Not too many yellowbelly close to Roma especially these days with low water levels in the nearby creeks etc...the most gross thing I caught recently was two huge water rats that swam into my opera house net that I'd set in the creek for yabbies.
I did catch three nice yellowbelly though (in 2012) in Bungewogari Creek, 10km west of Roma and another five (also in 2012) in Blyth Creek kind of South-east of Roma 25km towards Surat.
I went to St George for work in March 2013 after some recent floods in Dalby. By the time the water got to Beardmore Dam the dam was at 101% capacity. They started letting water out of the dam and the river level at St George rose and the weir under the bridge was churning it out big time.
I went for a look on the other side of the bridge and the water had risen enough to suburge a low gully section that you can usually drive on. I went there to cast a few lures (during my lunch break of course) as the water was calmer there and just eddying around.
I caught zilch on lures but a few local fellas turned up with cooked prawns as bait and they started hauling in the yellowbelly, big fish - one after the other.
A week later I drove the 200kms back to St George on a day off, to fish in that exact spot again but when I got there, the water had receded and the area was dry again - doooh. I tried a couple of other spots along the rver below there weir with my cooked prawns and caught 2 turtles - doooh again!
Luckily I had also brought about 40 or so live shrimp to St George that I'd caught in a trap in creek near Roma. After thinking of driving back to Surat I decided to give Beardmore Dam a go, having never been there before.
I found the dam but the dam itself seemed very inaccessible. Not far down from the spillway I saw a few people fishing but they weren't catching anything so I followed a dirt track a bit further down the river.
I parked and carried three rods down to the river; but by the time I put on the first live shrimps & cast out I didn't even have time to pick up the second rod before I was getting bites.
This happened consistently for the next hour until I ran out of live shrimp. I was putting at least 2 shrimp on each time I baiited up so they didn't last too long.
All up I caught 14 yellowbelly, from the shore in about one hour. I let five go as they were borderline size limit and I kept nine decent size fish. One was quite large at close to 3 or 4kg but when I cooked it whole later, on the Weber it was very fatty inside.
The rest of them I filletted, skinned and de-boned and they tasted great. So the 200km each way trip to St George ended up being worth it...
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