I love the St Clair trips. The location, the company, the target species, they’re all close to my heart. Those soft rolling hills are so easy on the eye. It’s just far enough away to feel like you’re on holiday. Everyone’s relaxed & in a ‘on tour’ frame of mind. Then there’s the reason for travelling so far from our beloved coast. Impoundment Bass. These fish have a whack it first & ask questions later attitude tailor made for fly fishing. With such a greedy guts reputation you’d think they’d be pushovers. Not so. Read on but be prepared to have your Bass tactics challenged; mine were, & they’ve changed forever.

Friday saw myself & Andrew Tucker truckin’ on up the mighty New England Highway. As we were the first on the scene it was up to me to pick a campsite. All the good ones were gone [they always are] but I did manage to find something near the water. After setting up in strong wind & light rain we settled back to wait for the rest. John Robb was next then a fellow by the name of Wayne Auld appeared. Wayne’s well know to most club members although not a member himself. He’s also rightly regarded as a Bass angler of note so when he offered to take me out in his boat & show me how to fish StClair I jumped at the chance. John & Andrew paired up in John’s Hornet & we took off. That afternoon was disappointing as far as fish landed, I dropped the only touch I got. However school was in & Wayne set to the task of curing my ignorance. By the time we got back my knowledge of casting, line types & brand differences, Bass behaviour & the most likely places to encounter them had all been expanded. The weather had improved slightly & the forecast was good.

Back at camp Ken & his grandson Mitch had arrived as well as Jeff Medhurst. John revealed he was suffering from a bout of tennis elbow & was finding casting well nigh impossible, the strong gusts making a bad situation worse. So it was no wonder he fell back on his trusty spinning outfit. He kept faith however by using a fly + split shot & was rewarded with his first Bass. I witnessed Andrew’s hook up, fight, as well as the drop at the edge of the boat. Been there done that. Wayne too had scored, 2 healthy Bass. After dinner & admiring Ken’s new awning we had a nightcap or 6 then turned in. However, unbeknownst to the crew Rob Harwood had made a last minute decision to join us & had arrived around 6pm. After a fruitless search for our camp-site he launched the indefatigable Dora D then headed left where he found a sheltered bay. Fish were moving about & just on dark he tricked a “just size Bass” with a popper. After a slow trip back to the ramp Rob retrieved his boat, boiled the billy then drove back to Singleton where he crashed for the night. In the morning Rob returned to the coast.

A brand new day & what a difference. Blue skies, no rain. & just enough breeze to ruffle the surface. Once more John & Andy teamed up while Ken took his grandson in order to impart the wisdom of the ages. I had managed not to blot my copy book the day before so Wayne agreed to use me as portable ballast. Jeff Medhurst A.K.A. The Rabbit [ not be confused with ‘Bugs’ Bunney ] played a solo hand. Wayne & I launched around 6.30 & decided on the first northerly arm from where we were camped. As the student I was prepared to fish as teacher thought best, but something spoke to me when I saw a small indent in the bank. “Let’s give that a go” proved successful as my second cast got whacked with gusto. A short but determined struggle revealed a Golden Perch of 40cms. The name said it all, a very pretty little fish & my first on fly. Fish the bank early is established doctrine & so we did but again that voice told me the water was too clear to hold fish & so I turned my back on the bank while Wayne persisted. 2 Bass later my change of direction proved a couple of things:

1.for once I picked a winner,

2.Wayne’s tactic of using full sink lines coupled with very short sharp strips with appropriate pauses proved to be a very successful indeed.

Fish were hooked near drowned trees but also away from any discernible feature. The only constant was the 4 / 5 short strip, 4/ 5 strip, pause, occasionally punctuated by the smashing strike of a Bass for whom this tactic proved irresistible. We drifted a 100 metre pitch & picked up a few fish each of around 35cm then nothing. We retraced our passage but only managed another fish each which left me leading the Master 7 to 5.

We returned to camp to find we were the only ones to score that morning. It became apparent not everyone had the tools [ sinking line ] to do the job. I simply brought mine due to a previous trip when the only fish Ken & I caught were in 13mts. Wayne told everyone his magic formula such is his generous nature. Mac & Murray turned up & they decided to leave Mac’s Cruise Craft behind in order to fish Glennies Creek. This novel approach was inspired by some info Mac gathered at a work related seminar. Anyway the boys hit the creek which according to Mac is quite picturesque & definitely fishy. Before long they saw some large, dark, almost black shapes in the water. These bass are huge they told each other. They hoiked some flies & once hooked up they couldn’t believe the fight. These Bass are brutes they said. Then they caught sight of a big rubbery orange gob. These Bass are !@#%ing Carp they swore. Mac & Muzz did find some real Bass, these were in the deeper holes. The Carp were in quite shallow water & some were acting like Trout by lying in the runnels & letting the current bring food to them. Apparently these darker Carp are great sport, with one Mac hooked leaping clear of the water. They did the enviro-sensitive thing & released a Bass each back into the stream & 4 Carp into a paddock.

