Flying Bass

In Carl's last report he said "it's been a long time" since he went bass fishing, with a crazy year for me on the work front and the trout streams around Lithgow getting a fair go, it's certainly been a long time since I did any decent kayak fishing.

I've been looking forward to catching up with my good mate Mick Munns for a while now and after he and Carl did so well on the bass we planned to hit Penrith for a morning session on Sunday 27th December.

What a top morning we had, the rain held off but the overcast conditions meant that the annoying waterskiers and site seeing boaties had gone to the movies or shopping the post Christmas sales instead.

Within the first few casts Mick was on, not a big fish but it was the surface strike we were looking for. I tried a few different surface lures but the hits kept coming on Mick's HSJ flies and soon after I started fly casting a louder hit came and I was on to a good fish in the late 300s. It was a long battle with the fish burrying me in the weed and when I finally got him near the Yak and reached for the net, he spat the hooks and swam away. A shower of bleeps rained from my mouth and I turned to see Mick filming every second of my disaster. He turned away and chuckled to himself as he started casting again.

Soon we decided to change sides of the river and I was rolling my line in under some heavy cover and pulling out fish after fish, problem was they were all around 25cm and not really impressive by anyones standards.

I rolled another cast and heard Mick call out "This is a much better fish", I flicked my fly out to the centre of the river and paddled up to see what was going on. Mick had the net hidden next to him, but I could tell he was trying to hide his smile and he lifted the net to reveal a beautiful bass coming in at 41.5cm. After a quick photo session, he released it back to it's snaggy home and we fished for a few more small ones before returning to the ramp.

It was a top morning and it's certainly re-ignited my passion for bass fishing and I'm keen to improve on my fly fishing techniques from the Yak.

Anyway's it's off to the tying table now to make some more HSJs before our next session on Tuesday the 5th January.

Cheers,

Fordy