Quiet Week

With a school camp last week leaving me ready for bed on the weekend and some other family commitments coming up including my little godson Ned's christening I didn't get out this weekend. Being the final week of school before the holidays means the nights are fairly hectic as well so I may manage to sneak out for a few hours Thursday night but otherwise it's not looking promising. Weather wise the weekend looks decent and should be able to get the boys out for a few hours in between soccer games and other weekend joy, then it's two weeks of fishing, and the garden, but mostly fishing... Family is off camping with some friends in Halls Gap for a week so planning to give Fyans, Wartook and maybe even Bellfield a bashing. Last time up there my eldest managed to outfish me for the first time in the fresh and I'm hearing about a repeat performance already. It's been a good chance to sort through some gear and rearrange a few bits and pieces, amazing how much "junk" you manage to collect over the summer.

Sunday Session

Well the initial plan to go chase some gummies went out the window with the doggies taking the NAB cup last night and some small celebrations that were held. The backup plan and brownie point earner kicked in and it was time for a family Sunday drive. Time to check out the Loddon, up around Bridgewater and see how it's looking.

The car was quickly loaded and a couple of rods thrown in along with the mini x strapped to the roof, a few snacks to keep the tribe preoccupied and we were on the road. Along the way we made a few little detours to check out a couple of the reservoirs and some side streams. Unfortunately pretty much all of the feeder streams are non existent and despite the heavy rainfall last week little has found it's way to the reservoirs, plenty of farmer's dams looking healthy though so another decent downpour and that may change. Laanecoorie is holding a bit of water, 12% and talking to a local caravan park resident is fishing fairly well, but what that means is anyone's guess, wasn't much for conversation. Cairn Curran and Tullaroop are around 5% and looking fairly said compared to days gone by.

Back in the car and on the way to Bridgwater the tribe's stomachs were rumbling so first stop was some food and a session below the bridge, we stopped off to grab some pies and sausage rolls and were greeted by the option b small town milk bar owner, the grump ( always seems to be one of two kinds; either incredibly polite, helpful and friendly or, the grump, I'm yet to meet an in-between, everything's just okay type at a country milk bar) We made our way down to the river with our grudgingly supplied pastries and had the pleasure of watching a couple of skiers running their laps (anyone remotely connected to kayaking would know of our undying love of all things ski, jetski and wake creating related). To be fair it is a designated ski area with lanes, ramps and slaloms set up, but still...

After chucking a few lures along the bank we decided to head above the bridge to the "historic swimming area" where we dropped the kayak in and tossed around a few plastics and spinner baits. The fishing was pretty quiet (dead) so the boys amused themselves in the kayak. While I walked the bank for a few minutes playing with a new surface lure I'd gotten, with the boys complaints and growling at each other as one got splashed, dunked or poked with a paddle ringing in my ears I had one last cast in mind before heading back to deal with the usual chaos of two kids and one kayak. Being the middle of the day I hadn't really expected much if any action on a surface lure and was really just trying it out to see how it's action was, so I was taken completely by surprise when the water behind the lure disappeared and a roughly 50cm cod rolled over and managed to dodge every treble on the lure. I fired countless casts back into the area for no joy, but seeing even a smallish cod smash the surface like that has certainly got me hooked on the whole surface lure bug. The trip ended with no fish landed but it's an area I'll be sure to return to with a serious fishing plan in the near future. On a side note I never did manage to sort the two kids one kayak issue out, normally there's no problem but I have the feeling they're getting to that point of needing one each, at least that's what I'm telling the wife...

Saturday - Limeburners

 Well after a somewhat later start than initially planned - turns out my new phone's alarm is silent when it's on silent, stupid, stupid thing. We loaded up the kayaks and made our way to Corio Bay. Absolutely perfect conditions to be out on the water, with the faintest of breezes putting a ripple in the water and the sun putting out a nice 20 degress.
Water was well and truly out and one of the lowest tides I've seen in the area so the plan was to work the channel for some flathead and pinkies. Sent my son off towards the channel markers to flick a few plastics while I finished rigging my yak, only to see him turn around and head back as a bunch of yachts came sailing out from the yacht club and decided to drops some bouys for a race right we're we'd planned to drift through. Oh well. plan B time

After I'd finished rigging we headed back out together dodging the yacht boys (who raced once around their bouys and headed off the second we'd moved on) and started fishing some deeper drops. Was all fairly quiet with a number of hits on the plastics but nothing looking like hooking up until finally a little pinkie of about 15cm managed to get a plastic down it's mouth.

