Myall River Camp

This is another place that I love and have been camping at for many years. 

Right on the edge of the river, this private campground has its own beach and boat ramp, well looked after pit toilets and caretakers who look after the park.

There is some good fishing to be had in the river, its clean and the fish are healthy and pretty. Dolphins run up the river most mornings and afternoons, there are goannas, possums and other critters to watch and its still close enough to an urban centre to be an easy weekend away.

 

There was four of us this trip, our set up was pretty simple. Two tents, a fireplace in the middle and a gazebo off to one side with the icebox and food underneath to protect it. I took an old tarp just in case it rained and when it did I pulled it over the fireplace to keep our wood dry. 

We also had a single burner gas canister stove, one of the best things to take on a camping trip. They are cheap and the canisters are too, and can cook in most conditions when an open fire isn't feasible.

I caught two stingrays while we were there, one was about 70cm across and the other was the little guy below. Though fun, they were too much hassle to clean and were released.

There was an abundance of smaller fish around, with many mullet, bream, whiting, tailor and a few flathead being caught. I caught a few poddy mullet and threw them out on my large line, this took the large ray but nothing else this trip.
This whiting below became dinner, as it was Kyle's first ever eating sized fish.

 

There's not much else like a campfire cooked fish. To prepare the fire, let it burn pretty hard for an hour or so, try to use larger pieces of wood as you want to create a good coal layer at the bottom. When you can see this, rake them to one spot and leave flat. They should stay hot but bring the fire back in around the fish to keep it cooking evenly. This was the whiting coated in lemon pepper, wrapped a few layers of foil and left in the coals for about 20 minutes. Once it was unwrapped the bones pulled away with the tail, leaving a perfectly cooked piece of fish ready to be eaten.

 

This is another place I recommend visiting if you have the time. I've never had any trouble up there and there are so many fishing opportunities in the surrounding area. Whether its open water, beach, estuary or pier there is fishing for everyone!

Lostock Dam Caravan Park

So I've talked about this place a lot but it is genuinely one of my favourite places in the world. Please get out there and support a great place run by great people. Dave and Janet make sure the place is well looked after and obviously take pride in what they do.

 

Check them out on facebook, they have regular music "shindigs", a full cafe stocked with anything you could need in an emergency, full amenities and some of the greatest people I have met. https://www.facebook.com/TheLostockDamCaravanPark

 We got up there in October 2013, and although the wind picked up, it was a great trip and plenty of good fishing was had.

 I set out for an early morning fish, hit the river as the sun rose and it was an absolutely great morning. Below is the view I had as the sun rose. Above is the biggest bass I caught that morning. I picked out a nice deep hole being fed by the running river and I had a good view of the stretch above it. Three large bass came down the river with the current and as I saw them I threw a cricket in front of them and almost immediately hooked this one. It was a great fish, healthy and strong and it was worth the early morning.

The caravan park is a great place, far enough away to miss most of the city folk and in the one morning I saw two echidnas, a platypus, a mob of kangaroos and many other native creatures, such as the kookaburra below.

 There was just two of us on this trip so we kept the set up simple.
One icebox, one tent, one fireplace, two puppies and a good weekend.

 I pegged the tarp out to protect against most of the wind and sun, and having the icebox behind it kept it cool. Everything else was easily put away at night and by using the existing table I didn't need to open my usual gazebo.
 Our two puppies were set up on a runner, tied to the table and looped around a nearby tree. By pulling this tight they could each have one side and could not cross over, it seemed to work well.

So if you want a good weekend away, get to Lostock Dam Caravan Park, I've been going there for years and will be there again soon :)

Has it really been 8 months?

Sorry internet, I honestly didn't realize it had been 8 months since I posted!
I will make more of a conscious effort to update this blog, as I enjoy it and people still ask about it :)
I've been out fishing a few times since my last post and will make a proper post for it after this one.
I've also been camping twice, which is something I set out to talk about from the start but haven't had much of a chance to.
I've been to two of my favourite getaways in this time, Lostock Dam and Myall River Camp at Hawks Nest. My next posts will be dedicated to each.
I've fished Maitland and Aberglasslyn recently, and have found that this stretch of river is producing very healthy fish.

This is a promising sign since the floods in early 2013 killed off many fish and effectively suffocated a long stretch of breeding ground. Hopefully this means that the system is returning to normal!

So for everyone out there keen on fishing locally or interstate, get a line in and have a go!

Here is a photo of me as a little fella, with a large mullet I caught on a worm! I was so proud, I cleaned it and it stayed in the freezer for several years before it got used as berley haha!

Paterson 22/5/13

So I had a few hours free today so Dad and I went and fished around Paterson.
We found a great stretch of river for testing lures, lots of different forms of cover and a small tributary outlet meeting under a bridge.

It was a great day out, a touch of rain but got to have a good look around and mapped out a few more potential fishing spots. Fishing mostly onto river sand and mud, we used yabbies, worms and grubs for bait and threw a few lures around. The yabbies were caught elsewhere and most weeks I get more for either bait or fish food. My pet bass love them and so do the wild ones, this one took a small one.

We took extra care with this one as it was possibly full of eggs and with breeding season starting soon it could of been an early bloomer. She hit hard on a great little lure made by Bob (Links to lurelovers.com, sign up and have a look around.) It swam off strongly and hopefully will make it to the estuarine waters before letting its eggs go.

The end of the day was spent at a spot I've fished before with mixed results but it is a lovely little spot that I will fish many more times. It is a fairly popular spot inside the town of Paterson and I've seen people swim and rope-swing there but there was nobody else around today and it made a quiet, peaceful afternoon. No fish were caught here this time but there was a lot of movement in the water and plenty to see. A few bites and a big hook up that I lost all added up but in the end I just scooped a few shrimp for my pet bass and a gudgeon for another tank.

 Hopefully I can get out again next week and put some more photos up.
I'll show off a few of my lures if I get a chance and a few other bits and pieces I have been saving for a rainy week.

I've added a contact form to this blog so if you want to ask anything feel free to email me.

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.