Finally Caught Bass! But Not Me...

Catch Report 2/10/2006

It was Labour Day holiday in Sydney and the last day of the mid semester break for Jialiang. Both of us coincidentally fell sick during the weekends. I've bugged him couple of times about catching our first bass this season and he was keen for monday even though he said he was only about 70% fully functionable. The steel will of a crazy fisho.

I've asked around for information on bass fishing in the local forums and have gotten some general easy to reach locations. This time round, we head over to Penrith Weir Reserve. Yes, Penrith, which is almost to the Blue Mountains region. It was going to be 1 hours drive and we manage to reach there fast due to smooth traffic along the way as we cruise through M4 on my trusty old 85' Honda Civic. We were impressed at how much petrol my car takes that barely moves the fuel meter. So economical, sadly, I'll miss this car too when I leave Sydney.

We were actually fishing near the Penrith Rowers Club along the Nepean River. It's a freshwater river and surprisingly the water there is so crystal clear with not much weed as we've anticipated. There were families there fishing as well using floats and presumably they are using baits. We rigged up at the rowers club launching platform and I took some photos.

Downstream from the weir.

Upstream to the weir.

We were basically fishing to the weir direction. The land base option at that stretch is very limited. We can only cast at tight spots in pockets of exposed overhanging willow trees. We had not much information of suitable lures to be used for targetting bass except for the fact that we know we will use surface bug imitation lures such as the River2Sea Buggi Pop 35 in black colour. It actually resembles a cicada and the hooks are bloody sharp! The key is to cast out the lure and let it sit on the water for couple of seconds before doing a very slow 'jiggy' retreive. This is to imitate as close to the movements of insects falling from the overhanging trees. At one point, while Jialiang was at this extremely tight pocket, I saw not far from a distance a group of fishos was fighting a fish and I was curious what it was. Suddenly Jialiang called out to me and told me he got something on his buggi pop. It turns out to be his first ever Australian Bass!

Wow, not bad for a less than 10 minutes start! By then, I've realised that the group had landed a huge carp and I meant huge! After taking photo for Jialiang, he had to remove the trebles and poor thing, both the hooks had lodged hard into both the bass eyes, ouch! After the poor buggers release, I tried to cast next to Jialiang and bang, I snagged onto a nearby tree branch! Damn it, it was a stupid cast and practically impossible to unsnag it! This time, Jialiang said I've no choice but to utilise my inflatable and luckily I remembered to bring it. I ran to the car and blew up the boat in double quick time. I self carried the boat to the place that I got snagged and board it with some difficulties as it was full of branches and slippery rocks there. Nonetheless, it was done with some awkwardness and I manage to retrieve my lure obviously with more awkwardness! Jialiang was laughing non stop at my poor rowing skills and I was looking like a clown navigating in tight spaces! Suddenly he saw some surface activity and casted hurriedly to that spot. But alas, he snagged his buggi pop as well! So Ronald to the rescue yet again and I manage to save his as well. Wow, this boat proves to be the star of the day, saving 2 lures which would have cost us $20! Anyway, since I was in the boat, I thought might as well fish from it. Jialiang went on upstream casting from the banks while I slowly get accustomed to rowing a boat. Basically I was struggling big time as I've never done it before but once I managed to get used to it, casting from a low vantage point proves to be awesome! I can accurately and confidently cast to tight spots with ease but still, I caught shit! By then, suddenly I realised why the inflatable was somehow squeezing around me! It had slowly deflate and I knew I was in trouble! I tried calling Jialiang but stupid 3 network sucks in remote Penrith area! Luckily I was close to the banks and therefore with quick paddling, I could get to the banks with ease. Without much drama, I've successfully unloaded myself from this crap inflatable. I continued fishing upstream while carrying the deflating boat for a zero result. By then, it was getting dark. There was a lot of jumping mullets but they were small. I kept changing lures but there were no touches at all. Jialiang had come up to me and we decided to pull the plug. Overall it was a good place to fish, and we concurred that we'll be back again in the hotter months to try and get my 1st bass as well as for Jialiang to get a bigger one. Bloody defective inflatable!

Ronald