The 4

These are the little fellas we brought back for the fish tank. Perfectly legal, I did the research and honestly don't think it will harm the population as we caught more than hundred of the little fellas in one stretch of river so it was a healthy system. Plus my little brothers love them, as do my dad and I.

They are adapting well and will hopefully live for many years. There are many things I hope to learn from them about their species.
Two of them actually had hooks lodged in their throats from when we caught them, I wasn't sure if they could adapt to a new environment with these hanging out of them but after about a week both of the hooks were found on the bottom of the tank and they were hungry! Tough little bastards! This does go to show that releasing fish with hooks in them does not cause as much damage to them as I had previously believed.
They have large appetites and are great to watch and i'll probably put some more photos up later at some point.

Lostock Dam trip 9/4/12

 I spent Monday to Friday of last week at Lostock Dam. I've spent a lot of time up there over the years and its one of my favourite camping/fishing spots.
Top Photo - Where my Dad and I spent every morning fishing and watching the sunrise. 5 30/6am rise, 2 beers each, rods, tackle and bait. This little hole is up the top reach of the Paterson River, Just below a stretch of rapids where a deeper hole has been dug out by the wash. We turned out a few good bass, including the one below I named Breakfast.
Second Photo - The view of the dam wall and surroundings from our campsite. A big storm came through the day before we got there and cleared out everyone, it was bad enough for people to leave tent pegs, chairs, a saucepan and several broken tents behind. Peace and Quiet ensued.
Third Photo - Breakfast. If you look closely you can see he has a huge chunk out of the back of his head and half his top lip removed, I can only assume when he was younger as it has healed well and he was delicious. Fried up after our morning fish with a bit of Bush Spice, OMG.

Fourth Photo - Our campsite. One large 4 man dome tent under a 3m square tarp held up by 5 poles down each side. Pretty compact camp, 1 hour set up with a focus on space efficiency. Big fire with firewood we scrounged from around the park, a single burned gas cartridge stove, two chairs and an icebox made up the bulk of the set up.

Fifth photo - Large catfish I caught on the first day. One of many, including one that was laying eggs and many different colours and sizes were on display. As frequent as eels and bit all day, but more readily early morning and late afternoon.

Last photo - An echidna we found sheltered down in the caravan park underneath a patio. I watched him for 20 minutes and in that time he stretched out, moved over to the tree and layed back down and fell back asleep. I want one as a pet!!!

So it was a highly productive trip, 5 days to clear the mind and get away from work and get back in touch with nature. Every night, we sat there with a fire at our feet and stars above our heads, discussing anything and everything and meeting a few new people.
We caught a fair haul of bass, more than a hundred small ones and by my count about 15 over 25cm long. There were a couple of good sized ones, with Breakfast being about 33cm and I lost one a lot larger under the dam wall and didn't I rage! We could have kept many more than we did but honestly we didn't need to and I've been raised to support the ecosystem where I can. We only ate one bass over the 5 days but it was in every way worth it.
It is a very healthy system that high up in the river, we checked every little bass that we pulled up and not one had a previous hook hole and there were only a few with any visible damage. To this point my dad and I both have a couple of small bass taken from the river and are now living happily in our fish tanks. I will post pictures and more soon.
The only thing that we noticed were a couple of small bass and a few large catfish had really pink and raw spines on their pectoral fins. Not sure if it was just natural or something was causing it but I will look into it and see what I can find out.

So if you are considering a trip to the Hunter Valley I would recommend Lostock Dam and the caravan park, Dave and Janet obviously take pride in the park and do everything they can to provide every necessity and home comfort they can.

Lostock dam photos 26/3/12

Lostock Dam Wall - Andrew Parr

Just posting the pictures of what we caught at Lostock Dam in the last post.
Top photo is where we were fishing, looking at the base of the dam wall. Second photo is Nick's mullet caught on a lure, a simple shiny metal one.
Third is my first two little bass.
Last is Nick and his catfish. We were considering taking it to clean and eat but decided to give it a go another time.