Look Further Afield
For many anglers, the fishing is nothing short of sensational at this time of the year, but some anglers just don’t seem to get the same rewards. Most of the popular fishing spots have been heavily targeted over the past few months, and this can make for some tough fishing at times in these locations.
All the new snags that eager anglers located earlier over late winter and early spring have seen every possible lure combination as anglers blitz these locations in numbers.
Lures and presentations that have been very successful at catching fish may not always work, as bass learn what is coming at them and how it behaves. Try different lures and presentations and be prepared to experiment.
Another useful thing to do is to work areas that other anglers haven’t thought to fish. Plenty of fish come from areas that don’t get targeted very often. While excessive attention is paid to bankside structure, little effort or thought is given to targeting less obvious targets. I notice that bridge pylons, some obvious weedbeds and other bass holding areas seem to escape much attention in the areas where I fish, as anglers tend to head upstream in search of quieter bass water.
I remember John Bethune telling a story of leaving a vital part of his boat at home which wouldn’t allow him to start it without it, and then showing a photo of an absolute stonker of a bass caught within sight of the boat ramp at Penrith. He only had his electric to motor about with and pulled a fish that any of us would be proud of.
There is sections of water that don’t get worked in even the most popular water, so give it a go and see if you can’t do better than the average punter.

Accurate Casting The Key
For anyone that doesn’t fish, watching someone doing some casting practice in the backyard must be a bit of a novelty. If you’ve got a neighbour like me who likes to stir the pot a bit, you have to put up with a bit of heckling from the sidelines and still be able to concentrate on what you’re doing.
Taunts and a laughing audience make for some added pressure, but accurate casting increases your chances of catching a bass dramatically. If you’ve spent anytime with fishing mates who can cast accurately, and compared them to those that can’t, you’ll have noticed a difference.
An old ice-cream container or something similar is perfect for a target, and with a casting plug on your baitcaster or spinning reel, cast from various distances, using different casting techniques. For spinning reels, there’s the pendulum cast, and the bow and arrow cast, while there’s pitching, side casts, back hand and underhand casts for the baitcaster. Some of these are not as consistently accurate as others, but with practice accuracy can be improved, making those difficult casts seem easy to onlookers.
Fifteen minutes a day will make a big difference to your accuracy. With accurate casting comes an increase in confidence which is very important. Placing a lure accurately can make all the difference in the world when fish are not prepared to move to far to take a lure. Put it on their nose on days like those and your percentages climb that much higher.

Stirring Up Surface Action
Surface lures are the obvious choice for catching bass in the early morning and late afternoon, but they can still be taken from the surface throughout the day. You need to be selective as to where you cast your surface lures between the hours of the early morning and late afternoon.
Likely areas to cast for bass on the surface include well shaded areas under trees, pockets of dark water which have rocks or trees on other side, under rock shelves and in the shadows of cliffs. These areas are all likely prospects for casting surface lures during the day.
A lot has been written about how soon you should start the retrieve of a surface lure after it has been cast. The most most talked about method would be to start the retrieve once the ripples caused by the lure landing have ceased, while other say to count to ten or more. Everyone has their favourite technique, and different ideas might have to be tried before you crack the secret.
Fishing buddy Dave Horvat once described me as the most patient surface caster he has ever seen. I’d never thought much about it, but he’d never seen a surface lure sit for so long before he started fishing with me. Experience has shown that sometimes waiting for the ripples to stop or counting to ten or more is simply not enough. If there’s a bass around where your lure has landed, you can bet they’ve noticed it. If they’re not in the mood to eat it, a lure now represents an intruder or an easy meal which sits it the lethal world of the bass. Leave it there long enough, and an aggressive strike will often follow.

Taylor Made Fizz Bangers are a slim profile surface fizzer that lands nice and quietly on the water and really imitates fleeing prawns or baitfish really well. Rebel Crick Hopper Poppers and their cousins the Crick Hoppers are other great lures that are very successful at this time of the year. River 2 Sea Buggi’s and Kokoda Bugger Chug’s are also firm favourites amongst many anglers. There are a number of surface lures that will perform well, but if you have a few of these in your tackle collection, you should be happy with the results.