The day continued on like that with tails getting bitten off and plastics tugged down the jigs, fitting a stinger hook saw a number of small pinkies boated but nothing of real size or interest until a change from wrigglers to a worm pattern saw a nice 50cm flathead yak side. As I've managed to loose a few flathead of late as i've brought them over the side I called my son over with the small net - to lazy to get the large environet from behind me just for a flathead. As he got over the flathead gave a nice big headshake and dislodged the hook. Fortunately for me the greedy bugger grabbed the tail of the plastic as I dropped it and I managed to slide the net under him before he realised what happened. With my son's soccer game fast approaching it was time to head back to the car and get back home. Trolling back in I did have the pleasure of seeing that look of pure terror/excitement on my son's face as his rod doubled over and line started screaming off the reel, but as he stopped paddling and turned around it soon became clear it was just a rather exciting bottom fish.

All up a fairly poor performance for the area, chatting to a couple of guys back at the ramp it seems seven netters ran through the area yesterday so between that and the perfect conditions what hope did we have. Tomorrow I think I/We will be heading to Altona to play with some ting or even a gummy or two.

The weekend plan

Well this weekend is shaping up to be much more promising weather wise than the long weekend so the plan is to get out early on Saturday to chase some pinkies and whiting with my eldest in the kayaks before dashing home for his soccer game. Depending on Saturday's success Sunday will either be spent getting ready for next weeks school camp or getting back out onto the pinkies. It'll be another infamous battle between the shrek plastic and whatever I decide to try out, Elm put up a great post looking at wacky rigging worms on Vyak so I might give that a shot if we find a school or two.

My son is obsessed with watermelon grubs and pretty much refuses to fish with anything but his "Shrek" style baits. Depending on how well he does I might have to give in and join him this weekend. The new Vader colour from Gulp might change his mind, it could be a tough choice for him soon.

Dean

Well with the uncertain weather I headed off to Dean reservoir about 20 minutes down the road from my house. Arriving to find a car load of guys up from Melbourne checking the place out I had a quick chat with them before heading around the back end of the lake. With the amount of weed in the lake at the moment there's limited areas to fish even rigging plastics weedless, although I'm thinking next time the fly rod could be an option. The boys were doing no good on plastics and taking up most of the deeper water, so with the overcast weather I thought I'd give a couple of surface lures a shot. Down the tail end of the lake there are some narrow channels between the bank and the weedbed which, with some accurate casting can make for some fun surface action when the fish are active. With the water being as clear as it is and the banks being cleared of vegetation recently, a lot of stealth is required and my hopes weren't high being the middle of the day. My first cast at an old tree stump was spot on target and as I waited for the splash of the lure to settle the surface exploded with the splash of a clearly short sighted 30cm trout who managed to clear the lure before landing on the other side - you have to wonder how that guy survived missing a target like that. With that bit of excitement out of the way I worked my way along the bank towards the end of the lake with only a small redfin managing to hook up. I'll say this about surface lures, the size of the fish really doesn't matter for me it's landing that lure in just the right spot and the brief moment of a fish breaking the surface to strike that gets me going. Having said that it doesn't hurt if it's a solid beast that wants nothing more than to wrap you around every piece of timber in sight to keep it interesting. Unfortunately today that wasn't to be. I switched over to a river2sea baby vibe in a golden colour and managed to gain the attention of a roving pack of small redfin which kept me amused for awhile, but couldn't crack it for a decent fish today. With the storm clouds gathering again I headed back to the car and the safety of home not feeling like a repeat of yesterday drenching.

Sunday plans

Well yesterday's not so pleasant weather has done wonders for the rivers and lakes and plenty of damage to houses and cars. We avoided most of it out this way and just got some heavy rain and light hail compared to Melbourne which is seeing people still cleaning up. The weather isn't looking pretty so I've decided not to head down to the beach with the kayak and instead I'm going to head to a few local holes and try some surface lures over the newly flooded margins. All those bass boys over at KFDU have got me loving the surface strike again. With the weed level at Dean there's plenty of food for the fish but I'm confident in finding a few fish up and about, later in the day I might take a drive towards Bendigo and see what's happening down there, depending on the weather situation I might even convince the wife bringing the kayak along is a good idea.

