Fishing local systems and familiar territories . . . . . . . . . . by Neil Schultz

These days Wivenhoe is our most regular venue, being less than 20km from home and yielding these types of fish… we’re not complaining.

Fishing local systems and familiar territories

OUR ever-evolving reality in these ‘interesting’ times has changed our perception of many aspects of life.

Many of us had fishing trips to venues far afield routinely scheduled for our angling year before ‘travel restrictions’ and ‘border closures’ became part of our vocabulary.

Living so close to Queensland's southern border meant that NSW waters were regular haunts for thousands of Bush ‘n Beach magazine readers, myself included.

The percentage of my fishing south of the border was not obvious until after border closures became necessary to slow the spread of the virus.

A winter favourite, all of my luderick outings were undertaken in northern NSW and have been missing from my calendar for a couple of seasons now.

A significant chunk of my Murray cod angling too was undertaken on the southern side of the border.

Likewise, fishing for bass on the big rivers, chasing schools of salmon from the beach and flicking flies at trout in the New England high country have been sorely missed over the past two years.

On the positive side of the ‘new norm’, fishing our local systems has highlighted the benefits of angling familiar territory.

Fishing locations close to home tend to be those on which we spend the most time.

This in turn translates to the habits and seasonal movements of fish becoming familiar to us.

Regularly productive locations within a lake, reef or river are added to our knowledge base and allow more time to be spent at these hot spots.

For example, Moreton Bay can be hard to crack for newcomers to the re* continued P91

Fishing for Sport by NEIL SCHULTZ

* from P90 gion and ‘once a year’ anglers.

Being so close for many of us, it is handy for quick excursions when the weather looks good and spur of the moment outings.

Selecting a target species and indulging in plenty of hours of reconnaissance will eventually lead to repeated success.

Even when chasing pelagics, the same areas will often hold fish at a particular phase of the tide for weeks on end.

Those spots of regular fish activity added to your GPS will give a shortcut for future outings.

The key is time on the water observing – easily achieved when fishing close to home.

You'll eventually determine a pattern, knowing spot A is reliable at first light, spot B during slack water, spot C during a run-out tide and so on.

Learning about our stocked lakes is a similar process – spending enough time on the water to establish a pattern of fish activity in given locations.

When Lake Somerset was first stocked, we'd fish it every weekend for the entire season to determine the hotspots and when to best fish them.

We followed the same game plan on Wivenhoe, Leslie and even little Lake Dyer – which was the best silver perch lake in the state for several years –fishing them all day once or twice a week until we had the fish and conditions figured out.

Familiarisation is most easily achieved on local water systems, but it can also be applied to more distant locales.

During the late 1990s, my wife and I spent so much time in the tropics that we were given ‘honorary northerner’ status by the locals around the lakes we fished.

At one stage I even left my boat at a barramundi lake for three months to avoid the need of towing it there and back every other weekend.

Don't despair the border closures and travel restrictions – make the most of the opportunity to get to know your local sources well – you may see your catch rates improve incrementally.

Another Moreton Bay favourite, longtail tuna can be creatures of habit and easy to find once you’re familiar with those habits.

Spending hundreds of hours on a couple of tropical lakes saw the scoring of fish with almost monotonous regularity.