He slimed me! - Lake MacDonald, 18Nov12

TR by Gemini

Participants:  Gemini, Whiblah
Conditions: light rain, clearing mid morning

I jumped out of bed at 4AM to the sound of rain falling steadily on the roof. Normally this would ensure my quick surrender and I would end up back in bed within seconds, but today was a different story. Whiblah (Andrew) was making a 2.5 hour drive from Minden to tackle the waters of Lake Mac with me, and seeing as he would be on my doorstep within minutes, I figured the hide under my pillow plan was a bit weak.

After meeting with Whiblah and loading my yak (it couldn't be loaded the night before due to the rain and fresh sealant around a new rod holder from some event yesterday that I now deny having any recollection of), we made our way to the Strawberry Patch launch site.


Whiblah setting up in the dreary wet conditions.


We paddled off into the rain looking for the edges of the weed beds to start our attack. They weren't there. The rain was causing too much disturbance on the surface to make the weeds visible at a distance. Not a huge problem, but annoying. I pointed out a few of the known channels to Whiblah, and we struck off to try our luck.

Whiblah scored first with a healthy 34cm bass not far from the launch. His first in Lake Mac!


Whiblah prepares to release his bass.


We cast our way around the next bend with no action until we hit toga bay. The bass were active here, and I landed 5 between 6:12 and 6:45 (according to my video records).


Casting around toga bay (Photo by Whiblah)


38cm bass


A little further up from toga bay I was casting into the lillys in the middle of the channel when I took a hefty strike. A large swirl in the water as he took off gave me reason to believe this was no small fish, and I was right. He took off at speed and with power, giving my rod a severe case of the bends. I managed to get him up reasonably quickly and into the net, but to my surprise I found this fish to be HEAVY. What was it you ask? A big fat Saratoga!


He barely fit in the net!

He was desperately trying to get out of my net and being a right pain, so I opted to find a bank to deal with him so I didn't lose him over the side. Whiblah followed me over and we set to work measuring and de-hooking.


I've never seen so much slime on a fish. It was like being in Ghostbusters!


He swallowed the lure whole. I'd be uncooperative too if I had a pair of trebles in my throat.


Yeah, i'm not sticking my fingers in there (Photo by Whiblah)


On the mat. Whiblah and I verified it as 72cm, but none of our photos are overly good. We're hoping Richmond doesn't disqualify the record ;)


The fish! (Photo by Whiblah)


After releasing the toga we got back to hunting. We continued around towards the 3 ways but with little success. Whiblah had managed a small bass on the troll, but nothing else. By now the sun was peeking through the clouds, and the rain had all but disappeared. We started to make our way back when the temperature crept up.

Heading back past the palm farm I snagged another small bass, and then Whiblah did the same not long after. Coming back through toga bay I also picked up 2 more.

Buy this stage we were damp and hot, and I could feel my skin protesting under the suns rays, so we called it a day. For me a total of 8 bass and one saratoga were landed, and 3 bass landed for Whiblah. Not bad for a dreary wet day.

Cheers!

Matt (Gemini)