by TC Good

It was the week of the Pro Bass Comp on Bjelke-Petersen Dam and anyone with brains would have turned down Matthew Mott’s invitation to “come up for a couple of days and try out those Crystal Lures”.
Matthew and his wife Gayle (ph (07) 4168 4811) are well known for their venture in the Yallakool Cafe, kiosk and fishing tackle shop, and Matt is also professional fishing guide with his Burnett Valley SportsFishing Charters and provides camera work and comments for Brownie’s Coast Watch.
The invitation was placed on the overflowing plate of David Pearce and myself, owner/makers of Crystal Lures Australia working from Brisbane. We had just completed tank testing our new series of deep diving lures, and Bjelke-Petersen was the perfect place to test the little devils. How could we not go?
The early morning trip north and west of Brisbane took about four hours. The further north we travelled the stronger the sou’easters got, and while we were driving close around the far east end of ‘BP’ the wind strength was up to 15-20 knots.
Near the north west end a well marked turn-off takes you south to the beautifully maintained grounds of the park area where caravans, tents, the Yallakool Cafe and lodging facilities, and two excellent boat ramps mark the end of the line.
For those looking at AFN Fishing Map 19 (QLD Southern Lakes), you will notice only one marked boat ramp, south of the Yallakool Cafe and across the saddle dam. The other is in the tree line on the west end of the camping area before the Yallakool Cafe. Providing less parking space, it is nevertheless a better launch site with strong easterlies blowing. In crowded conditions I recommend that you launch your boat and move your vehicle away from the immediate area. In gentle winds the ramp, as marked on AFN Fishing Map 19, provides excellent launch and parking facilities.
When launching at the marked site, don’t use the posted map of Bjelke-Petersen Dam ramp as a navigation guide. The orientation of that map is 90 degrees out of wack if you don’t pay particular attention to the small ‘N’ arrow. Purchase a copy of AFN Fishing Map 19 for proper orientation and a navigation guide to the many bays and arms of BP (available at the Yallakool Cafe).

Dave was concerned that the wind would keep us from testing our new lures, but the south-south easterly howling over the lake had little reach to build up wave height - they were steep but less than half a metre high.
We were scheduled to go out with Matthew that afternoon for a few hours of testing and again next morning. After we arrived we had some time up our sleeves, so we stopped at the Yallakool Cafe, kiosk, and tackle shop. Matthew’s wife Gayle, hard at work in the cafe, told us that he was out on charter that morning but was expecting us. Lined up handsomely on the racks of the tackle shop were lines of some of the Australia’s finest fishing lures, all heavily bibbed for deep diving - this was indeed trolling country. Competing for attention were spinner baits, jigs and an assortment of good rods, reels and lines.
Gayle kept us entertained and fed between all the duties of running the cafe, kiosk and tackle shop. She remarked that there were quite a few Pro Bass comp ‘pre-fishers’ on the lake (competitors searching the lake and testing lure styles just prior to the tournament). To avoid ‘sticking’ fish (Aussie bass are sensitive about such things), they cast lures with either no hooks or bent over hooks, going on the strike rate factor to estimate the best places and lures.
When Dave and I left the cafe for the boat ramp we had a chance to talk to a few anglers as they arrived at the ramp for lunch. The ‘pros’ we talked to had little to say, except that fishing was pretty ordinary. Judging from the wind coming in over the water, I thought that was a good assessment, even from the bank.
Folks on holidays or retired and having a fish for a ‘feed’ or ‘fun’ were more helpful. They said that lures were right out of it, the scarce bass hanging tight to the bottom. The water was too cold, down to 20-21 degrees on average, but nice fish could still be had on live shrimp with some searching. We discovered that only three weeks earlier a metre of water had been cascading over the dam wall. The water level had only dropped back a couple of feet, and the fresh had really put the fish off. At the ramp the water visibility was less than a foot and deep brown.

