A Bit Slow To Cotton On. (Snowy River Report)
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:24 pm
I headed off to a spot on the Snowy River yesterday, the intention being to fish for big Duskys in the estuary.
By way of doing things a bit differently I was using small whole pilchards, rigged up Texas style and slowly bouncing them across the bottom.
It worked well and two nice Duskys soon obliged and were released to fight another day.
Next fish on the bank was a chunky bream which did a smash and grab raid on the pilchard. Didn't put it on the mat but it was just a smidge under two handspans in length, so probably around the 38cm mark.
Things were quiet for a while until until a savage bite woke me up a bit. A big Dusky mama gave me a hard time and after a fair old tussle she broke me off right at the water's edge. My leader was frayed through. I'd estimate her at around the 75 to 80 cm mark. A very broad fish and a head like a crocodile!
Re rigged and that's when things got interesting. I kept getting very delicate bites, at times hardly perceptible but coming up every time minus my hook, my leader being bitten clean through.
I put it down to being big eels. (There's been a lot in the river for the last few weeks). Eels are very adept at biting through leaders.
It got frustrating and I couldn't figure out what was happening so I changed to a fine wire trace. I should have cottoned on much sooner. :oops:
Bingo! Fish on!
Tailor. It had never entered my mind that they were the culprits. They're not called choppers for nothing.
Most of them were around the kilo mark. Not huge but good fun. I've never caught them fishing the bottom before, usually they've always been a top water fish for me.
The river is full of fish at the moment but you do need to keep on the move to find them. If there's a downside to the river at the moment it's the plague numbers of small bream. They'll strip a bait in seconds.
:water:
By way of doing things a bit differently I was using small whole pilchards, rigged up Texas style and slowly bouncing them across the bottom.
It worked well and two nice Duskys soon obliged and were released to fight another day.
Next fish on the bank was a chunky bream which did a smash and grab raid on the pilchard. Didn't put it on the mat but it was just a smidge under two handspans in length, so probably around the 38cm mark.
Things were quiet for a while until until a savage bite woke me up a bit. A big Dusky mama gave me a hard time and after a fair old tussle she broke me off right at the water's edge. My leader was frayed through. I'd estimate her at around the 75 to 80 cm mark. A very broad fish and a head like a crocodile!
Re rigged and that's when things got interesting. I kept getting very delicate bites, at times hardly perceptible but coming up every time minus my hook, my leader being bitten clean through.
I put it down to being big eels. (There's been a lot in the river for the last few weeks). Eels are very adept at biting through leaders.
It got frustrating and I couldn't figure out what was happening so I changed to a fine wire trace. I should have cottoned on much sooner. :oops:
Bingo! Fish on!
Tailor. It had never entered my mind that they were the culprits. They're not called choppers for nothing.
Most of them were around the kilo mark. Not huge but good fun. I've never caught them fishing the bottom before, usually they've always been a top water fish for me.
The river is full of fish at the moment but you do need to keep on the move to find them. If there's a downside to the river at the moment it's the plague numbers of small bream. They'll strip a bait in seconds.
:water: