Sunday, October 16, 2011

Cow turds and 40 cm bass

Fishing at night in dairy country has one major downside - cow turds are hard to see in the dark. 

The tell-tale slide of my boot was all I needed to know that I had been ‘cow turded’, the stink had me thinking it was a bad omen and I should probably just go home and forget about bass.

The first three casts I put across the deep dark pool drew a blank, not good. I was a more than a little disturbed by the odour of digested Kikuyu that was rising from my left boot. Fourth cast got monstered and for a few seconds the rod loaded and drag sang a little song of protest, it was too brief, the bass was gone and the smell of cow poo returned. 

A few casts later the smell disappeared about the time my fizzer was again monstered, this time the hooks found their mark and the little Stradic sang its song of protest again. The song played out and a strong low 40's bass was lifted for a photo. Strangely I could no longer smell cow poo.

It was only a few casts later that the fizzer was again eaten and my drag got to preform once more. Another low 40's bass and the air was smelling very fresh.

A good ten minutes passed without much action and I had begun thinking about the downside of night fishing when a fit 34cm bass distracted my sense of smell. Sadly that was the last bass for the evening and the smell was making a comeback, wafting its bovine stench once more. Time to head for home and hose my boots.

Looong Weekend

I never realised that the "Long" in Long weekend related to slow fishing but that is exactly what we got on the far south coast. We had plans of greatness but a week out the weather looked bad and our plans where rationalised. 

Jeff and I fished a two sessions, joined by my mate Gus for the morning session.

The predicted bad weather went to other way and produced perfect fishing conditions for us, calm with light cloud/fog cover and a barometer rising to 1024…no one told the fish that it was good conditions and they should have been on the chew.

For a total of about 7 hours solid fishing we only managed to raise 4 bass, gently fished deep Bettspins accounting for 3 and a cicada fizzer the last. 

The fish hit hard and fought well for their size but we just struggled to find them, I guess that is just fishing sometimes, perhaps we are spoilt and have become acustomed to always catching bass.

Some times the bass just don’t play even when they should, that is when we make noises about how great it is to be on a beautiful river with good mates and how it is better than working…..I would have still liked a few more fish.