Awoonga Dam

[bassman]

Gday all. Ive talked the missus into a fishing trip during Febuary. Can anyone give me any imformation about Awoonga Dam?
What fish can be caught?
what Lures to use?
what is the water level?
can we camp and the cost?
can we camp with our dog?
etc etc etc etc

[Gus_Potter]

Check out Fitsy's site, specifically the info on awoonga at http://www.ausfish.com.au/fitzy/awoonga.htm

Gus

[caveman]

hi bassman no dogs alowed theres
barra garfish catys i think the dam is at about 17% theres a rest area on the hiway if u r willing to pack up every time u go anyware or a park at the dam and another at benariby on the hi way take some crayfish pots with u as there r heaps of redclaw there just make sure you put cable ties on them as they tend to get raided i hope some of this is of help to you
happy fishing


cave man

[Scott_Mitchell]

Bassman:Well I have returned home to a very smokey Cooma after two weeks of great fishing in a few of Qlds Dams.

I started at BJ Peterson dam where we caught "lot" of big yellow belly to 55cm and bass to 46cm.We caught most fish trolling the river bed using Ultra deep Merlins and Smack 16 lures in purple and orange colour combinations.

I spent two days fishing with local guide Mathew Mott who expedited my learning curve.Matt showed me a great day out on Boondooma where I caught good bass on deep fly, spinnerbaits and soft plastics.I also landed my PB bass with a 50cm and 48cm fish in two casts on Squidgies !

We then con'd Matt and his family into tagging along with us for the rest of our trip.Can't beat local knowledge and good company.

Next stop was Cania where the bass just went balistic , with 50 fish sessions on spinnerbaits and fly.My wife Katrina landed 20 bass in one session of an hour between 40cm and 46cm.We also managed 6 toga to 65cm.In two days we caught over 150 fish !

We then moved up to Callied where we landed 9 barra between 55cm and 92cm in two days !This is a small dam with a lot of potential, especially once the water levels get back up.

The icing on the cake was our 3 days at Awonga, where we landed 17 barra from 65cm to 1 metre, with Katrina landing a beautiful 16.2kg fish.We also saw another 4 fish landed from 17kg to 20.5kgs !

Merv at the Park really makes you feel welcome, with great accomadation in their self contained units ( You do need to book ahead as there are only 5 ).The rangers are also very helpful with Gary Wade being an asset to the fishery.

We caught all of our barra at Awonga trolling.We used Vipers in the mullet colour and 160 Classic Barra's in the bleeding mullet colour, on 30lb Fire line with 80lb Jinkai leaders.
We worked the edge of the mud bank leading into the Boyne river from the main basin.We also found a high spot out in the middle off that bank which had big schools of boney bream on it - thats where we got Katina's fish and dropped two others of simular/larger size.

I found you had to work back and forth "across" the old creek bed bringing your lures up out of the deep water around 25-30ft onto the flat in 8-12 ft - jigging them as they bumped bottem (You do need a good sounder and learn how to read it- I am wrapped with my new Legend 3005 )Running along the river bed didn't bring the same results - you needed to bounce the lures off the deeper edges. We also worked any area's where we found good schools of bonies.It was interesting to note that the boney bream schools would bunch up into columns when the barra came on the chew - and would be spread out at other times.

The best bites occured early first between 6 am and 8am - then again between 10.30am and 12 pm - middle of the day ! We got Katrina's fish at 11am.Four other big fish over 17kg also got caught in the middle of the day - with one other 15kg fish coming in one afternoon.

We trolled every night until 10 pm along the two ramps bank with a few other boats - and never had a hit ? I prefferer to catch them of a day any way.

All in all I was very impressed with Awonga and the hospitality shown from Merv and the Rangers (Thanks again to Gary Wade).We'll be back again next year

Regards Scotto

www.alpineangler.com.au

[davo]

I agree with Scott. We used red head Viper's and Koolabung livebaits back in November with good success. A good sounder is a valuable tool. I've got a Garmin 240 and I could pick the barra hanging over the submergered timber. Go to Pat's tackle in Gladstone if you need any gear up there. The one thing we did end up doing to the Viper's was replace the front and rear trbles with 1/0 6x VMC hooks. On the the longer lures they still straighten the 3x VMC's. We've also started using the new shallow version with great success.