"Has To Be Done" Part Deux

Again, been rather busy this week as you would have guessed it... my final week in Sydney, Australia. Had done some hardcore fishing last week prior to a very important "Has To Be Done" trip so I'll just blog this very special outing I've had with my partner-in-all-sorts-of-crime. After a pretty much stuffed-up weather the previous weekend, we postponed the trip to Lake Glenbawn. Come last weekend, the weather forecast was brilliant and I had booked an accommodation at this place called Aberdeen Motel. Oh well, turned out to be a regrettable decision. Came Friday, I had made a prior long journey trip to the blue mountains as part of a birthday trip for snow, and as did Maurice who came along too. Got back to HQ at around dinner time and Chen had to work OT. By the time we had finished mucking around with the boat and getting our feed, we left HQ at close to midnight! Armed with the first time using Google Map driving directions, we set off to the Sydney-Newcastle freeway. Weird directions it was as we were made to exit out pretty early after being on it for less than 50Ks. Then, it was the craziest wildest adventure we both ever had towing a boat and driving in misty roads with barely 5 meters of visibility! We trekked through the narrow roads slowly with many times going at between 50-60km/h. I was rather impressed with Chen's Pulsar and at one point he was like telling me this felt like a rally! With the mist and total darkness, the shortest distance Google Map had penned out for us was useless, as we ended up getting to Aberdeen past 3am! Pulsar drank quite a lot of petrol and we were worried that it might not make it to Glenbawn and decided to drive in no-man's land past 3am searching for a petrol kiosk! Didn't find one even though a policeman told us where was the nearest. We opted to wake up early the next morning and drive down for it. Got back to motel for only 1.5 hours of sleep! Now, that's when I said earlier why it was regrettable, as that's gotta be the easiest money they earned from us at 87 bucks! KNNBCCB!!!

Alarm rang but we were damn buggered especially after a long drive. Still, I managed to pull myself out as I didn't really sleep much. Also, didn't wanna waste this trip especially after such an enduring journey. Drove down to the nearest town for petrol and by the time we could tow to Glenbawn, it was already quite bright. Past the Glenbawn state park gate and just a short drive later, we arrived to a magnificent view of the lake. Got to the ramp and it was looking quite good, with two lanes of concrete but the shit thing was there wasn't any pontoons to load up onto the boat. Anyway, no dramas whatsoever except with me stupidly stuffed up the ratchet clamp and we were on the water just past 7am. Took some photos just right after we hit the water.



Directly opposite the ramp was the dam wall and that was gonna be our first stop. To be honest, we had no clue where to fish and how to fish it. Armed with some info from the tackle shop we bought our lures, we tried the wall. Basically threw bass minnows and spinnerbaits, there is simply nothing. And the water was quite deep too!

Straight up, the sinking feeling of not being able to score anything like the Thompsons Creek Dam started to play on us. Anyway, being undeterred and at the same time super duper buggered, we headed off from the dam wall straight towards a misty horizon. Damn... the lake is bloody huge!

Next stop, was a small little island with plenty of sunken trees around and down the electric motor. We plugged along for awhile with Jackall's TN50 and TT Lures spinnerbaits for absolutely not a touch or hit. Took a short break at this spot to rig up new lures and also to chill out for some energy bar brekkie. It was quite a popular spot in fact, with a few boats very close to us as most of them either drift or tie to a tree and soak some bait. But we persisted with our lures and that Jackall lipless crankbait's rattles were so freaking loud in the water that we could even hear it on the boat!



Then, a call was made to change spots again. Motored around upwards and Chen asked me to pick one. Had no clue where looks fishy as practically the whole lake looks fishy! With sunken trees and sheltered bays, I opted one point to try and we peppered the trees and slowly use the leccy to motor us into the bay. This is where it got interesting when we started hearing splashes and seeing fish jumping. Made a cast with my Jackall imitation lure (Kokoda brand, 7 bucks only) in between two trees and a few cranks later, the blackhole went nuts! It was a very explosive take and I was absolutely gobsmacked by the shear power of this pound-for-pound aussie bass. After a short fight, Chen helped me net my first Lake Glenbawn bass (30cm ?!), phew, NO DONUTS for the trip fortunately!

Anyway, that turned out to be the only fish! Tamade! After leaving that spot, we went further up to a gently sloping featureless point where I told Chen the AFC people fished those spots as well. But the wind was getting the better of us as it was quite an exposed area. Stuck around for awhile before pulling the plug and headed back to our previous spot where we caught the bass. But there was truly no more joy and the wind was howling pretty badly. It was close to 1pm and we decided to pull the final pin and headed back to the ramp. Both of us were absolutely buggered to da max. Took a final photo of the Glenbawn bass before releasing it. Even at 30cm, it was quite fat compared to the ones we caught at the Nepean. We were using the live bait tank to keep it alive, even joked to Chen when we got that fish that we need one more to get the bag, lol...

Long story short, basically we made it back in around 4-5hours time. With the V drink, it didn't really help much, but we persisted and made it back. It is truly an eye-opening experience and I told Chen I won't mind going back again, as it really has potential.

Ronald