Yellowbelly at Cooby

[johno68]

I have finally caught my first freshwater fish out of my canoe (well not out of the canoe...). Yesterday after lunch, I went out to Cooby Dam with my brother. Armed with heaps of advice from the gents at fishnbits, we trolled around looking for deep water watching the sounder for the signs of fish. We struggled to find deep water consistently - most of the time it was around 7-8m. (after looking at an old satellite image, I can see why now...). We then went around the edge a bit, but had to keep pulling up lure to clear the weed off....still nothing on sounding except weed.

A bit disheartened again, we thought we would go across to the other side to the rocks where we knew for sure it was deep. So with my lure (suggested by fishnbits - 15ft+) behind us, minn kota on 3rd speed we traveled across - really just a token gesture before we went home....

Well then my rod nearly jumped out of my lap and I was pretty sure it wasn't weed (have never caught a fish trolling before), the rod shook a bit and I was pretty sure I had my first fish. Carefully brought it in (not trusting my knots) and was able to land a nice yellowbelly. I measured it roughly to be 35 cm.

I didn't see it on the sounder (though I wasn't really watching closely at that stage). On the whole trip, never saw any arches...switched over to fish id and some pictures of fish came up and I tried to quickly switch back to turn off fish id to see what the arches would look like, but no luck. So, I haven't see a fish arch on my sounder as yet.....

Anyway I has happy to finally get a fish...can't wait to go back.

[Goodoo haven]

Good on you.

A nice yella there buddy.

Well done mate.