Hunter Valley

Surface fishing is hotting up

HUNTER VALLEY Nick Price

The fishing in Lake St Clair has been consistently good for a few months now, and during November the water temperature in Glenbawn finally rose and the fishing improved exponentially for anglers fishing the edge with lipless crankbaits and chatterbaits. The fishing into December will will make short work of any poorly tied knots and light line.

I like to start the morning by fishing the grassy banks, casting lipless cranks and chatterbaits to the bank. As the sun comes up I move into more timbered areas where the fish are more comfortable as they can access shade, ie cover.

When using lipless cranks and chatterbaits, size and colour matters, and bigger is not always that has a little less vibration and is a bit less aggressive. Size can also make a big difference, and there are some really good small chatterbaits on the market today.

When hopping chatterbaits I like to use something that is snag resistant! I hate getting snagged. There are a few chatterbaits that rarely seem to tangle with bottom structure, and this saves both time and money.

Dry fly fishing is very good at this time of year.

continue to be sensational, with the reaction bite continuing, and early morning and late evening surface action hotting up. When fishing the rection bite, make sure you use heavy enough line and leader to stop the fish. With all the food in the dams there are many fish over the 3lb mark, and these fish better. There is a vast array of different chatterbaits and they all have a different purpose.

When the bass are very aggressive, I like to use a chatter with a blade that puts out a lot of vibration and really excites the fish. Conversely, if the fish are not as aggressive I change the chatter to something

Always make sure chatterbaits have a stinger. This helps with bass that short strike the chatter, and also when they are super aggressive and swipe wildly at the lure. The stinger helps, and is often lodged in the side of the head! There are a few different stingers on offer, and multiple ways to rig them, so if you’re time of year, the creeks have been flowing hard and are often too dirty or too high to fish. The ground is

unsure don’t be afraid to drop in the shop and ask.

But, as always, throw something that you are confident with, and again feel free to come into the shop and ask so we can help.

There have been a few trout being caught in Glenbawn from up the back to down at the spillway. The trout have been a bycatch as I don’t know anyone particularly targeting trout in Glenbawn. Most of the trout have been caught by fishers using plastics.

The rivers and streams above Glenbawn up in the Barrington have been fishing exceptionally well for trout. Celta type lures and fly have been the standout. As the weather has warmed up, the insects have started hatching en masse, and the dry fly fishing has been exceptionally good. When heading up chasing trout, keep an eye on the weather. As well as the nasty storms that can crop up at this A fat Glenbawn bass.

It’s a great time of year to be out fishing with mates. full of water, with springs seeping water everywhere, so it does not take much rain before the streams become unfishable for a few days or so. If in doubt, give us a ring at the shop and we can let you know about the river conditions before you venture to the Upper Hunter.

January is a month where the fish are still hitting surface lures and reaction baits, but as the water heats up the fish go deep and the deep gulp bite comes into its own. Next month I will start to discuss deep fishing over the summer. • If you’re heading up to the Barrington, Glenbawn or St Clair, drop into the shop at the turnoff to Glenbawn in Aberdeen and ask about the different techniques and what they are biting on. The team stock all the quality tackle that you need.

FISHING NEWS

World first 1,000,000 tagged fish

On 3 November 2022 the Infofish volunteer fish tagging database became the first citizen science tagging program in the world to achieve 1,000,000 tagged fish. The database, managed by Infofish Australia, includes data from the Suntag program in Queensland, AFANT tag in the Northern Territory, Westag in Western Australia and Saftag in South Australia.

“It all started back in 1986 when Fisheries Queensland handed over responsibility for the Sportfish Tagging program to the Australian National Sportfishing Association Queensland branch and then the program separated from ANSA and morphed into Suntag Australia in 2016.” said Bill Sawynok, secretary of Suntag Australia and Infofish Australia co-ordinator of the program since the start. Since then, data from the other state programs were added so that data can be consistently maintained and analysed across those states.

To provide some sense of the magnitude of that achievement, over the past 36 years it involved over 17,000 taggers contributing over 198,600 days or 544 years of effort. Add to that 76,000 recaptures of tagged fish reported by 23,000 fishers and another 460,000 fish from catch records and competitions and it results in a long timeline of valuable fisheries data. A conservative estimate is that amounts to a $30 million contribution to the knowledge base of our fisheries.

“Not bad for a volunteer citizen science program” said Mr Sawynok, “But it is what the program has contributed to knowledge gain in the fisheries space is its greatest value.”

Over the years the data has been used to inform such issues as range shift of species due to climate change, planning for marine parks, basic biological information on species, performance of regional and impoundment fisheries, survival of released fish, the impact of management changes and much more. It has managed tagging data for and provided tagging data to many research projects. Currently data are available through over 50 dashboards that have over 1,200 maps and graphs that are regularly updated and provide near real time information.

Traditionally tagging programs have focused on collecting data on fish. When Covid hit, the focus was extended to determine if the impact on fisher activity could be measured by looking at those tagging and recapturing fish. This showed that changes in fisher activity could be measured in terms of effort, travel and change of fishing locations. This work has been extended to look at the impact of flooding and can be used to measure change due to other things that impact on fishing such as changes in technology.

“The great work of all those 17,000 fishers voluntarily contributing their time, fishing equipment and money to tag fish needs to be acknowledged as without that what has been achieved would not have been possible.” Mr Sawynok said. – Suntag

This tagged barramundi is just one of 76,000 recaptured fish that have a story to tell.