Fly Fishing Mayhem
Those that know me well, know that catching bass on the fly is probably my favourite way of catching them. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you see that fly rod buckle over and that fly line stretch to get your heart pounding.
What’s more, fly fishing is not all that difficult. Those long casts made by trout anglers are not necessary for bass anglers with most casts being very short.
Fly fisho’s should be looking at using surface poppers and other surface flies this month. Early morning and late afternoon fly action is really a premium way to catch excited bass that are feeding on the abundant insect life that is present this month.

Other Catchable Species
There’s been plenty of jewfish around Wisemans, Mac River and Webbs creek, with tailor or mullet being great baits. By giving the fish a light scale, the bait is able to give off more scent. Put them on the bottom near river mouths and in holes and gutters around Wisemans, Mac River and Webbs creek and you’re in with a chance. The mouth of the Colo also sees jewfish being caught there.
Tailor have been caught in similar locations to the jewfish in the Wisemans Ferry area, and these have often taken plastics meant for other species. It pays to take extra plastics as the tailor make short work of plastics with their razor sharp teeth.
Bream have also been on the cards, and make for a welcome by catch if your looking for bass or EP’s. Live Hawkesbury prawns are one of the best baits for bream, but they’ll also take dead prawns, along with hard bodied lures, soft plastics, chicken gut and steak.
When the right conditions occur, bream can be caught from Windsor all the way to the mouth of the river in Broken Bay.
If you want to increase your chance of catching some local bream, Rosevale, Macdonald River, Webbs Creek, Walkers Beach, and Lower Half Moon should all be destinations to head for.
Ponderosa Corner which is the next bend down from Dargle has an array of weed beds, rocky shoreline and sandy bottom, and this area is best for bream on a falling tide.

Paddle Power
There tends to be an emphasis on fishing from boats in fishiing magazines and it probably has a lot to do with the fact that boat ownership in Australia is one of the highest of any country in the world. Aussies just love boats for a whole range of reasons, but anglers love their boats for their ability to cover a lot of water quickly.
Some readers though may not have the finances buy a boat or the place to store one, so a boat is simply out of the question. A very productive and cheaper alternative is a kayak or canoe. While some readers might baulk at the idea of such craft, they are considerably cheaper than a boat, store very easily and are great for accessing water that is off limits to powered boats. Some of the hottest fishing sessions are had from paddle craft, and a chat with any fishing club members who catch bream or bass from a kayak or canoe will confirm that. Fishing websites constantly sing the praises of paddle power. Go to www.ausbass.com.au and read some of the fantastic stories there.
Weed growth can be particularly heavy at some locations at this time of the year, but find some quiet water and you can score thirty to forty bass in a session without too much trouble.
There are some magnificent strectch of water available to those who are prepared to paddle. Sections of the Nepean are strickly the paddlers domain, as is sections of the Colo and many of the quieter creeks and swamps of western Sydney. Secret locations are often hidden in mythical names such as Junkie Creek, Milo Creek and Scarlets, as they have been sort out by anglers and enjoyed for their superb fishing. Many of these places are only accessible on foot or by canoe, and are simply breathtaking for their beauty and sensational fishing.
Surface action when sitting low in a canoe or kayak is fantastic at times, as fish in remote water always seem to put on more of a performance than fish of the same size in more accessible water.
Another fantastic experience is being spun about in a kayak in a big green pool like your stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine. Keeping a fish from dragging you into timber or
When I first started fishing for bass years ago, when you could fish the lower Grose River in super deep water, my sister, future brother in law and I were pulled towards snags by a heavy hitting bass. Non believers might have trouble believing that story, but with three of us to verify the story, it’s a story that is not in the suspect category.

A Sad Note
I received the sad news recently of Greg Mole succumbing to cancer. Greg was a keen Fishing Monthly reader who loved his fishing and loved sharing the experience with others. I never had the experience of fishing with Greg, but his passion for fishing would rival any of us. Greg was only fifty years old, and will be sadly missed. Our sympathies go to his family and many friends.