Blowering Dam.... Again! 31-10-2010

After seeing so many Golden Perch on my guided trip last week, I couldn't help but head back up to Blowering again. I had a technique that I wanted to try out to see if I could tempt these shut down fish into striking. My plan was to walk the rocky bank on the Talbingo side of Log Bridge Ck to see if I could spot a few Goldens in the shallows. I wanted to cast out some suspending minnows and see if an ultra slow, stop-start retrieve would see the undoing of a few fish. I thought that if I could get a follow from a Golden then I could stop the lure and subtly twitch it in front of its face to illicit a strike.
The day started with rain all the way up to the dam, so things were looking glim. I parked the car at a nice grassy bay and rigged up a very small spinnerbait to start the day. There was a fair bit of distance to cover to get to the bank I wanted to fish so I thought a spinnerbait would be a good prospecting lure for the walk. The rain finally stopped just after the fishing started and it turned into a very pleasent morning. Spotted a few very timid carp on the way over but no Goldens. I finally tied on a suspending minnow and started flicking it around. Kanck ended up getting a Golden to have swipe at a plastic and soon after I had a Golden follow my lure in, a played the lure in front of his face and he looked genuinly interested, until I made a totally uncoordinated and spastic movement and scared him off... shit! Needless to say I let off a few loud expletives after that incident. Within the next ten or so casts I had a good Golden come and have a massive swipe at my lure while it was stationary in the water about 10' out from the bank, but alas the hooks didn't bite back and I was left cursing on the bank.... once again. Fish 2 - Scott 0.
Fished on for another hour or two after that but didn't see any more fish, looking back I should have went further along that bank towards Log Bridge Ck. But we had decided earlier that it was to steep to comfortably traverse. Even so, next time I'll head up that way and tough it out! Although there were no Goldens landed I was pretty happy with the morning. Blowering is a very hard dam to crack and fishing for the Goldens in there requires a totally different approach to what would be considered 'normal' ways to target Godlens. I knew the day was going to be tough but I thought I would have been able to fool one or two, and came very close to doing it, just a few minor errors and bit of luck let me down, I will learn from what happened! With a lack of consistent warm weather, a considerably larger body of water to heat up and a consistant inflow of cold water the fish are still very shut down, with some consitant (4-10 days) warm weather, I would expect a lot more success!
Fished the Tumut river for an hour on the way home. It was pretty full! Had a few hook ups, but didn't manage to land any. Kanck picked up a couple on a yellowing 7g Tassie Devil.The river started rising as we were fishing so we took off!
Sorry no photos! I need to buy a cheap camera!

Weather

• 1016
• 14-22*C
• Slight to no wind
• Unkown water temp