Hey there everyone.
Well its been an awesome couple of months to fish the Dam. A combination of stunning scenery, sunrises, mist on the water, and excellent fishing.
The lil' buggers seem to have finally taken growth hormones and for the first time since I've fished the dam you occasionally need more than 4lb braid ...... and we've even had a few bust ups!! The bass seem to have developed a taste for barred grunter and have been splurting them up in the boat. Toppy even managed to hook a grunter on one treble and a Bass around 50cm on the other!! (We reckon that was cheating as He was using live bait!!)
Thanks to the hard work of a mate of mine (Mitch Calcutt - son of the late Ron Calcutt) we've had fantastic fishing with some sessions scoring in excess of 30 solid fish in a few hours! Mitch almost singlehandedly sussed out these fish over the winter months, working out their location, feeding habits, lure techniques and prime times. He let a few selective hints come our way (which I don't mind passing on here) but the truth is if you don't work some stuff out yourself its just not as rewarding ..... so don't ask me to give ALL of Mitch's tricks away fellas!!!
Without a doubt our mate Aykut has been "The Slayer" lately, prostituting himself around and fishing the dam with everyone (no matter how ugly), almost every moment he's not working, and even some days when he is!!He's seemed to have nailed the technique though, and rarely went without scoring plenty of fish. Shame He choked recently when He took his father out and tried to impress him in front of us.
There have been fish up to 54 cm caught there this year, and one day Ben Job got absolutely smashed in 4 feet of water with a spectacular stitch up 2 seconds later!Not often in the past would One be absolutely smoked by a bass in hinze dam. Fishing the surface this summer might result in quite a few spectacular annihilations in the sticks with fish of this size.
Good fish have come from both western and eastern parts of the dam, with the proven winter pattern being hopping lures near the bottom .... nothing new for bass crew I'm sure. Lures were vibration lipless lures, jackalls and softies such as squidgie fish in white and black/gold, and sliders. Recently there has been action on the surface and mid water though, and I expect the strategies and locations for catching these bass is about to change again, as always happens with change of seasons and week to week.
Thanks to Paul Topp, Ben Job, Mitch Calcutt and Greeny for letting me fish on their boats.(unfortunately I can't take mine up there due to the 130kg polluting motor on the back!!). As you can see from the photo of Toppy's boat, fishing with Toppy was rather a frugal affair, with his "Bass on a Budget" rig being just a little too rough & simplistic for my liking!
I think it could do with a pole in the middle for the gold coast girls to snake around all covered in tanning oil ..... Errrrrr I digress!!
Enjoy the pics people!
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Originally Posted by bdowdy
