In the last few decades many styles of fishing have undergone radical change. Some of these changes were born from improvements in equipment, some from innovation by anglers and in some cases due to new fisheries that have sprung up. One such paradigm shift has been in the world of Australian bass, Greg Seeto explains.
Images Greg Seeto and Vicki Lear
Go through an early Vic McCristal book and you may find mention of the great sport fishing potential that was recognised in bass probably before ‘sport fishing’ was even a term, but what you probably won’t find is any mention of impoundment bass. The natural habitat for Australian bass is the rivers of the eastern seaboard that have flow to the ocean, because bass migrate downstream to spawn during the winter months (which is why there is a closed season). Thankfully, somewhere along the line someone had the idea to artificially stock impoundments with bass and a new fishery was born, as were new techniques in the quest to catch them.
Scott Lear
Time of Year
Although they retain much of the habits of wild fish, they also appear to have acquired some new traits. ‘Old school’ bass fishing was done in summer, mostly on the edges of the rivers, with top-water lures and shallow diving ‘wobblers’. Bass weren’t really considered a winter target. Impoundment bass resided in large, deep areas of water that didn’t have the water flow of rivers and for a few years these fish seemed to be mainly a summer target too. As with most things though, a few pioneers thought outside the box and caught schooling bass seemingly in the middle of nowhere and word started to trickle out that you could catch some of the biggest, heaviest, and hardest fighting bass in big numbers during the cooler months of the year.
Why Impoundments?
The good news is many of these places lend themselves to kayak fishing. Even better news is that some modern kayaks would be hands down the best platform to fish from. A lot of the smaller dams and some large dams do not allow combustion engines to be used. While a boat powered by an electric motor can still be used, they have their limitations; this is where a kayak can truly shine. Then there are some dams that do not even allow electric motors to be used and are restricted to paddle power only. The ‘harder’ it is to fish a dam, the less pressure it gets from anglers. “Can’t use my petrol engine? Let’s go to one where we can” “Can’t even use my electric? Well I’m not paddling my boat!” There are some great impoundments that you may not have even heard of, that rarely get fished and are just waiting for you to put a kayak in. Recently I fished one of these dams that is as obvious as the nose on your face but I had not heard much about it (because nobody fishes it). Accompanied by two other yakkers the three of us pulled 90 fish between us in a leisurely day on the water, with some up to and a little over 45 cm to the fork. We didn’t see another soul out there.
One impoundment in particular that I think a kayak would excel on is Wivenhoe in south-east Queensland. It is home to some of the biggest bass in the country but access points to put a boat in are few and these can be a long way from where the fish actually are at times. Being an electric only dam this can mean long runs and needing spare batteries to have that kind of range. As an example, there was an ABT Bass Electric event held a few years back where the eventual winner knew the fish were a long way away from the start point and spent about 2.5 hours under electric power to get there, caught two fish around 2.5 kg each in less than an hour’s fishing time he had and then turned around and spent another 2.5 hours to get back. Now imagine what could be possible with a kayak. There are easier spots to access around the dam and you could be on the fish in minutes and then spend all day there.
Sounder shot of schooled bass.
Gear
Obviously the first thing you’re going to need is a kayak. Personally, we fish out of Hobie Pro Anglers for a host of reasons, some of which I will cover later. The next most important thing is going to be a sounder and like many things, the better the sounder the better the results. Colour is better than monochrome, GPS is important and the higher the resolution the better. A sounder is your eyes under the water and you will spend a good part of your time studying it intently. Another benefit is that impoundment bass fishing is one of the best places to really learn how to use your sounder to its full potential. GPS is a handy feature to have because once you have located a school you can mark the position to return to it if you drift off. You can be a fair way from any visual clues to your position above the bottom and 10 m can be the difference between a blank sounder screen and the ‘bass spaghetti’ you see when you are over a school. Another handy piece of equipment and one which is nearly always on my kayak is a drift chute to dampen the wind blowing you off the fish.
