Hawkesbury River Wild Bass

[Doc1978]

Hi all.

Been a loooong time since i posted a report, i've been a very lazy angler (maybe i should join LazyAngler.com?) and not taken any pics the last 10 or so outings. Actually made an effort yesterday to take some pics, even though it was with a phone that didn't belong to me!

AA member and moderator Happy Gilmour joined me for an afteroon/evening targeting wild Bass on the upper reaches of the Hawkesbury River yesterday afternoon. After gathering some info from the local tackle shop, we armed ourselves with spinnerbaits, Jackal TN50's, and other assorted Bass lollies.

We launced at Windsor boat ramp and headed straight upstream. Thanks to the local info, we successfully negotiated extremely shallow sections of the river and the 5.5m Galey took it all in her stride!

With the temp at 33 degrees, we started throwing our lures in to the bank, targeting shaded areas with solid structure and overhanging trees. Happy opended the account with a couple of undersize fish. In typical Bass style, they weren't shy in attacking lures almost the same size of themselves.

It wasn't long when our first keepers made it in to the net. Happy had done it all before, but these were my first legal wild Bass and I was one very happy camper. After working one section for over an hour, we decided to head further upstream after Happy spotted a nice area on Google Maps. Happy's hunch proved to be a good one, and we found some beautiful looking country with multiple snags and weed. It wasn't long and we had a few more legals in the boat, along with plenty of undersize fish.

All in all, we had a great day with all fish released after some happy snaps. Always nice to explore a new area and come up trumps!

Enjoy the pics.

Doc.

[tackle_buster]

Love ya work Doc. Some nice wild bass and some good looking country. It's always great to explore new country and even better when you nail a few in it.

Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing

[Ducksta]

Love seeing good bass come out of the Hawkesbury... And love seeing a slider grub on a beetle spin... Great job.

[happygilmour]

Ducksta, one of my fav lures to target bass is the slider beetle spin!

Thanks for the great arvo Doc, very warm afternoon, won't be long before a few good surface sessions.

The mid year floods have removed most of the weed so fishing bank side structure was fun to fish requiring accurate casts tight to the bank.

Hopefully a 40cm bass is just around the corner

[Bazil Brush]

Good work fella's, nice fish, & good report & pic's Doc...

Baz

[Ducksta]

I know of a few 40's coming out the Nepean already this season. Hawkesbury has always been a bit tougher for me in the fresh.
Such a terrible time to be laid up - I had surgery a couple of weeks ago to remove a small cyst that had got infected and knocked me around. But I'm still not allowed to do anything that would mean reinfection.. Unfortunately that means most of the waterways in Sydney... I didn't even get off the donut for the season before going in...

[Mick Baker]

Hope the recovery is swift and total mate and you are back out there releasing a few in the near future.
Cheers, Mick

[rooboy98]

Nice work guys.

Looks a nice spot.

Is there much other traffic on the water way up there?

Cheers,
Roo.

[happygilmour]

Roo, not much traffic up where we headed, 8knt zone so keeps the skiers away and just the yackers and us fisho's . Plenty of water to explore, look forward to side imaging some of the banks