Its a beautiful looking lake and has some big fish in it plus a good few wild goldfish, also some catfish, silver perch and some huge eels. It seems every pond and lake has big eels here, I have even seen them compete with carp to take bread of the surface in some parks in the city where people feed the ducks regularly and some big ones at that.. I would never have believed eels would take bread much never mind feed of the surface unless I seen it myself...! (will get some pics next time I am in there). The lake screams tench at you, so have also introduce some fingerling's in here recently and hope to have some more here shortly ear marked for here too. The last time I fished here I wasn't too impressed which probably explains why I hadn't been back for a bit but some of the club members fished it a short while back and done pretty good so had to give it a go. It had become a little over grown also as it hadn't been fished much but also had lots of thick pads of lillies around the margins so was the perfect spot to let my new "Hillbillys" have a good run around and see how they go....!
it's even got an aerator going all day in it.......!
The lake's got an Island in the middle and is deepest about halfway across to it about 9 to 10 ft and gently shallows up to the margins...It was about 4 to 5 ft deep at the end of the lillies in the margins and I had about 6 ft of water at 10 mts...I set up a little bomb also to throw at the island just to see if i could get many bites on it but never had a bite on it
This side of the lake I fished is the deeper side, to my right (pic below) is shallower averaging around 6 ft and has a few more beds of lillies and I could see clouds of mud blooming in the water as I got out of my car from fish feeding in the shallows when I got there. I would have liked to have fished there but there was a couple of oriental meat eaters fishing the far bank opposite and as with many venues here if they happen to see you set up and start to empty the place they come back the next day here with their mothers, dads, wives, nephews, nieces, neighbours , their whole street and the next one and fish the place till they have enough keep them all on a fish diet for 6 months.Now while I have no problem with people taking a fish or two home for the pot and it is quite the norm here esp with people of eastern European nationality here to cook a carp but some of these people do take the piss and take every thing from a few ounces to double figures, set night lines and even net lakes out. The less these people know about ground bait and other fishing methods the better !
The meat eater's corner.........!..........!
I got set up and threw some bread out on the Bomb while feeding a pole line at 10 mts and one in the margins beside the reeds with a little groundbait and some corn. Also put a little meat in the margins but kept it a meter away from my other margin swim just in case I got plagued with the "tommy turtles".....The little buggers love their luncheon meat here but I have noticed recently by feeding bigger cubes mostly 10 and 12 mm sizes they don't tend to hang around as much...they probably cant get the bigger size in the mouths and give up or maybe I just have been lucky..? After 30 mins on the bomb with only a few liners and had to give the pole a go.
I had a Hillbilly .5gm dweezil on 10 mts with .16 line to Tub175 3 with black hydro and originally had a drennan carp 3 on .18 line with an animal 14 hook to black hydro for my margins but this
went to bits after losing my 3rd fish in a row in the lillies and reeds so up to purple hydro and this sorted it out and also used .3 grizzly which also came through the session unmarked.
I did manage to lose about 12 fish but most were hook pulls as they ploughed through the lillies plus had a snag just outside my margin line which a few came a cropper on but by taking a fish or two on each line, feeding a little more and switching lines around I had a nice little session with about 15 carp and a nice size catfish for close to 30 lbs. Also I managed to avoid the turtles, had a few fish out on meat, avoid my other meat eating buddies on the other side of the lake, and had a couple of big eels bite me off at the net so it was quite an enjoyable session
I keep saying one of these days am going to dig out my old speci gear I have here some where and have a real go at these eels here but am half afraid to...I have seen pics of some almost 2 mts long ...even our own club record here is into double digit kgs and I am not a big chap to start having a wrestle with a 2 mt eel on the bank !
Eel tailed catfish....A native fish here in Oz thankfully don't grow as big as their cousins in Europe.....The eels grow big enough as it is...!
My biggest fish went over 10 lbs with a few of the same getting away in the lillies....must remember to bring a rake next time here
Sunday's match
Sunday morning and it was off to our club match here on the venue I had fished last weekend. Apologies for no pics for the match but had forgot to recharge my camera on Saturday night and it was dead when I went to get some pics on sun morning. I give Danny (our match sec.) a hand peg out in the mornings at our matches and could see how high the water had been on here during the week with all the rain we had ...it had been up about 6 ft over the bank but as this venue is a natural creek it would have run off fast and it usually means good fishing but only downside of this spot right now is that there is lots of new construction going on not far upstream on the creek itself and there was a grimy scum on the surface today and no wind, god knows what went through it during the week with the rain. I have always found it harder fishing on this venue without any wind and the fact we had 22 pegs in for today meant it was going to be even tougher. Still when I drew peg 2 which I realise was all of 2 feet to the left of where I fished last week so was at least half confident of getting a few fish, plus you have all seen the pictures from this swim also from my last blog update !
Today was also the start of our knock out champs which I have manged to get to the final in the last 2 years but got beat both times...third time lucky maybe.? Bill whom I had drawn against was on peg 3 so at least I could keep an eye on him . My attempt at winning the overall club champs this year has fallen well by the waste side...actually didn't get off to a good start with 2 blanks on the first 2 matches along with half the field on meant all I can do is just work my way up the top 5 or 6 maybe if lucky by the last 3 matches..I had a good first full league with the club here last year with having 3 wins ,4 seconds and a few top 5 finishes to win the league out but struggled a little this year and am in 9th or 10th place at the moment. Whats that saying, ?
