dirvin21 Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Just come off 3 weeks of leave coinciding with school holidays, and obviousy there was plenty of fishing done, this is the freshwater part. We spent a week camping at copeton dam, we bush camped on the upper end of the dam hoping to tangle with a big cod. The first couple of days we had aweful weather, cold winds, rain and just generally unpleasant, not to mention the fish were slow. We spent countless hours casting lures from the bank, kayaks and boat as well as soaking baits. We lost a few worms until finally one got properly eaten a solid silver perch to break the doughnut, we ended up with 2 for the trip both really solid fish. The struggle to catch fish continued, after the bad weather broke, the fish seemed to become a bit more active, we had plenty of follows from yellas but couldn't get them to commit. Finally the frustration was broken when Amy lets out a scream from her kayak with a loaded up rod gave her quite the fight a beautiful yellabelly, went 56cm certainly raised the morale. The lure fishing was very very slow in the end we decided to try for a cod on bait, whilst sitting around the campfire at night we lobbed out a big slab of chicken breast on a 10/0 circle hook, it was a bit surreal when the rod loaded up, I grabbed the rod initially to get the hurt on and clear the fish of the snags then gave it over to Amy to finish the fight, so we could share the capture went 99cm, it's more about the fish not who claims the catch, after some quick snaps we slid her back in the water to go back to terrorising the local fish. Apart from a couple of spanglies that was it for Copeton, it actually feels a bit out of balance the massive population of monster cod seems to be eating everything out of existance. My next freashwater session was a day trip out to the Dumaresq dam just outside of Armidale, I headed out with the aim of redfin, long story short i fished for over 3 hours without a looker to catch a lone redfin right in front of my launch site haven't caught a redfin in man years i certainly be back for another go, fished for trout on the way home with no action at all, finished off on the Bellinger river aiming to catch a catfish on fly, the catfish weren't very active by that stage in the arvo put cast after cast with the fly until finally got a hookup, knew it was no cattie a nice little herring for my first fish on fly, ended u switching to a plastic and after a lot of casts finally managed to tempt a cattie they really fight hard for their size, with the light fading came back a couple of days later again going for the cattie on fly, launched the yak and explored a bit of new water, certainly was scenic again the catties were playing hard to get probaby not warm enough yet, ended up switching to bass fishing which was also incredibly slow, then put a cast on a really active cattie couldn't believe it when he turned and nailed the jigspinner a beautifully marked fish to finish off the freshwater for my time off, the fishing was a bit slow but caught a few different fish in the next few weeks it'll all be about the bass cheers fro reading Dave 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackfish Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Great read and photos there Dave. Very nice Yellow and The Cod 1cm short of that magic metre, still a nice fish. Thanks for posting. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Great report and Super photos. The family had a grea time. Cheers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centrepin Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Dave, Great you had a fun family time. Well done. Look forward to hearing about more advenrures Geoff 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingie chaser Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Nice effort Dave, sounds like your plans changes a bit from Windamere but you still managed to get your yellow football 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big Neil Posted October 21, 2020 Share Posted October 21, 2020 Another great report Dave. Well done on the variety of the fish caught. The Redfin looks nice and healthy. What size was the Cod? I went out last night and had a mixed bag too with a BIG Carp, a small Murray Cod and 6 Yellowbelly. All caught on worms. Conditions were the best I've seen in a long time though water temp is still a bit low. I've got the shrimp net in and will have another go this evening. Cheers, bn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirvin21 Posted October 21, 2020 Author Share Posted October 21, 2020 2 hours ago, big Neil said: Another great report Dave. Well done on the variety of the fish caught. The Redfin looks nice and healthy. What size was the Cod? I went out last night and had a mixed bag too with a BIG Carp, a small Murray Cod and 6 Yellowbelly. All caught on worms. Conditions were the best I've seen in a long time though water temp is still a bit low. I've got the shrimp net in and will have another go this evening. Cheers, bn 99cm, couldn't quite stretch it 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Clain Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Great report Dave. amazing fish and amazing photos! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
61 crusher Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 Good on you for sharing the fight, looks like everyone enjoyed the time away Great report & photos 👍 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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