Finding the Fish
Many of the well-known dams feature popular marks that are common knowledge. A quick search of the internet will provide plenty of these but a little time studying Google Maps could reveal a few as well. Major points are a good start as far as things you can see on a map but the real gems are the ones you find whilst looking at your sounder. Submerged creek beds, hills, humps, ridges or bays are things that can’t be seen by us but are fish magnets all the same. Try to visualise in your head what the now flooded ‘countryside’ looked like before and use it to imagine where the fish should be. Look at what is above the water line as it is probably similar underneath. Also, every dam will have a creek bed running through it and somewhere on either side of the dam you should cross it. This is also where a GPS can come in handy as you can plot a creek bed out. Now having said all that, the bass may be very loosely related to that structure. They may be attracted to the crown of an underwater hill that is in 30 ft of water but suspended around the 15 ft mark. I have seen bass schooled in water from about 15 ft to over 100 ft and although I have heard reports of bass being caught at 80 ft, I haven’t caught them from any deeper than forty. Generally you find them in between 15 and 25 ft of water.
Rods, reels and leader
Finding the fish is the first part of the puzzle, catching them is obviously the next. I prefer spinning gear for this kind of fishing and your typical 7 ft rod and 2000 to 2500 size reel with 6 to 10 lb braid will be fine but my go-to outfits in the kayak are the 7’6” Daiwa TM-Z Interline in the LFS and the MLFS with 2500 sized reels and 6 lb braid. They have a slower action than your usual graphite rods which help in not pulling hooks on some of the more popular trebled lures. They are also extremely sensitive when fishing plastics as the braid lays down the inside of the rods; resulting in even tiny taps from schooling bass being transmitted down the blank. Also not having guides makes storage in the kayak tangle free. The icing on the cake though is not being able to snap off a lure during a cast due to a guide wrap.
I always tip my braid with fluorocarbon leader between 6 and 12 lb but there are times when lighter is better and believe it or not I have gone all the way down to tying on 3 and even 2 lb leader to get the bites. It’s not something I’d recommend too often but I’ve always thought it better to hook fish and lose some than not hook any.
Vicki Lear
Techniques
So you found the fish and you have a box full of the perfect lures. Now what? Well knowing what kind of bait lives in a particular dam can help. Dams like Wivenhoe that have a bait species like boney bream are well-suited to larger lures and a Jackall Mask Vibe would be a pretty good start. Whereas somewhere like Glenbawn has smelt, so a paddle tail plastic might be your opener. A metal blade would be an each-way bet somewhere between the two. Most of the time you will locate a school and try to paddle just off them, cast past them and try to bring your lure back through the school. A slow roll with a few twitches again is a good start but you need to work out what the fish want. This can vary all the way from the most painfully slow roll up to a burn/kill where you will wind really fast for 5 or 10 turns of the handle and suddenly stop for a few seconds and everything in between.
As a side note, if you’re ever lucky enough to find them switched on to that burn/kill, you’re in for an amazing day as the hits are unbelievably jarring and vicious. Try a bit of everything though.
Sometimes fishing vertically is the way to go and this is where your sounder can really come into its own because it is possible to see both your lure and the fish on the screen and the reaction between the two. There is nothing cooler than watching your lure sink on the screen and seeing a line rise on the screen before seeing your line peel off.
Metal blades are good as you can keep a fairly tight line straight up and down and make short jigs in a particular section of the water column or work it from the bottom up. Always keep an eye out on the bottom too as there have been plenty of big fish directly under a school that looked like the bottom. I suspect they may break off from the school to actively feed close to the floor. A deadly technique over the last few years has been the ‘vertical slow roll’ and some tough comps have been won with 3” Gulp! Minnow Grubs slowly sunk through fish before being slowly wound back up.
Ice jigs shine when it comes to vertical fishing. At times I think the bass are trying to eat the lure as you would expect but sometimes I believe they hit the lure because it is buzzing in their face – much like we try to swat a fly. Ice jigs have a very erratic action and three short sharp jigs before a pause will get the job done. Mix it up as always and don’t be afraid to give it long pauses up to 10 seconds or so.
Final Word
Schooled Bass can be one of the most exciting targets in the cooler months and at the moment it is wide open to innovation, especially from the growing kayak scene that can access some water not easily achieved by anyone else. So get out there and get cracking!
Madelaine Tyler
