also for the information about reels.

All the best

Ian