Lake St Clair 1/5/2013

So this week I planned an early morning fishing trip with my Dad. He taught me most of what I know now and he is the reason I love fishing and the bush and can appreciate and enjoy it without destroying it. So thank you for everything you have taught me so far.
Alright so we left at 4am, got up there on daybreak and it was a beautiful morning. A bit of cloud cover, not really hot and the dam was sitting higher than when we were last there by about a metre.
I spotted a few wallabies on the hill behind us and I missed them with the camera but they were still a great sight.

We got into the fish early, with dad pulling in a nice little Bass about 30cm first up.

I got the biggest one at 41cm and between us we pulled out 6 Bass all 30cm+.

We had no luck on lures this time, but they were loving the grubs and garden worms.

I'd love nothing more than to spend every day doing this, but the real world doesn't let me.

Lake St Clair is still fishing great and is a beautiful spot. The water was clean, the fish were very healthy and are stocked frequently so I will definitely be back there again soon. I would love to get a Golden Perch as I haven't caught one yet so I will try to focus more on them next time.
The Singleton Tourism website says that the dam is stocked with Australian Bass, Golden Perch and Silver Perch. I am yet to hear of a silver coming of there but if it's stocked then I'm sure they have been caught. I will look further into this too.

I'll post next time I get out.

Cheers,
Andrew

A little bit more about me

I am currently studying Chemistry/Environmental Science at Newcastle University.
I am also applying to join some local volunteer groups such as Landcare, Waterwatch and the Newcastle Wetlands Centre to get out there and learn a bit more.
I am an active member of www.lurelovers.com and newcastlefishing.com/forums. If anybody wants to talk to me about this blog, I'm pretty reachable on either of those forums.
I have a few pet Bass which have been pretty great to learn from, and a bunch of other native fish which are pretty interesting.

I have every second weekend off from work now so I can hopefully get out camping and fishing more and update this blog more regularly.

Harvey, work shirt. - Andrew Parr

Local Photos

Hinton Bridge, Fishing in high water. - Andrew Parr

Paterson River, fishing clear day. - Andrew Parr

Paterson Tucker Park Tree - Andrew Parr

I haven't actually had much of a chance to get out lately as I'm back at uni and working a lot as well, but you expect a lot more from me soon! I finally have a few chances to get out fishing and will update as soon as I am back.
There has been a lot of rain and high water lately, In March especially with many thousands of fish dying in the lower Hunter River. There was a lot of news coverage (and a lot of terrible news coverage) with many people worried about the state of the river and fish stocks. The black water is a natural phenomena where nutrient rich flood waters run back into the river, causing a huge algae bloom which depletes the river of oxygen. In turn this kills many things in the river, the first to suffer being the largest predators as they have the highest oxygen intake.
This all sounds bad and locally it is, but the river itself will regenerate its lost oxygen and it already has. Its been over a month and there is no residue left and there are plenty of fish around. Bass breeding season will begin again soon so by next Bass fishing season the stocks should have returned to normal. With less predatory fish in that area (if you believe the stocks are diminished) more fry and eggs will survive, restocking the river system.
I will continue to fish upstream until seasons end, and there will still be plenty of good fishing in the dams after that.

Lake St Clair 29/12/12

As you can see it was a beautiful day up at Lake St Clair, in the hot hunter weather reaching 40 degrees. It was hot and humid and by the end I got a bit sunburnt but it was a great days fishing.
We got there about 1 in afternoon and scouted around a bit until we found this spot. There was a large sunken tree on one side, with a big weed bank running along the bank. Half shaded, half sun with a big deep hole in the middle. Honestly it looked a great spot with the best of everything you could hope for.
we pulled 7 bass, all over 30cm out of this spot with the largest about 42cm. Scott my cousin also got a large catfish at about 2pm.
This was a great spot and a great trip with plenty to look at and plenty to show for it.
The fish we caught were all healthy and all hit hard, hinting at a healthy system and plenty more good fishing trips to come!

Update

Hey everyone, I haven't been on this for a while now so I figured I'd update it as best I could.
So,
- I've got a new pet bass named Bruce and hes 35cm long.
- I've been fishing a lot, with mixed results. Lake St Clair proved to be the best session.
- I'm having a shot at making lures.
- I'm getting out and having fun!
I'll get the photos up as soon as possible

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.