Got on the water around 2pm after renting a boat from McCreary's Beach. Was a little cool and overcast, with varying wind. Started fishing the shore heading north from the beach - my mate on a green BuzzFrog, and myself on a black/blue dinger. First half-hour was fairly slow with just a few bites/hits. But then POW! - a bass hammered the BuzzFrog. Short fight and we had a very nice largie on board. Unfortunately no pic but we did get a weight - 3.04lb. Great fish to start the day. Carried on working the shoreline and headed up into the mouth of the river. By now the wind was pretty strong so we decided to drift down the shore of the river from the bridge back to the lake. Water had become a bit choppy so I switched to a spinner bait. Couple of casts and good old Mr Pike came to say hello. Not huge but a decent size. As we drifted down the shoreline, he got a couple more bass and a pike on the BuzzFrog, and I got a couple of bass on the spinner (all around the 1-1.5lb range). Egged on by the splashes on the top water I switched to a BuzzFrog. I've fished them a couple of times before and got hits, but never managed to land anything. That was about to change.
A few casts in and I was getting splashes. I resisted the temptation to set the hook straight away, instead waiting a few seconds. However, everytime I set the hook it either came flying back at me or I retrieved the usual assortment of vegetation. Then I got a big splash. So I waited. And waited. And set the hook. Hard. Hmmm ..... something felt different this time and the line was still moving. Either the weeds had suddenly grown fins, or there was a fish on! Finally, I'd caught my first fish on a frog, and I was a very happy chappy
The fish in all it's glory
The "24/7 shot" (tm)
And it didn't stop there. The rest of the day, we were getting regular hits and landing the odd fish here and there. It was fun watching the bass hit the frog multiple times, with others just missing completely (sometimes by a good 2-3 feet). Definitely better when the water was calm. As soon as the wind dropped for a few seconds, a hit was likely. Finished the day fishing the area where we got the first fish. Got a couple more between us and then the highlight of my day when I landed a 2.15lb largie. On a frog. Oh yeah!
This one was just shy of 3lb
To round off the day, I decided to have 1 last cast off the dock with a pink (?!) dinger* which resulted in another nice pike. Brilliant.
All in all a fantastic afternoon. Think we boated around 16 fish between us which we were well happy with
Baits that produced:
Green BuzzFrog (bass, pike)
White/chartreuse spinner bait (pike)
Perch pattern spinner bait (bass)
Pink dinger (pike)
* Little background info here. A few of us were fishing Elephant Lake in July and we got talking to some chaps who were fishing in the tournament there. Conditions were poor so we asked what they were catching on. Apparently, pink was the colour of the day. So next time I was out getting supplies I picked up some pink dingers to give them a whirl. I had my doubts, but they do work
