Monduran 1st to 3rd Jan.

[Roo]

Despite all the hot tips and some local advice from Foxie (Magella) and Steve B, Myself and a mate had a nice 3 days Camping and Boating trip to monduran last week. We managed to have motor problems on the first session followed by Minn kota problems the next day and finally rubbing salt into the wounds with me falling out of the boat and giving my dodgy knee a good belt on the rear pod as i went. What did we get?? Zip, Na dah, doughnut. A couple of catfish was all the life we could drag from the depths of mighty lake monduran. We had one 30 minute period of hope when a fish smacked my slick rig seconds after touchdown but it was just a feisty little catfish, the water we were in was full of fish and the brief moment of stillness after the last rain shower was punctuated with surface strikes all around us but to no avail, surface lures.... no good, sub surface......no good, deep minnows.....no good, plastics..... no good. We just couldn't raise their interest and i suspect the majority of active fish were catties anyway.
Nevermind, I made note of some very nice snags for next time... I bet they're going off now though!!!.
thanks for the great deal on the sliders Foxie, The Missus is very happy with her present. And thanks to Steve B for trying to help. we found 28deg water right up the kolan in some small inlets around "O" and although we could see big fish on the sounder.....they did'nt want what we offered. they other campers getting a fish were trolling predatek spoonbills in natural colours right up the top of the dam...."Up the Colon" of the Kolan so to speak! From a about "I" and up there are lots of submerged surprises.....we found sneaking up river from here at just over idle to avoid disaster was the go.
we packed up on the morning of the 4th with clear skies, bright sunshine and light breeze and drove south into the storm!!
Cheers Roo.

[Peter4]

Bad luck Roo.

I'll be up there next week and I'm hoping for a better result though I am not encouraged by your report!

There is always next time.

Regs

Pete

[warrior]

with the amount of people fishing this dam at the moment its little wonder the barra are lure shy hopefully the full moon will bring them on for you men,but with the full moon brings all the boats and probs with even getting into the water.

[SeekingBarradise]

Thanks for the honest report orbyroo as the only thing we have heard lately is that the fish have been jumping on the boat up there!.

Atleast going with friends you can have a great time socially and it's better than sitting at home thats for sure. Monduran has a good group of locals helping out the travelling fisho which is awesome to see. This will get more anglers to Monduran.

Were there many in the camp compared to the usual packed crowds at this time of the year?

Cheers Lyndon & Kel

[NAGG]

Hey Roo ..... was the weather the problem ? ( at the time you were there or the lead up)..... Or just the amount of boat traffic !
Shame you missed out ..... but its still a great place to go away to
Hopefully .... next time

Cheers
Nagg

[Roo]

hey pete, they'll be hungry by now!!! just make sure you drop into foxies on the way and pick up the latest news, tips and lures that are working.....I dropped back in to give him our results on the way back home, while he was trying to convince another holiday punter to listen to the locals and use some smaller lures as thats what he'd found(from all reports) was working.

warrior, SeekingBarradise & Nagg, weather would have been the major factor....lots of rain, howling ESE winds and drop in air and water temps appeared to have shut the fish down, Not many boats about i guess for the time of year, unpowered camp sites were largely vacant, a fair few powered sites empty too. there's a sign on the way into town....something about friendliest town 2003....still is a pretty happy place.

Cheers Roo.

[BR65]

Bummer Roo, at least you had a go.
cheers
brian

[eotbmg]

Bad luck Roo
It really grounds you when you doughnut, but god it makes the next barra sooo much more exciting, then you can hang it on your mate if he hasnt caught anything
Ben

[nob]

what direction was the wind....... if it was SE that could be the problem

[Roo]

...lots of rain, howling ESE winds and drop in air and water temps....

Cheers Roo.

that says it all really.

[Archer]

A feeling i know all to well....Bad luck Rod theres always next time.

[Steve B]

Hey Roo, Tried!! its a mongrel of a dam at times. I feel for all who travel big distances and plan ahead only to be ruined by weather (and boat problems!)

Next time you will be luckier I reckon.

Nob, I used to think any SE winds were the 'shutdown' factor. Not anymore. Howling cold SE is bad, but gentle SE winds that dont affect the water temp dramatically still seem to produce fish (I find its the bigger ones too). I think (and this is just my observation) the low barometer over past week has kept fsihing a bit quiet. It was hot with NE over weekend/monday BUT barometer was 994. In saying that, Moggy had an awsome session on the sunday, coincidently we did well on the reef on sunday in a NE wind.

The purist reef fishos reckon any northerly wind are bad for reef fishing?? who knows. As Johnny Mitchell says, impoundment barra feed in all conditions, you just have to work out their feeding patterns in relation to weather conditions.

cheers

[Tropicaltrout]

Get them next time roo, I bet you clean up.. be honest mate your sounder broke aswell so you where testing the water temp yourself.

Good report mate

Nath

[Roo]

Get them next time roo, I bet you clean up.. be honest mate your sounder broke aswell so you where testing the water temp yourself.

Good report mate

Nath

Ha ha, I forgot to mention that!!!!! and deep too

well, actually....while my mate, matt, was parking the car/trailer on the last day......im sitting there at the gravel ramp trying all sorts of things to get the sounder to fire up!!! bugger would'nt go!!, all i'd get was a black line down one side of the screen....no start up!! its a humminbird matrix with the quick release so i pulled it off the bracket, checked all the pins were clean and undamaged, put it back on, try again, and again, finally by the time matt had secured car etc and come back to the boat (5 mins) I broke the bad news......gave it one more go and away it went!!!! mongrel of a trip.
the boat probs i had on the first night/second morning was the Oil warning lamp flashing on the tacho and beeping tone. naturally this happens we your a good couple of k's down wind from the ramp and its getting dark and the leccy is low on power.. Not wanting to destroy $8500 engine we immediately checked everything, plenty of oil, filter getting warm so probably not blocked, top end getting plenty of oil, no nasty noises!!!! but i didn't have the owners manual with me!!!! I'm hoping its a service reminder light/tone but i've never had it before! after assuring myself it was ok, we made out way back to the ramp at a reduced pace. Next morning, rang Suzuki Haines to check, Bingo! dude says"oh yeah, flashing light is just a service reminder, oil system fault is a constant light and tone" phew! turns out the last time I got it serviced (10 hours ago) they didn't do a reset!!!!and the engine managment was getting a bit cranky with me for not looking after it properly , we reset it and sorted that one out!.

“The best-laid schemes of mice and men / Gang aft a-gley” (often go astray), “A man’s a man for a’ [all] that.”.Robert Burns, Eighteenth-century Scottish poet.

cheers Roo.

[Roo]

I did mention the little "unplanned" swim i took!