The middle of the day saw temperatures of 30+, the sun falling on the lake like a hammer on an anvil. Bugger ‘Nana Naps’ this required a man sized ‘Siesta’. Suitably refreshed I woke to find Roy ‘Brownie’ Browne on the plot complete with first mate Jake. A couple of Brownie’s mates had come up as well, thinking of joining up they said. Max Gear also arrived, leaving me afraid that a 7 fish lead would soon evaporate in the presence of a genuine Dark Horse. Don’t let those movie star looks & smooth demeanour fool you, Max is a killer, albeit a very quiet one. The heat provoked a kind of lethargy that left no-one overly keen to launch much before 4. The teams remained the same, with Jeff dragging the chain waiting for his mate Terry Whitter who is also our absolute newest member. Brownie & Jake were soon motoring up the bay while Brownie’s mates got out the trolling gear. Maybe they’d start flying later.

Wayne & I turned left out of the bay & went in search of rock walls, preferably in shaded parts of the Dam. This was not just for our comfort but also the fishes preference. It was slow going for me but the time passed easily enough with Wayne scoring at least 1 fish from every location we tried. As the sun sank we moved into more open water. In the mean time Wayne helped fine tune my retrieve. He showed me that if the rod tip is under water the line doesn’t bounce, thereby creating slack. Now he told me of the benefits of the strip strike when using sinking lines, which is basically the fact that when you lift the rod you lift the fly up & away from the fish. A strip strike pulls the fly away but leaves it still in front of Mr Bass & gives you a second chance of a hook up. My first fish of the arvo session proved this. I felt a bite, pulled the line, no weight so pause, 2 quick strips, a hit, pull the line again missed again. Stripped again & whack, strip strike & fish on. After releasing it I had started to cast when I saw a boil. I changed direction mid-cast & dropped the fly about 20cms short. No doubt about this strike & I soon released Bass number 2. Hit number 3 popped 12lb tippet in a blink of an eye. Before I could retie said tippet the sun had set, the fish shut down & so we set sail for base.

Once there it became apparent Wayne & I had the best of it. Mac had launched his boat & bagged a Bass on a popper while Jeff also boated a fish. Jake had a good size Bass on only to lose it at the boat. Otherwise things were quiet. More of our mob had rolled up. Terry Whitter & his son Mark had arrived as had Jimmy Hyatt. After much jocularity around the barbie it was time for the traditional Saturday Comedy Club, with jokes aplenty. If the world needed saving it was just too bad, we were busy yukking it up. It finished late but started early the next day. Sunday is club day so with nary a spin rod in sight we set out, with Max sharing with Jeff. Terry’s son Mark had his leg in a new fangled splint so they reckoned the bank would be a safer option. Otherwise it was pretty much the same teams as before. My fishing with Wayne seemed like a bit of a grey area as he wasn’t a member. Personally I was prepared to be scratched from the day’s proceedings if anyone objected. As it happened if I didn’t fish with Wayne I’d have been on the bank as there were no spare seats on the boats. In any case no-one was worried so we got on with it.

A few boats tried the bay where our boat had seen such success the morning before. It seemed pretty quiet so we left, after Wayne passed on some coaching on his u-beaut technique to a couple of the boys as well as pin pointing the 100metre pitch where we had found fish. He & I went in search of a point, somewhere the fish would transit from one bay to another. We found something that also had a few dead trees & got some encouraging signs early on. Then Wayne struck Bass gold. Then again. And again. He was now 6 in front & it looked like I was going to be skunked when “Praise Be” I got a follow then a strike that connected. Back to 5. I pegged back the score by another then my partner in crime bagged one of his own. It was getting closer to the 9.00am knock-off when I boated my last Bass. We finished Wayne 16, myself 12. I can think of no other way of demonstrating the efficacy of Mr Auld’s methods bar this crude numbers landed system. Before this I had travelled up to the Dam with little in my head but ‘throw some vampires around untill it’s time to do some real fishing at night with poppers’. And ‘you have to see them on the sounder to know where to cast’. Well there’s casting blind & then there’s blind casting to an area with a high probability of holding fish.

Big Bob along with his lovely wife Anne motored up & we spent the last 20 minutes or so fishing within close proximity of each other. Bob had landed a Bass but they got one back on him when a hooked fish wove Bob’s sink tip around the branches of a submerged tree. When he gave it a heave the line snapped leaving Bob with a sink bit instead of a sink tip. Back at camp & it was another tale of woe, with only a few of the boys catching fish. Jeff & Max did better than most. Jeff landed 3 Bass but Max left his run late. When they were returning Jeff pulled into the bank & stopped to connect his reserve fuel tank. While he was busy doing this Max got walloped by a good fish. A tough struggle later left Max holding a 50cm Yellow Belly. Unfortunately he didn’t hold it for long as it wriggled free from his grasp before a picture could be taken. Jimmy Hyatt travelled a long way to fish for about 4 hours. He made it count with a nice fish using the approved Wayne method of full sink line & very fast strip. He also agreed that it wasn’t the way he’d fished for Bass in the past but it was definitely the way he’d fish in future. Mac experienced the frustration of dropping a fish at the boat. He also had a better than average fish on only to have the hook break at the bend. He had another break in the middle of the shank, a genuine “Broke Back” pink Vampire he christened ‘Murray’ for some obscure reason. Some could only find solace in the fisherman’s lament; Next time, next time. Whatever, Ken fed us all like we were world beaters then before you knew it we were all packed up & shaking hands prior to driving home. Special thanks to Brownie for his kitchen duties & to Jeff for his home distilled hooch. Both made our world a better place.