Bemm River report - A few wooly days

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Vargs
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Bemm River report - A few wooly days

Post by Vargs » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:46 pm

Last week I took a few days off to head down to Bemm River. I had never been before and was really looking forward to the trip. Early last week the weather had been near 30 C and low winds but of course come Thursday a change came and with it strong winds for several days. Murphy at his best but what do you do?

Get there Thursday afternoon after a 4.5 hour drive and check the place out. A pub, general store (with mostly fishing stuff) and a caravan park. Other than a few houses and guest apartments that is it. Take what you need with you.

The entrance opened in the last few weeks and the lake dropped by more than a meter of water in a few days. In most places it is only 1.5m with almost know where in the lake much deeper than 2m. This caused major issues at the ramp. It has just been rebuilt but with the water drop off the ends of the ramp did not have enough water so they added rocks. these rocks are not on an incline but a straight line so you do not get extra depth if you keep reversing. As a result larger boats really struggled to get out and even more on the retrieve. Saw one guy ding up his stainless steel prop trying to motor onto his trailer. Make sure you have a decent winch system and can not rely on self catching latch if the mouth is open.

Launch early Friday (after a quick stop to get some fresh worms form the tackle shop) but the wind is already over 20km an hour so very choppy and the waves were very close together so very messy conditions. Start in the channel that connects to the beach, really sheltered and quite deep in some spots at close to 10m but on a couple of hours no fish and not even a nibble. Did not hear of anyone getting any fish in the channel.

everyone comes in around 10 for morning ta and we all pull up on the beach. First time I have done this and it really opened my eyes to the potential when you are out in the boat in this type of area. It was a great way to fill up with a good feed and see how the morning went for people. Best fish is a guy in a kyack with a 71cm flathead on soft plastics in the lake. After a measure and photo he sent it on its way as there is a slot limit of 30-55 cm.

We head out into a few spots in the lake looking for some cover and get our first 30cm keeper. With he crappy weather we decide to head up the river. I sound out a few fish and pull up on a bank. Spend all afternoon up there for lots of 20-25 cm fish and two more at 30cm. The other guy in the boat gets our fish of the day with a 40cm luderick around 1 kg. It puts up a good fight with three good runs each time it saw the boat/net. All fish on worms. I flicked soft plastics a lot but with no luck.

Head out early Saturday with the wind a little worse that Friday. We stay in the lake on the east end for a few hours and while conditions are very unpleasant the fishing quite good. We both pull 40cm beam on worms, one around 860g and one 970g, a nice fat one. I also was determined to try the soft plastics more and got some advice on my technique. I would add more jinks in my retrieve but always slowly wind as I did so. I hook up and start bringing in a good fish. I get it to next to the boat and see it is near the same size of the others. It then gets off and I see that the end of the line is all curly, I stuffed up the knot! Now I know I can flick a plastic I just need to not stuff up my knots. Oh well, next time.

The conditions get to crappy so we look for more shelter in other parts of the lake but it is no good so head up river again. Not a good as the day before and only a few undersized fish. Less fish than day 1 but better quality.

Best bream anyone got was 1kg even, just over 40cm.

My observations if you are to visit Bemm River:

- The ramp is very shallow if the mouth is open. before you go call the tackle store to find out the water level and plan accordingly.

- The quality of the local bait for sale is very good. Most fish were caught on bought worms but most of the biggest fish were caught on prawn or soft plastics.

- There is no petrol station in town so take extra fuel.

- There is very little available locally grocery or supply wise except for fishing tackle so plan ahead and take what you need.

- Even in mid Oct the temp was very ,ow and I was a three layers on and was still cold at times.

- The lake is very exposed when windy. The river and channel has good cover from the wind but the best fish seem to be in the lake. So it may be a choice of comfort or success.

- The bottom of the lake is very soft in most places so it is hard to hold position in the wind. I did see a few guys using the "two pole" method which seems good but not in strong wind.

I had a good time and look forward to checking out more spots in Gippsland, there seem to be so many worth visiting.

Back to Westernport to try and get a snapper.
Attachments
Boats pulled up on shore.jpg
Boats pulled up for morning tea. Mine is the tinnie in the foreground.
Day 1 better fish.jpg
Some of the better fish on day 1
40 cm bream.png
Best of my bream for the trip, 40cm
40 cm bream.png (46.18 KiB) Viewed 905 times

Nude up
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Re: Bemm River report - A few wooly days

Post by Nude up » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:00 pm

Great read pity about the weather but that is out of our control still a couple of good fish

purple5ive
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Re: Bemm River report - A few wooly days

Post by purple5ive » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:24 pm

Thats a good lil report mate.
the ramp is a struggle at low tide and when the mouth is open, i had my trailer well clear of water after backing in as much as possible, had to winch the boat onto the trailer, luckily my boat is plastic so no damage done.
and yes it can be very windy in the main lake, and get quite rough.
local shop sells bait / worms that they catch themselves from the lake afaik, so thats why its so fresh.
and yes very shallow in a lot of places.
its a good place when the fish are in full pelt. caught some nice bream, flathead and perch in there on lures.
a shallow diving hardbody like a jackall chubby or a z-man grub in motoroil colour is a good bet there

Lightningx
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Re: Bemm River report - A few wooly days

Post by Lightningx » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:33 pm

Nice report and pics :thumbsup:

smile0784
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Re: Bemm River report - A few wooly days

Post by smile0784 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:17 pm

Good report glad you got a few fish
Bugger about the weather

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