Fishing Adventures from Clermont
Fishing Adventures from Clermont
Hi everyone its James Nishida and I’m a recent new member to the Gold Coast Sportfishing Club. I joined not long after I fished my first Flathead Classic last year and really enjoyed the event; not only for the chance to get on the water for a few days fishing but it was also a treat to see how such an enjoyable and successful event can’t be achieved by what is only a relatively small group of people.
I have worked as a nurse for about five years now and I loved every minute of it. Recently I had the opportunity to do a five week contract in a rural area. I jumped at the chance to do and see something different and upon a little searching on the Internet found the area had a little fishing on offer too, which only sealed the deal for this person recently described as a fishing nerd.
I was sent to a town called Clermont which is about three hours drive west on reasonable roads from Mackay. The population of this area is only about 3000 people and thankfully for me a small number of these people had the passion and foresight to stock the local Theresa Creek Dam with a small number of Golden Perch, Sooty Grunter, Sleepy Cod and to my piscatorial approval Barramundi, which unknown to me is a sizable draw card to the flocks of grey nomads working down the rural districts of central Queensland.
Upon arrival to Clermont, the first reports of fishing quality seemed bleak at best. I had however heard that my best chance for landing a few fish would be below the dam wall as I did not take a boat and was forced to fish from the backs. With this in mind I headed out the 22km from town to the dam with very low expectations. To say my first sessions was a wonderful surprise is a gross understatement! Of the approx 15 fish I hooked I was only able to land six of these fish, either to spat lures, rubbed through leaders and a small few to poor angling due to my jaw dragging on the ground from surprise. Not taking my camera out on this first trip, I was really concerned that I had just lucked out on this one session and the remainder of the trip would be fishless and I would be forced to take pictures of the birds or sunsets; both nice in their own right but nothing on a beaut pic of a gleaming barra.
Thankfully my fears never can to fruition and on my next rip out I bagged a few more fish. And this is how it continued for weeks with average catches of between three and 15 fish in short morning and arvo sessions. These fish are no monsters and many people that regularly visit such impoundments as Awonga and Monduran probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelid, but for me regularly catching fish in the 55cm-85cm range was just tops.
The strange thing that I noticed is that in some sessions, when I would catch say 10 fish, there might only be one other fish caught by all the other anglers in the area. Now I’m no Barra fisherman but I am still a fisherman and I feel the key to my success over the other anglers was matching the hatch. There were anglers much more proficient than me with a baitcaster, throwing good Barra lures on quality tackle. What they were failing to acknowledge was what these fish were feeding on and what environment they were in, thoughtlessly throwing lures that probably were successful in other environments. The water was relatively shallow in this area, two and a half meters at best and many section as shallow as half a meter. The fish were very tuned into their surroundings and a lure such as a Barra Classic or similar was going to be too obtrusive in this sensitive environment, especially when the majority of baitfish were small (4inch) Light brown perch-like fish.
Above all I feel that the fish were focused in on size, closely followed but the lures sound and lastly their colour, although matching the colour only doubled your chances. With saying the fish were focused in on lures that closely matched the local bait, they were not hesitant to hit any type of lure as long as it met those few credentials. Stickbaits, jerkbaits, poppers, walk the dogs and suspending minnows were all hit with gusto.
Being only a small system, it was easy to work out what the fish were doing in shirt time. This time of year had many of the baitfish schooling up at the base of the wall trying to get back upstream. The Barra were more than happy to cruise this edge picking off bait and lures that looked a bit stuffed from trying to jump a 30 meter wall. Other days the bait was not along the wall, but a bit of close attention to the water would show big swirls and the odd boof in seemingly the middle of nowhere. What this turned out to be was a shallow rock bank and the Barra were using it to round up these baitfish. A small jerkbait or walk the dog slowly twitched off this bank would almost guaranty a hook-up. Other areas that proved productive were rock bars that would extend from the land into the water anywhere the water bottle necked and the Barra could trap the bait.
And then the rain came. At first it was a lot harder to find a pattern. The fish had dispersed randomly, probably searching out new areas created by the raised water level. But a couple of days after any significant rain a pattern emerged. Not only was the water spilling over the wall but drains either side of the wall would funnel water coming from the sides and into the main body of water. This created a giant back eddie where the barra would sit and pick of the bait that got washed by them. Happy days again!
I used a six foot baitcasting rod rated to 8kg, a Diawa Zillion with 20lb braid and a 40lb hard nylon leader which handled these fish just right, although the drag on the Zillion was a little questionable when cranked up to fight these bigger fish and could do with a drag upgrade.
As I write this, it is my third last day in Clermont and my father-in-law Eric has joined me to try his luck. He has landed a couple of nice yellowbelly and dropped a good barra but it’s early days yet. Over the five weeks I had caught close to 80 barra in short morning and arvo session, hopefully learnt a thing or two about barra and lost more lures than I could ever tell my wife I have to replace.
by: James Nishida