"Some days you can be the dog, but then on other days you have to be the hydrant"
I have had some good results on the bigger interstate matches and finished top of the qualifiers for the Trans Tasman comp to represent the aussies from NSW so cant really complain too much and am enjoying the matches here sadly there just isn't enough of them from what I use to fish.
Anyway back to today. I set up a .4 critter to .16 line to a B9ll 16 with white hydro to fish a line at 13 mts where I expected the fish to settle into today faster than usual given the numbers we had on the bank. A BGT .3 shallow for a 7 mt line with grey hydro and 2 margin rigs for both left and right, 1 with a shady shallow and fox S2 14 for meat,double corn or big bread punch and also a .3 BGT dibber with an animal 14 in case it did get windy and needed something a little heavier. I had expected the wind to pick up as it usually does in the afternoons here most days...both were .18 line and black hydro...I also had a little bomb and was going to fish a little cone full of liqqy bread to the far side in case it got really hard and a waggler for same line.
It was overcast as we set up but the clouds started to clear just as we were starting and it nice nice and sunny. At the start I cupped just 1 ball of groundbait on each line with a few bits of corn and 10 or so maggots to get going and had decided just to feed with a kinder cup to see how it went. I did dump a full cup full of corn, seed and some meat on one margin swim hoping they would turn up later like last week. Our matches here are 6 hour affairs so it gives plenty of time to get the fish going closer in later on by resting it for the first while. I had a few knocks and liners on 13 mts for the first 25 mins and eventually got a little fish out, then had one about 3 lbs on the hour mark, but slowly my knocks and liner seem to get fewer and the second hour was even worse with nothing joining the 2 in the net. I had kept flicking a few bits of corn to the far side hoping I would have a few fish hiding over there later but didn't want to go at it yet and persevered with the pole lines for the 3 rd hour and kept just dripping in a little feed with the kinder cup. One more carp all of 2 ozs is all I had to show for the 3rd hour but it seemed those around me were also struggling and just picking up the odd fish here and there and all small ones too although Bill , my knockout opponent had a prob 8 at this stage and had an eel in the 4th hour but I was hoping a good fish would keep me with him.....
To cut a long painful story short I went through the book and part 2 of it also in the last couple of hours but only added 1 more small carp from my bomb line to the net and ended up with 1.9 kgs for 13th out of 22 and got knocked out of the knock out....Bill bits and eel went 3.4 kgs..! I never had as much as a liner from the margins and tried upping my feed towards the end but it was not to be ....The match was won from a peg on the other side of the lake with 14 + kgs with 13 kgs second but then dropped to 9 kgs...8 kgs was fifth and then it was all 4, 3 , 2 's and 1 plus kgs for the rest of the field. Oh well another day being the "hydrant". Not sure if it was the extra water and cooler temps or just the venue is always going to be harder with big numbers on it as most of our smaller ones are. We do have a teams of 3 league running also and the next match is back on here in two weeks and with only 4 teams fishing it will be interesting to see how the venue fishes with just 12 anglers on it.
While it is great for the club that the numbers are growing for the matches here and there will probably be twenty plus at most matches for the next league I don't think it will stay that way if venues keep producing 4 or 5 bites for half the anglers in 6 hours. Maybe it is time to think about using 2 venues on the day and keeping the numbers to 11 or 12 anglers on each and put equal league points on each , maybe then everyone might at least start getting a few more fish in the net. Sometimes it's easy to forget that all the venues here are wild and not stocked when reading alot of the match magazines and carp related articles on commercials, pegging, etc and where the stock levels per peg are far higher so maybe less pegs or further spacings between may help. We have four or five sets of double venues all close to each other here which would each hold twelve or thirteen anglers easy and would have a spot to draw pretty central to them so maybe worth looking into. We do also have one venue close to us all in Sydney that can hold 50 anglers easy but it has been a struggle the last two matches on there and can be moody plus no one wants to really fish all the league matches for the year on one venue. So will have to see what will happen for next years league. It's part of a rowing course and a series of lakes that were built for the last Olympics held here and would be a definate world champs venue if it ever came this side of the world (and of course they wanted to fish for catfish and eels...he he..there are carp too). Half the field struggled there on our first 2 league matches this year and I even blanked twice so am not sure whether I am looking forward to these or not...? Although with no pressure on me with the league or knock out I may just try something different for a change there. It's normally a feeder job but have never really tried filling it in on the pole line. I have usually got a few catfish and odd carp of it but never really fully fished it and usually just killed the first hour or so on it while feeding the feeder or slider line, anyway will see what unfolds
there next mont.
Penrith regatta and rowing center...scene of a few blanks in the match from this pic but we are back to next month here.....
yipeeeeee or yeoooooch...
We have the teams of 3 match week after next and hoping to fish some new virgin venues this weekend and the month of May is also going to be a busy month with a double club match weekend (sat/sun), the final teams of 3 match on the week after and then off to Finley (6 hours south of Sydney) for a 2 day interstate teams of 4 match the following weekend on a new venue discovered here...it's a 1500 km irrigation canal that is stuffed with carp so should be fun...
Hmmm soon we may have to start having Wednesday matches....! ?
So hopefully by next month things will be better and I will be back to Peeing on that dammed "hydrant" here
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