Matthew arrived at the ramp with folks he had taken out on charter for the morning. They said that they’d only caught fish after giving up on lures and changing to live shrimp, but Matthew was quick to note that there were many quiet arms in the lake where we could test the running of our lures.
The lures we really wanted to run were our 6cm ‘Seeking Lure’ which swims to about 14ft with a right-left searching pattern as well as the normal minnow lure vibration, and the ‘PSYCHO’ - a lure that drove us nuts in the test tank. The 5.5 cm deep diving PSYCHO is the ultimate erratic, with an action that matches its name. It darts up, stops, darts down, zigs left and right, runs straight for a moment then zips off somewhere else. It does all this without losing ‘attitude’; that is, the bib stays straight and level and the lure never attempts to roll over.
About 2pm we boarded Matthew’s Big Kahuna 4.6 TwinFisher with its single 90 Merc four-stroke, and headed a mile across the chop to a north eastern arm of the lake and out of the relentless wind. As the TwinFisher slowed to two knots, Dave opted for a purple PSYCHO and I matched his colour with a Seeker.
The water visibility was down to about 18 inches and dirty brown. A few fish showed on the sounder at about 14 feet, just outside some weed beds. We dropped our lures back and watched as the lines indicated that the lures were digging deep. Matthew watched all this with more than casual interest, as he’s always looking for special lures for his tackle shop. Watching Dave’s rod tip, it looked like he had a mad mouse on the other end, but the vibration coming up the 10lb braid was fairly quick and very consistent. My Seeker was reacting unlike any minnow lure I’ve ever used. The vibration at the rod tip was moderately quick but punctuated with darting pulses, similar to a Tassie Devil. Matthew noted that we had just passed over a nice fish at 14 ft, and thought it was probably a golden perch.
We watched where our lines entered the water and estimated where the lures were. Not a bad estimate as we all said under our breath, “about there.” just as Dave’s PSYCHO went down the throat of a very nice golden. At about the same point my Seeker took a hit but no fish stuck. After Dave landed his fish, Matt noted a school of smaller bass hanging about in the 14 foot range. We turned, trolled back through the area, and instantly Dave was on another fish. Again, my Seeker got hit a side whack but no fish. Dave landed a lovely little 33cm bass.
We repeated this effort, crossing back and forth through the area where this school of small bass showed on the sounder. On four passes Dave picked up four nice bass in the 30-35cm range - PSYCHO was proving its worth in the cool and dirty water! I managed one nice bass on the Seeker after being broadsided on each pass. We moved to a new spot, swapped lures and changed colours. I landed half a dozen small bass in the 30-35cm range on the PSYCHO and Dave landed two on the Seeker. When Dave changed to a PSYCHO of different colour, within moments he was into a really big fish. Line shot off his reel for a number of metres and the fish made the safety of the weeds, hanging up the lure and bolting for freedom. This left all aboard silent, except for a quiet “damn” from Dave.

As part of our field testing, we did a little lure casting before we went in, discovering that both the Seeker and PSYCHO cast far better than we thought they would for large bibbed lures, casting with good accuracy even in the wind and much further than we anticipated.
PSYCHO was designed to sit with its butt in the air and bib straight down, giving it a very fast descent rate on cast and retrieve and an excellent ‘backoff’ when run into snags. Seeker lies flat on the surface and dives at the expected less steep angle. We were very pleased with the day’s result and I think I can add, in view of the ‘ordinary’ conditions, that Matthew was pleasantly surprised.

