Spectacular Lake Glenbawn located in the beautiful Upper Hunter Valley just a few kilometres out of Scone hosted round six of the Bassin NSW tournament over the weekend.
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Many anglers from the Dubbo region travelled to take part in the competition which was held over two days.
Sixty-five teams of two took part with Explore Outdoors Dubbo and Jaz Lures entering two teams in conjunction with Okuma fishing tackle.
Fishing our first bass competition, Michael Coad, Neil Duncan, Brett Kleppe and myself managed to boat around 35 fish with the majority coming out of three to five metres of water that has plenty of weed.
As the sun got higher and the day went on the bass moved to slightly deeper water and were found on grassy points in six to eight metres of water.
Late in the last session bass were found stacked around dense timber off steep rock walls that made the fish extremely hard to stop and soon had our drag screaming as they dove into heavy cover.
Lipless crankbaits high in lustre caught the most fish by far, with some natural colour patterns also performing well. The final results saw Explore Outdoors Dubbo Jaz Lures Team Okuma finish 23rd out of the 65 teams.
Around 400 Australian Bass over 30cm in length were weighed during the competition, with the biggest winning the lucky angler a 70L Icey-Tek esky.
Top end talk
Shawn and Amanda Elkington sent Dubbo Catches some amazing photos from a recent trip to Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Around 20km off shore, Shawn and Amanda were lucky enough to stumble across an old pylon which they later found out was used by the armed forces to tie up seaplanes during World War II.
Fish could be seen actively feeding all around the structure in around five meters of water. Amanda and Shawn soon had rods bent, landing Spanish mackerel to 19.5kgs, giant trevally to more than 20kgs, and blue nose salmon to 81cm.
Fishing with 50lb braid and 66lb wire trace saw the two Dubbo fishos being snapped off by some hard running fish, so they upgraded to 80lb braid with a 90lb stainless steel trace and set about landing some beauties usually only seen in glossy fishing magazines.
Shawn reported that fishing the Gulf is very different to the East Coast as it is very flat and shallow. Depths of around eight to 11m depending on the tide with some small gravel reefs around a metre high were common.
Thanks very much to Shawn and Amanda for their fantastic report and photos. A Jaz Lures prize pack including a selection of lipless crankbaits, hard bodied lures and holographic bladed spinnerbaits is on its way to you both.
Burrendong Dam
The fishing competition to be hosted by the Federal Hotel Wellington Fishing Club is looking like a good one to enter, as Burrendong Dam continues to fish very well.
Those fishing for the large resident yellowbelly are continually encountering big silver perch, European carp, redfin and immature out of season Murray cod.
Richard Tegart reported catching five cod in total with the smallest around 15cm, and largest measuring just under 50cm. Other anglers reported an impressive 58cm yella, and also a 15lb cod that had recently eaten a turtle and had a very swollen stomach.