borumba dam-HELP ME!!

[jeffo]

hey guys and girls. with the weather looking like it will be up to shit for the next few days, i wont be heading offshore so i thought i might as well try and get my first bass and maybe even a toga? borumba is one of the closest dams to here so that seamed like the best option. looking at towing the boat out there wednesday to try bag a couple..... now here lies the problem. all of my fishing has been in salt water, im a fresh water VIRGIN! any help would be greatly appreciated!
thanks in advance. jeff

[Fitzy]

Hi Jeff,
If its your first time to any location I'd be just getting to know the water as the first priority. Borumba has got alot of standing timber.
Bass & saratoga need far differing techniques & will probably be found in differnt locations & depths. On the what & how, I'd be getting hold of a few fishing mags & have a good read on techniques employed.


Fitzy..

[leso]

hi jeffo,
went to borumba sunday, total 32 bass and 6 toga to the boat, on the water at 6 off at12, best way i know to cure a hangover!!! message me youre ph no. and i'll fill you in ...

cheers leso

[Fitzy]

Greg Livingstone from Springwood Marine caught this big saratoga there last week. Was approx 90cm. Its pretty rare to get one bigger however he claimed to have dropped one a foot longer next to the boat. That would beat the biggest southen 'toga I've ever seen.
Look closely at the pic & you will see where he was & you might notice the jig head in the top jaw, which tells us it caught on a franger.

Fitzy..

[jeffo]

thanks for the info... by looking at that map what areas would you guys start in? i would imagine up around all the timber would be worth a try? are the bass in the deeper or shallower water at this time of year>? or does that change from day to day? as you can see i have no idea when it comes to fresh water

[TimNQ]

Maybe try some spinner baits, toga supposedly like them and id prolly stick to casting into the banks. but hey ive only caught toga on steak in cape york so my opinion is pretty useless.
Tim

[leso]

HEY JEFFO

cant send a private message as i dont have enough posts call me on 07 32023120
cheers leso

[Mattman]

Hi fellas

Thats one hell of a toga
I thought my 60cm one was alright but thats huge

Cheers Matt

[jeffo]

cant send a PM cause you dont have enough posts? thats interesting....

[jeffo]

ok returned from my first fresh water experience. had fun but didnt really do much good. started off fishing up yabba creek with spinnerbaits and soft pastics and only got one hit for about an hour of lure casting. went for a look up kingham creek and saw one fish smash the surface so we threw spinnerbaits, frangers and little poppers... NO HITS!
it was starting to get dark by this stage so we headed back out into the main part of the dam and trolled lures around the grassie banks. after about 5 mins of trolling we got a hook up... 27cm bass for the missus only a little fella but it put a smile on our faces and made the trip worth while.
a few more questions for you freshy experts. am i wasting my time trolling a lure that dives to 3m in water deeper than 5m?
what colours do you find work best? the fish was caught on a green and yellow RMG poltergeist.
and what size jig heads do you recommend? i was using a 3gram head.
like i said before.... very new to this style of fishing... but liked my first taste of it.
cheers. jeff

[Fitzy]

Hi Jeffo,
Replying to your PM here for anyone else to read/add to/criticise.
You can fish spinnerbaits at any depth you want. A general rule to follow is "the deeper you're fishing, the heavier spinnerbait you use". You can also fish a heavy spinner in shallow water by retrieving it really quick. This allows you to cover country to search for actively cruising fish.
To help get you started, I'd advise retrieving spinners by just staying in touch with the bottom. That will work at alot of bass/yellowbelly/cod locations.
To effectively fish any lakes you need a good sounder. Bass can commonly sit mid water eg there's 60 feet if water & the bass are holding at 30 feet. This is where the sounder kicks in. This is when you will have to count your spinnerbait down to their depth (or just above that) & keep it there for as long as possible. Only by trial & experience will you work out how fast to retrieve any given spinnerbait combined with whatever line to keep it at a set depth.
The bass you find mid-water out in the middle of most lakes are commonly in "rest" mode. That's why a bloody great noisy contraption like a spinnerbait can wake them up at times (reaction strike). When these fish are active they will hunt for food by either looking for schools of bony bream or move up into the shallow water margins looking for little gudgeons, insects & shrimps. They mainly do this in the low light hours because bass HATE the sun.
Another general rule to follow is "as the sun gets higher, bass go deeper".
Those 3m lures in 5m of water will work. Bass will rise a long way to take a lure but wont often go much deeper to take one. So its better to be a little shallower than the fish than too deep.

Up in the sticks with spinnerbaits I would cast into where you think the bass are & work it just off the bottom. The closer you get to the boat the slower you will have to go because at some stage it is going to get pulled UP more than along. Fishing right up the creeks at borumba I think I (personally) can pull more fish by using small shallow running lures most of the time. I like to rip through holding and/or active fish & put a pause in, that when they usually strike. I think the pause is all important but its almost impossible to do with a sinking lure like a spinnerbait as it will sink away from a fish that may have come over for a look. Bass will dead-set race over & suss out a lure alot of the time. I've seen half a dozen hovering around a paused lure almost daring it to move again. They're like a cat playing with a mouse sometimes.
Bass will pick a lure up off the bottom, but not if there's any kind of weight involved. They will readily pick up a lightly or unweighted plastics/fly from the bottom however.
Trolling is a good way to get onto fish. It allows you to cover country & start getting an idea "where" the fish are. Keep trying different lures & colors as what is working the best one day might not be the best the following day, but you will see some patterns emerge. WRITE THEM DOWN!

Saratoga. I would fish only the margins & fish fairly shallow. They almost never venture too far from the bank or structure eg snags. I would cast a spinnerbait into almost no water & work it back with a constant retrieve trying to keep it with 2-6 feet of the surface. 'toga aren't afraid of the sun, but they hate the wind & will go looking for calm water. If they cant find it they will simply go deeper, so drop your maximum fishing depth to say 10 or 12 feet.

The toga in the pic was caught directly across the other side of Borumba from the ramp.

Some of that should help you to start out. There's no better teacher than time on the water.

Fitz..

[jeffo]

fished borumba again this morning and did a little better than last trip. caught (and released) 3 bass and a toga. all fish were caught trolling deep divers. there was fish hitting the surface on first light oposite the boat ramp but we couldnt get a touch on spinner baits or poppers.

[TimNQ]

What size was the toga?
Any photos?

[jeffo]

got photos bu they arnt digital toga was about 50-55. bigest bass was 36.. geez they pull hard for their size! pull any bream backwards.

[TimNQ]

You should try some big jungle perch.