The night was cold, the wind staying from the south east, and the average water temperature in the lake would have dropped further. At first light heavy fog rolled off the lake in waves, pushed in front of a persistent wind, and as the sun came up wind strength increased. A strong wind warning was issued for coastal waters and it was evident that it applied to the lake as well. Conditions did not auger well for fishing.
With most of our testing behind us we really hoped to track down some bigger fish to tempt. We departed the ramp in the Big Kahuna and headed back to the north east area of the lake and a new arm, hoping for fish. None showed on the sounder. We found a few small fish and managed to catch a couple of small but very nice bass each. We were both now fishing PSYCHOs but using different colours.
We headed across some open water and Matthew slowed the boat, picking up a couple of ‘big’ fish on the sounder in 20 ft of water. We backed off, let lots of line out the back so the lures could dig as deep as possible, and headed back over the fish. My gold and green PSYCHO was absolutely smashed by a large fish. The attack on the lure was so vicious I was taken completely by surprise! Line shot off the reel - I swear you could see smoke coming from the guides - and Matthew and Dave sat with mouths agape. There must have been a weak spot in the 10lb braid, because it was all over in 15 seconds. Someone in the boat said something not repeatable here which expressed their surprise at the violence perpetrated against a poor defenceless lure. That PSYCHO is still out there with something akin to a crocodile trying to spit it out.
We decided that the best location for big fish would be down wind to windward, just around a corner where the wind currents would sweep small baitfish and shrimp dislodged from the weedbeds. Matthew knew of just such a place and we headed across the lake to the northern shore. As we approached the northern corner of the sheltered arm we could see rows of wind-blown foam swinging around the corner, out of the wind into the flat water - a sure sign that a wind current was working into that bay. A short distance around the corner and outside the shore hugging weed beds the sounder lit up with fish.

I reckon that someone had heard about the bass we caught the day before on lures, because today they were following us, discreetly at first but obvious nevertheless. Having followed us across the bay and into each area where we went, two fellow fishermen were now carefully watching us from about 50 metres away. We quietly noted this among ourselves, especially as there were large numbers of big bass showing on the sounder directly under the boat. We dropped a pair of PSYCHOs over the side and travelled only a few metres before both rods jolted to life. My fish stuck, hauling off a supply of line. Dave’s shook the hook and went off to think about the thing that bit it. I landed a very nice bass about 40cm. Another pass and another very nice bass. We repeated this four times with a nice bass progressing upward in size each time.
By now our ‘followers’ had moved closer. We took to releasing the fish at the water level so as not to encourage them, but it was too late - they had seen all they needed. They pulled behind us a few yards, dropped a set of lures over the back and trolled straight through our schooled bass. We watched. Not a rod twitched as they trolled through. We followed behind them and instantly we had fish on. By now we had decided to make a ceremony of it and played it up big for our visitors with antics best suited to TV!
Again they pulled around behind us, without so much as a “g’day” and trolled right through the huddled bass. Not a twitch on their rods. We followed and were instantly into more bass. The PSYCHO lures were more than the bass could stand and they hit them savagely. Once more the pair cruised around behind us, dropped lures, trolled through the heart of the bass school, nary a twitch on the rod, out the other side, pulled in lures, cranked engines up to WOT and fled. We couldn’t help but smile.

We had caught and released around 30 bass in two sessions on the water under terrible conditions. Matthew will give Crystal Lures pride of place in his shop full of quality Aussie lure makers and we left BP dam with more than a bit of pride in our lures.

The Pro BASS Comp was held that weekend, and conditions had not improved. Fishing was hard, and many excellent bass fisherman caught very few bass. The comp was won by bass master John Schofield (seems he found the same bay of fish we had located while most of the other competitors fished the cleaner but cooler waters in the trees further to the north end of the lake).
If you want to catch more bass, think more like a bass. Bass are natural migrators; they respond to conditions and can move great distances. They migrate down river to the salt to breed, returning back upstream to their comfort zone, and bass in large impoundments are capable of moving some distance rapidly in response to local conditions. While they may show up anywhere, when strong winds are blowing they tend to feed to windward (on the rough side). They respond to currents set up by the wind and when little wind is present, by the thermals.
Bass love structure but prefer structure where currents bring food in their direction. This might be a steep underwater ledge which directs food-rich currents upward, or open water along the path of old creek and river beds. Ideally they can wait just around the corner of a bay, downwind, where wind-blown currents will carry small fish, shrimp and other eatables. Lines of foam, windrowing on the water, are good signs of current patterns. Learn to read them and think like a hungry fish.