Trip Reports
Lostock Dam
Date:
March 2005

We had originally planned this trip to be a bassing trip down the Karuah River, however the preceding week's rain had put most of the streams and rivers up that way in minor flood so an alternative was required. I had visited Lostock Dam nearly a decade ago and from what I remember it looked like a promising fishery, even though I never actually fished it. A quick search on the internet drew a near blank with it only mentioned on a couple of web sites, and in those it was only a passing reference. The Fisheries web site did mention some recent bass stocking so it was worth a bit of an explore.

With travel arrangements made we met at the end of the F3 at 5.30am. Hamish and Jerryn had gone AWOL hence big Bob was running a little late (surprise surprise). Anyway, it gave me time to have a decent breakfast. Once Bob arrived we headed off through Maitland, up to Paterson and out through Gresford. A missed street sign in Gresford left Browny and myself on the wrong side of town but once backtracked we were on our way and we soon found ourselves winding through rolling green hills with only a few kilometres between us and water. The Paterson River en route was running a torrent, indicating we had made the right decision to change venues.

By the time we had arrived at the dam Bob and Dave (with Dan as passenger) were already in the water and fishing the wall opposite the boat ramp. Ivan and I headed upstream to try some other likely looking spots and we spent the next hour or two casting poppers, muddlers and small spinnerbait flies along rocky cliffs into 15-20ft of water. Visibility was about 2-3ft and we had a few bumps but nothing major. Bob soon moved and passed us on his way to some drowned trees. After we completed our drift we headed upstream to try some of the trees and found Bob had been done over by a big fish that wrapped him around some stumps. Our enthusiasm improved and we cast flies around numerous trees to again only receiving a few bumps as we worked our way from tree to tree.

Late morning saw us at the top end of the dam fishing any and all likely looking timber. A quick foray in to the river indicated the water was even murkier so we headed back down to try a few more casts before making our way back to catch up with Dave and Dan. They reported that Dan had managed to catch only a turtle, and they were now both casting to a fish that had hit their flies near the bank. We soon left them and started heading back to the boat ramp. Everyone soon followed and by 12.30 we were back at the cars and starting lunch. The usual sausage sandwiches went down well then we packed up and head out.

A very picturesque dam, I think it's worth giving Lostock another go when the water clarity is better.