An interesting morning

Well that was definitely an interesting session, arrived at the lake around 11am and took my time getting organised watching a couple of young kids on an inflatable dinghy drifting around and fishing. Once I got out there they wanted a race but even against a fat kayak like the mini they didn't stand a chance. There was lots of clutter on the surface with feathers, leaves and small insects buzzing around but no sign of any fish rising. I decided to try a few laps trolling before I worked a few of my more popular snags around the lake and tied on a Damiki mu 45 and a new dc 50 I'd picked up earlier in the week. I've got a real soft spot for any chubby style lure after getting a fat rap many years ago as a young kid and having great success over the years with it. It was always the lure I was willing to go in after and I still have it today. The Dc has a nice erratic rolling action and certainly looks the goods, keen to give it's bigger cousin the 200 a go on some natives soon. After the first lap I had one small redfin on the mu and nothing for the dc 50. Another lap saw the mu account for 2 more slightly better redfin and still nothing to the dc so it was time for a change. It was time to bring out the everfaithful Rapala floating in a nice fluro yellow/orange colour.( One thing I finally realised after fishing Jubilee for probably 6 months was I had more success with yellow/orange lures and particularly ones that had contrasting black in them. A yellow/black celta accounted for any number of kilo + trout over the years before succumbing to a nasty snag. Driving in one day it finally clicked that there's a large bee farm just next to the lake and always bees around and on the water - so yeah the colour makes sense or at least the pattern.) 1 more lap and the Rapala had 1 redfin to it's score and the mu another 2, I still hadn't seen any signs of cruising trout and decided it was time to work some deeper snags and the edges. Two casts saw another small redfin alongside the yak and big black clouds and thunder rolling in. Deciding being in the middle of a lake, lightning and graphite rods was probably not a great option I hightailed it for the shore and some shelter as the skies opened up. Two crazy tourists decided this was a good time to go for a swim while I amused myself hiding under a tree hoping it was a short shower. 20 minutes later and it was still coming down hard and I was now wetter out than in the water so I dragged the kayak back to the car loaded up and headed for home. Judging by the hailstones piled up and half flooded roads on the way back I got out of it lightly. Oh well there's always tomorrow.

Saturday

Due to family commitments and an undetermined time for them, read (no one seems to know when but it has to be done)the new plan of attack is to hit a few local waters for the Saturday playing with some trout and redfin before heading down to Torquay or Avalon for the Sunday after some whiting and pinkies. Today I'm headed to Jubilee in Daylesford, with the Mini X, I prefer the mini in these settings because I'm not going to be covering a lot of distance and tend to use the kayak to get myself into position I can't reach from the shore so it's more a casting platform than the actual kayaking today. The plan at this point is to troll some minnow pattern lures along with some new Damiki's that I picked up last week. Later in the day I'll either switch to casting celta's or plastics around the willow trees and the back of the island depending on the insect life. If all else fails drifting some powerbait while I chew on some lunch is my final resort. I like to have a plan when I head out these days just to help minimise what I load and bring along, I find the more I bring the less I use so now limit my loading to half a dozen lures and whatever terminal tackle I need along with safety gear. On the way home I'm planning to stop off at a couple of the reservoirs and check on the water levels, Newlyn was up last time i was there but the fishing was very slow, while Dean was loaded with weed and lots of small redfin. Storms are holding off at this stage so I'm off.

Long Weekend

Well work is over for the week and I'm keen to get out on the water again, kids are away so it's a solo session this time and the only question now is do I head inland and chase some natives or hit the coast and chase a feed. The whiting have been in force around Point Cook of late and that's always worth a few brownie points, but I haven't cracked it for a decent yellow this year. I may head up past Bridgewater and check out the Loddon for a future camping/kayaking trip I have in mind. As I'm writing this the storm front that's been promised all week looks like it's finally about to break so that might be the decider, off to check the weather sites and make a decision.