Owens wife had secretly organised a trip for his birthday back in August so when we collected Owen from the airport he was as keen as they come.
With the Rivers still running a little dirty, we set off in the late afternoon and headed for our first nights camp. We fished what would normally be productive water but worryingly the fish were completely shut down. After setting up camp we headed out for a night session but after a couple of hours called it quits and paddled back without one hit.
This was not looking good.
Next morning we were up early and fished for a couple of hours and Owen managed a couple of Boofs off the surface but they didn’t result in a fish.
We set off and made our way to some lower pools. Finally, we found a few small Bass here and there falling to our Spinnerbaits, then a small Cod. We had Lunch and talked about how we hoped things would pick up but the reality is sometimes it just doesn’t happen.
As we neared the end of a smaller hole I hooked a decent Cod and this perked us up a little so we pushed on.
We set up camp and headed out for an afternoon session hoping that the storm we could see building would get things moving.
Wasnt long before Owen was onto a big Bass and after a bit of excitement (mostly from me), it was safely in the Net.
49cm of Bass is a great fish but being 1cm off the magic 50 left Owen without a “Wild River Tours” hat (50cm Bass or 1m Cod wins a hat) but I don’t think he was that bothered and we paddled back to camp feeling victorious.
Next morning we were up early and within a few casts, a monster Cod had smashed my Pompadour off the surface. She was a cracker of a fish going 90cm and it took Owen 2 seconds to change his lure from a spinnerbait to see if we could fool another fish.
With Owen sitting up the front of the canoe, I paddled him up the river and in no time his Lure was destroyed by another monster.
For the next 2 hours, Owen was in Cod heaven.
With 5 cod over 70cm (90, 87, 84, 80 and 70) we headed back to camp for breakfast and to talk about what had just happened.
I have had some sessions with Cod but never had only Big Fish hitting the lure like that.
Great stuff.
Unfortunately, this would be the only fish landed for the rest of the day and by the time we hit camp the mood was low. A few beers and some very nice Scotch that Chris had brought along (I think it was very expensive) lifted the mood and I ended up having one of the best afternoons just sitting and chatting that I think I have ever had on the river.
The rest of the day we picked off Bass and Cod mostly from the bigger holes. Jason had sent a deep diver down and was rewarded with one of the biggest hits I have seen and we all thought he had hooked a really sizeable Cod. By the way the fish was hugging the bottom you would have thought it was a 70cm Cod but he coaxed her up and netted this perfect Bass. I think I was more excited than him as it is great to see not only a client but also a bloody good mate catch a new PB.
